Holiday reading – The BillBlog

Over at Memex 1.1 the redoubtable John Naughton talks about his holiday reading, and makes me feel guilty that most of mine has been <=140 characters… I did finish Will Self’s Umbrella recently, and am half-heartedly starting up with Iain M Banks new Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata, but John has gone for some serious stimulation:

One of the really nice things about Christmas is that the phone stops ringing and the tide of work-related email recedes, leaving time for reading. Here’s what’s I’m into just now:

Artemis Cooper’s biography of Patrick Leigh Fermor. Like many people I’ve been fascinated by Fermor ever since reading his two great travel books — A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water. I’ve long been curious to know what the rest of his life was like. Now I’m finding out.

Sebastian Seung’s Connectome: How the Brain’s Wiring Makes Us Who We Are.

Larry Lessig’s new book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It.

Age of Fracture,a terrific work of intellectual history and the first really convincing account I’ve come across of how and why the post-war liberal consensus ran out of steam and was replaced by the neo-con nonsense that has got us into our current mess.

I need to read Larry’s new book, of course, and while the term ‘Connectome’ just irritates me, it covers an area that I want to write about myself. And just last weekend Katie’s mum was raving about the Fermor biography, so I should add it to the list.

But just last week my good friends at Faber sent me Country Girl, Edna O’Brien’s fabulous autobiography, and I have an early copy of Schroder, Amity Gaige’s new novel, which Stephen Page thinks I will enjoy – and I have learned to trust his judgement over everyone else’s when it comes to such matters.

I suspect this means that my tax return will end up being done on Jan 31 again.