Telegraph Books of the Year 2012

I've done my books of the year for The Telegraph - take a gander here.  I'll be doing my own list at the end of the year, as usual. (Sighs, and thinks "Doesn't it come round faster every time?")

Vainglory by Ronald Firbank: review

Ronald Firbank: orchidaceous

A champagne-tinged hello to you all: I've reviewed three novels by Ronald Firbank for The Observer. They are decidedly orchidaceous; somebody once described Fr Corvo's books as tyrianthine, which I think applies equally well to Firbank. He's an acquired taste, but once you've acquired it, there's much to enjoy. Read the review here.

From the Book Mountain: City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish by Peter Parsons: Greek Lives in Roman Egypt

A while ago I reported the problem of "book lag", something which everyone whose professional duty it is to read books suffers from (and, I imagine, a lot of people whose duty it isn't). This means that perfectly interesting and enjoyable books get forgotten about; you get half way through them before, suddenly you are called upon to review three 900 page novels by the day after yesterday, or similar. Inevitably, the books on my Book Mountain (rapidly becoming a Book Himalayas) turn out to be worth it. One such was Gardner Botsford's A Life of Privilege, Mostly, which memorably featured a tiger-skinned lady chasing its unsuspecting hero with a whip.

This time it's a star turn for Peter Parson's City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish: Greek Lives in Roman Egypt (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007). This charming, entertaining and informative book is not only easy to read, it also delights with its clear-sighted analysis of the papyrus fragments found at the site of the Egyptian city of Oxyrhyncos. Here, in the early twentieth century, the archaeologists Grenfell and Hunt stumbled upon a classicist's dream - mounds and mounds of intact papyroi.

Obelix: "These Egyptians are crazy!"

A few of them gave up texts of Homer; there was a lost play of Euripides, Hypsipyle, (which it is thought concerns the cursing of a group of women by Aphrodite for neglecting her shrine; her curse was to give them all extreme body odour. Perhaps that's why it was lost.) There were songs of Sappho (who features in a Ronald Firbank novel, Vainglory, in which a professor reads out, proudly, the fragment to assembled high society: "Could not (he wagged a finger) Could not, for the fury of her feet!") and other Greek lyricists. But most were prosaic, and as such add a huge amount to our knowledge and understanding of life at the height of the Roman Empire, just before Christianity.

There are many, shall we say, odoriferous anecdotes, but my favourite is this: Kallirhoe writes to a friend: "I make obeisance on your behalf every day before the Lord God Serapis. From the day you left we miss your turds, wishing to see you." It seems that those Egyptians had slightly different priorities. Then there's a "joke billet doux": "Apion and Epimas say to their very dear Epaphroditos: 'If you let us bugger you and it's OK with you, we shall stop thrashing you - if you let us bugger you.' Keep well! Keep well!'" As Obelix might say: "These Egyptians are crazy."

Spicy and engaging, Peter Parsons makes a knowing Hermes in this, his guide to a world that we can build up from the tiniest of particles into a whole, bustling, human universe.

 

Manchester Children's Book Festival: Gala Dinner

Carol Ann Duffy: rock and roll laureate

To Manchester, for a Gala Dinner (although the organisers confessed to not really knowing what a Gala Dinner was; I'm not really sure either - I thought it was something to do with swimming) in a swanky hotel, to celebrate and fundraise for the Manchester Children's Book Festival. The festival is run by the legendary James Draper and Kaye Tew, and does some brilliant work with children from deprived backgrounds.

I was on a table with poet and writer Adam O'Riordan; Carol Ann Duffy, the Poet Laureate, was at the table next to ours. I don't think I've ever seen a brace of poets dance quite so well as Carol Ann Duffy and Adam.  Is Duffy our first rock and roll laureate? Could Ted Hughes do the tango, and Andrew Motion the locomotion? Now that would be a sight.

Duffy gave away a bottle of Laureate's sherry - "from the Queen," said someone; "it's not from the Queen, it's from Spain," said Duffy.

She read out one of her poems, about Coronation Street; the speech was given by its creator, Tony Warren. It was written in big black felt tip and was like something out of a Ronald Firbank novel, all syncopation and sharpness. It contained some immortally brilliant lines: "She was a bishop's daughter, and she was very firm about it," being one of my particular favourites. He received a standing ovation.

Summer Reading for The Daily Telegraph

Hello there, I've given my Summer Reading choices to The Daily Telegraph. Check them out here - they include Anne Carson, Ronald Firbank, Samuel Pepys and Edith Sitwell.