Two book recommendations

I'm just back from teaching in Oxford. The students there are so great and I always really enjoy my time there. Recently I have read two really good memoirs. One is called 'When A Crocodile Eats The Sun' by Peter Godwin. I met Peter when we were both speaking at the Words by the Water Festival in Keswick three or four years ago but it's only now that I've got around to reading his book. I thoroughly recommend it - it is beautifully written and totally absorbing. The portrait it paints of his parents is deeply moving - two extra-ordinarily brave, resilient and good humoured people. It really made me think that the generation who are now passing away were simply very much better people than we are now. I didn't want the book to end. It also told me so much about Zimbabwe which I could never have got from newspaper reports. Do read it. The other book I would recommend is 'Deny The Stars' by Jocelyn Hurdnall. It's a very different kind of book but again totally absorbing. The story it tells is shocking and moving and Jocelyn Hurdnall's writing is honest and direct. The book is a fitting tribute to her extra-ordinary son and also reveals the very real horror of what is happening in Palestine.

Caitlin Thomas

I am currently reading Double Drink Story which is Caitlin Thomas' book about her time with Dylan Thomas. I started reading the book with a certain trepidation because although I love and admire Dylan Thomas, I never think that I would like to have met him. In fact, I'm always annoyed by accounts of his and Caitlin's mad drunkenness. And I'm suspicious of writers who try to glamorise their so-called 'Bohemian lives.' I thought that this book might also be written in that vein. But it isn't at all. Not at all. On the contrary, Caitlin Thomas is devastatingly honest and emphasises again and again that her and Dylan's lives were horribly sad and fatally blighted by alcohol. I think I've seldom read such an honest book. Also this is a very well written book. Caitlin may not have had much experience as a writer but she had plenty of raw talent. Sentence after sentence sings. If only she had written more. But how could she with Dylan as a husband? Finally this is a very sad book because it is about wasted talent. But it is also sad because Caitlin never seems to forgive herself, and she should do, because she shines out of this book as an amazing woman - full of honesty, love and joie de vivre.

Memoirs again

I'm still reading memoirs. My current recommendation is Eating Pomegranates by Sarah Gabriel. It is a memoir of a woman who has a genetic issue which means that she was always very likely to get breast cancer - and she does get it and survives, but only just. She writes her story so well and with such honesty. I could really understand this book and I think it could be helpful for anyone who is struggling with serious issues of life and death. I just started reading Gypsy Boy by Mikey Walsh. His writing is also wonderfully direct and unsentimental. But the book is a very hard read just because what happened to him is so appalling. I want to continue with the book because, after all, this is his life and he's been brave enough to write about it and so I should be brave enough to bear witness. But just for the moment I find the story too upsetting. I hope I'll get back to it soon.