The Times - UK - 04.12.2021

14 saturday review Saturday December 4 2021 | the times

Four Thousand Weeks: Time and
How to Use It by Oliver Burkeman
Bodley Head, £16.99
This book invites us to think about how
we want to fill the 4,000 weeks most of
us will spend on this planet. Far from
encouraging us to get up at 5am and
download productivity apps, Oliver
Burkeman argues that our modern

obsession with “getting things done”

is making us feel more frazzled. He

outlines a different path — one where

we embrace our limitations and focus

on what matters to us. Spoiler: it’s not

answering emails or writing bucket lists.

Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn

Viking, £14.99

After years obsessing about romantic

love and finding “the one”, Natasha

Lunn came to see that “life is not one

You need help: books for body and soul

love story, but many”. This book explores

these underrated forms of connection,

from familial love to friendships, siblings

to community, through personal essays

and conversations with Alain de Botton,

Philippa Perry, Dolly Alderton etc. I

underlined passages on almost each page

and was moved by the tiny moments of

love she recorded, including chats with

her mum when she’s running for work.

Alonement: How to Be Alone &

Absolutely Own It by Francesca

Specter Quercus, £14.99

While it is aimed at a young audience —

with talk of flat shares and university

Whether it’s time management or making the

most of life, Marianne Power has some advice

self-help

Times

choice hurry up and stop Oliver Burkeman

wants us to focus less on achievement

Beyond a Fringe: Tales from a

Reformed Establishment Lackey

by Andrew Mitchell Biteback, £24

Andrew Mitchell was a mainstay of

David Cameron’s front bench until the

2012 “Plebgate” affair forced him to quit

the cabinet. His lively memoir of life as a

top Tory — and tabloid villain — is an

enjoyable reminder that the best accounts

of political power are most often written

by those proximate to those who wield it,

rather than our rulers themselves. It also

shows how many people in Conservative

politics loathe the prime minister.

Always Red by Len McCluskey

OR Books, £16.99

Readers might be forgiven for having

heard quite enough from Len

McCluskey, the bolshie head of Unite,

who this year finally vacated the political

stage after six decades in trade unionism.

But this breezy and evocative

autobiography, an enjoyably bitchy

journey from Sixties Liverpool to the

Corbyn years, may surprise even Red

Len’s most bitter detractors. As a

first-hand account of Corbynism it is

unlikely to be beaten.

Broken Heartlands:

A Journey Through

Labour’s Lost

England by

Sebastian

Payne

Macmillan,

£20

Virtually

everybody

with a ringside seat

for the 2019 general election spoke to the

Whitehall correspondent of the Financial

Times for this painstakingly reported

and authoritative account of how Boris

Johnson won — and why Labour lost.

The reason why Labour’s old heartlands

went blue is not quite as clean or clear-

cut as either side might like to read:

Thatcher, Blair, Brexit and Corbyn made

for a perfect storm of disillusionment

that only Johnson could quell.

Chief of Staff: Notes from Downing

Street by Gavin Barwell Atlantic, £20

Theresa May’s premiership did funny

things to those who worked with her.

So it is a wonder that Gavin Barwell, her

right-hand man from the aftermath of

the disastrous 2017 election until the

bitter end of her leadership two years

later, has managed to turn out such a

cogent and clear-eyed account of how

a lame duck’s Downing Street works —

or doesn’t — in the thick of an acute

crisis. It will at least spare us from

wading through the eventual May

memoir too.

Blue walls to

red Len: our

political times

Shutdown: How Covid Shook the

World’s Economy by Adam Tooze

Allen Lane, £25

Of all the instant histories spawned by

the pandemic, this is the closest we’ll get

to a thriller — despite its focus on the

world of credit markets, monetary policy

and central bankers. It’s a story that bears

rereading, if only to hammer home how

close the economy came to a nuclear

winter in 2020 and as a survival guide for

the next man-made cataclysm that Adam

Tooze warns will surely come soon.

Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality

by Helen Joyce Oneworld, £16.99

The trans debate divides progressives

like no other subject, and is seldom

conducted in good faith. So anyone

wanting to understand how transgender

rights became such a flashpoint in

identity politics — and why a generation

of feminists are so determined to stand

their ground — should start with this

polemical book by Helen Joyce, an editor

at The Economist. Trans makes the

gender-critical case, ranging across hot

topics such as the threat to women’s

sports and the medical dangers to young

bodies undergoing “transitioning”.

Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel

TLS, £9.99

That this short, righteous blast of a book

should be needed in 2021 is depressing.

Just 123 pages, David Baddiel’s punchy

polemic against the left’s blind spot for

antisemitism is by turns excoriating and

funny. The comedian builds a lucid case

showing how prejudice against Jews is

not treated as racism by many on the left.

books of the year

Brexit, Boris, Covid and conflict at least made

for great political writing — these are the

ones to order! order! says Patrick Maguire

B

A

L

E

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politics

Times

choice

X Continued from page 13
Lawrence. The book follows a Dantean
scheme: from Inferno (Lawrence’s early
life in England), to Purgatory (Italy) and
Paradise (New Mexico). Lawrence is
furious, mercurial, raving at his lot and
at literary injustice. Wilson is admirably
clear-eyed about Lawrence’s failings as
a writer (his genius is as a critic, essayist,
poet and travel and letter writer rather
than novelist) and as a man. His life was
picaresque, outrageous and tragic.
Wilson lights a match and sets her
subject roaring.

Philip Roth: The Biography by
Blake Bailey Jonathan Cape, £30
Sordid, odious, ambitious, abusive,
adulterous, obsessed with his penis and
literary prowess... At nearly 900 pages,
this is a lot of Philip Roth. Blake Bailey’s
biography was almost over before it
had begun when Bailey was accused of
inappropriate behaviour. His American
publisher stopped printing and the book
became a cancel culture cause célèbre
and the most op-edded book of the year.
Can you be a bad man and a great
writer? This ballsy, belligerent book
puts subject and author on trial.

Guarded by Dragons: Encounters
with Rare Books and Rare People
by Rick Gekoski Constable, £18.99
The dealer in rare books gets nowhere
by softly pottering in the stacks. He
must be a mercenary, a magpie, a
magus capable of turning “filthy old
box files” into gold. Rick Gekoski is
just such a dealer. He started in a
Birmingham car park, buying four
DH Lawrence first editions for £41.
He sold them for £333 and got the
book-dealing bug. “More! More!” was his
cry. This is a tale of greed, ruthlessness,
regrets, “occasional villainies” and the
thrill of the first edition. Crotchety
Gekoski spins a super yarn.

Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit
Granta, £16.99
John Sutherland gave us Orwell’s Nose,
a whiffy biography of the novelist and
essayist; Rebecca Solnit gives us Orwell’s
Roses, nurturing a different image. Here
is Orwell as plantsman, pruner and
purchaser of roses at Woolworths at
sixpence a bush. He writes, he weeds, he
digs in the “Augean” mud of the garden.
He proposes planting an acorn for every
antisocial act committed. A pleasing
meditation on the small pleasures and
intricate beauties of nature, and a book
to see you through to spring.

literature