A HIstory of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

This is the book that came out of, and prints pretty much word for word, a series on British BBC radio where the head of the British Museum talks about 100 objects in the collection and surveys world history in the process. I listened to a few of the radio episodes and enjoyed them but a book is a much better format, not least because it has pictures, which help to colour in the ideas in the text.

Each object is described and discussed in what was mostly the script for the radio programmes. Neil McGregor writes cleverly, humorously and with great erudition. It is an ideal book to read occasionally, when you have about 5 minutes to spare.

Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith

I wanted to read this because it is so often dramatised, quoted and referred to by other writers. It was originally serialised in Punch magazine, a British humorous journal that went out of business about 20 years ago but which was for most of the twentieth century a British institution. It is a very Punch-ish sort of book. Funny, in a gentle and ironic way.

Weedon did the drawings, which are alright but don't add all that much, and George did the writing. It is easy to read and quietly amusing, as long as you are familiar with the British class system and the niceties of social mores it brings about.

I enjoyed it but it is an entertainment (no shame in that) rather than an attempt to capture serious meanings.

God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens

For people who have never been believers in religion, like me, this book is an invigorating cold shower that dusts off the ideas you sort of knew but never articulated and reassures you of the righteousness of the atheist view. It is so well written and well argued - funny frequently and simply brilliant at explaining, with appropriate levels of irony, the absurdities of the religious view.

A great, great read, especially for people 'of faith', who will surely have to resort to the last intellectual refuge of the religious, namely the assertion that the Supreme Being is somehow testing us and that faith is virtuous in some vague way, in order to deal with its arguments.

Recommended to all.

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

I am a fan of Alain de Botton's books. They are similar in format - plenty of pictures and lots of fascinating allusions to great thinkers and artists.

This book lives up to expectations. Each chapter is about an aspect of travelling - anticipation, curiosity, the inspiration of awe - and each relies on a 'guide', a writer, artist or philosopher whose ideas are relevant.

There is also humour, as the author recounts his own travelling experiences in an elliptical and self deprecating style. A good book to read on a train or a plane, naturally. But also a diverting and entertaining arrangement of ideas and insights, quite loosely revolving around travel.

Very enjoyable.

A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir

A short book, less than 100 pages long, recounting the death and, retrospectively, the life of de Beauvoir's mother. It is beautifully written and the translation is excellent. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the translator in this Penguin edition is Patrick O'Brian, the celebrated novelist and no mean stylist in his own right.

I enjoyed the setting - Paris in the 1960s - as well as the emotional and philosophical underpinnings of this fine memoir. Even the odd appearance by Jean Paul Sartre ("Sartre was taking the plane for Prague the next day: should I go with him?") is evocative.

Sad, as someone dies, but also uplifting in its detailed and true to life description of what that means for those left behind.

The Outsider, by Albert Camus

An unsettling novel. Short and deceptively simple, it is written from the point of view of someone who lives by the existentialist code - we are here, we live, we die - there is no meaning behind it all. The book captures really well how repellent this is to 'normal' people, who take cognizance of feelings like loyalty and ideas like right and wrong.

It is not an existentialist manifesto - far from it, in my opinion. But it does highlight the questions asked by the existentialist world view and invites our sympathy for those who have the courage and integrity to live it, rather than just talk about it.

I read the Penguin translation, by Joseph Laredo, which is excellent.

Postwar, a history of Europe since 1945, by Tony Judt

I was a bit surprised to find the word 'magisterial' absent from then encomia on the cover and flyleaf of this book, as it is just that. A wonderful, entertaining book about almost everything that has happened in Europe since the Second World War. He deploys quotations brilliantly (it seems a feature of many of his books) and just reading those at the beginning of each chapter would be rewarding, even if you ignored the rest of the text.

I was ill in bed quite a lot when I read this and it helped to have that time for reading set aside for me. It is a long book (over 800 pages of small print) but it really flows along. The writer's personal enthusiasms, for Italian and French film makers, for the Beatles, for social democracy, become evident as you go along but that is good. He is both a recounter of history and an interpreter of it from a reasoned and well informed perspective.

And amazing facts present themselves. In 1968, some 30,000 Jews were expelled from Poland because they were, well, Jews. There was hardly any deNazification in Austria after the war. Stalin and Hitler's real legacy was the destruction of the multicultural, multiethnic Europe that existed in many parts of Europe before ethnic boundaries were forced to coincide with national ones. The use of German by Jews helped enormously to maintain its position as an international language, used across frontiers. Once they were gone, it lost out rapidly to English. There is irony here.

A superb book.