A voracious reader, ardent theatre goer and rabid Anglophile. When not reading, I moderate three Shelfari discussion groups: "Anglophiles Anonymous", where I hold court as Terence Carlisle, The Marquess of Manleigh ("Tinky" to my inner circle...don't ask, just drink your tea.), "Manleigh Hall" and "The Play's the Thing: Plays and Playwrights"...more »

A voracious reader, ardent theatre goer and rabid Anglophile. When not reading, I moderate three Shelfari discussion groups: "Anglophiles Anonymous", where I hold court as Terence Carlisle, The Marquess of Manleigh ("Tinky" to my inner circle...don't ask, just drink your tea.), "Manleigh Hall" and "The Play's the Thing: Plays and Playwrights" (which is on life-support...someone please come along and give it a jolt).

Currently reading:

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (In conjunction with Brilliant Babes (and Dudes) Who Read Selectively)

The Mentor Book of Major British Poets, edited by Oscar Williams (Very good anthology of the Usual Suspects)

2008 Reading Log

How To Read And Why by Harold Bloom (Another sublime book of criticism by my personal reading guru)

Candida by George Bernard Shaw (A bit creaky, I'm afraid)

A Bolt From the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy (A fiercely critical intelligence, sometimes misguided but always sharply eloquent)

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (In conjunction with my group Anglophiles Anonymous. Another Collins corker.)

Three Plays: Blithe Spirit, Hay Fever & Private Lives by Noel Coward (Absolute comedic bliss.)

A Rage to Live by John O'Hara (Stultifyingly dull.)

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (in conjunction with Brilliant Babes and Dudes Who Read Selectively. Funny, sexy and action-packed.)

Michael Tolliver Lives: A Novel by Armistead Maupin (A wry, poignant continuation of the Tales of the City series. There are some truly moving moments, and many guffaws, along the way.)

On Beauty by Zadie Smith (In conjunction with my group Anglophiles Anonymous. A smart, well-written and entertaining 21st century homage to E. M. Forster's Howard's End that's as much a work of literary criticism as a novel in its own right.)

Will This Do? by Auberon Waugh (A amusing autobiography, if ultimately too insular for this American reader to fully appreciate.)

American Pastoral by Philip Roth (Part elegy, part primal scream, Roth's anguished tale of the unraveling of an upper middle class Jewish family is also a searing history of America during the last half of the 20th century. Surely, this is our generations' Great American Novel.)

The Blessing by Nancy Mitford (Full of wonderful characters, witty dialogue, pointed satire and l’amour, l’amour, l’amour, this is one of Mitford’s best.)

How To Hepburn by Karen Karbo (Great fun - a biography disguised as a self-help book a la Alain de Boutton's How Proust Can Change Your Life)

Atonement by Ian McEwan (a re-read in conjunction with my group Anglophiles Anonymous. A masterpiece of irony, subtlety and complexity.)

The Royals by Kitty Kelley (As you'd expect. Demeaning to the royals and to the reader, and yet one keeps helplessly turning the pages.)

The Prague Orgy by Philip Roth (A surreal homage to James' "The Aspern Papers" that provides an epilogue to Roth's dazzling Zuckerman novels collected as Zuckerman Bound)

The Anatomy Lesson by Philip Roth (could be subtitled Portrait of the Artist as a Guilty Man -- hilarious and harrowing.)

Zuckerman Unbound by Philip Roth (Extends the themes of "The Ghost Writer" into a Fellini-esque kaleidescope vision of what it means to be cursed by good fortune. Very funny and, at the end, moving and uncomfortably honest.)

The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth (A dazzling novella about the relationship between the writer and his art, his public, his ambition and those he loves. Sounds dry, but it's a very funny and very wise book.)

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (As part of a Book Swap at my group Brilliant Babes (and Dudes) Who Read Selectively. Sheer, rip-snorting melodrama in high Victorian style. A pleasure read of the keenest, up-all-night variety.)

A Far Cry From Kensington by Muriel Spark (In conjunction with Anglophiles Anonymous. A well-crafted, well-written, modest and entertaining novel set amidst the eccentric world of literary publishing in post-war London.)

The Quiet American by Graham Greene (In conjunction with my group Brilliant Babes (and Dudes) Who Read Selectively. A subtly effective, very prescient Vietnam allegory told in terse, elegant prose.)

Barbra: The Way She Is by Christopher Anderson (An entertaining but one-sided hatchet job of the greatest female entertainer of the 20th century - sorry, Judy.)

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (A re-read in conjunction with my group "Anglophiles Anonymous." A real delight.)

The Gathering by Anne Enright (The Man Booker Prize Winner 2007 failed to captivate this reader, although he thinks there's a powerful novella in there somewhere.)

Here At The New Yorker by Brendan Gill (An amiable, rambling memoir by one of The New Yorker magazine's leading lights; it makes you ache to have been part of the madhouse.)

Mere Anarchy by Woody Allen (Woody's latest prose - not his best, but still affords a good many chuckles and snorts and new Yiddish words to add to one's vocabulary)

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh ("Drowning in honey, stingless." One of the greats)

Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh (Much darker than his previous work, it's a sombre, bitter comedy set during the early English war effort in World War II.)

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (Very amusing; Waugh eviscerates the British Press in this satire of fake news, skulldudgery amongst journalists and the predatory habits of the great crested grebe.)

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh (for the thousandth time - one of my favourites. A wonderfully subtle, dark, merciless satire.)

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (in conjunction with my group "Anglophiles Anonymous"; an engrossing little English history lesson disguised as a mystery)

Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh (Sharp, politically incorrect, often laugh-out-loud-funny skewering of British colonialism.)

Poems by Emily Bronte (Lovely, but so gloomy, my dears. Like something written by the Corpse Bride.)

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh (Don't ask me how many times I've read it - the Bright Young Things run amok and hilarity ensues until the sky gets overcast.)

Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh (for the umpteenth time)

Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family by Alexander Waugh (Wonderfully acerbic and entertaining)

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham (In conjunction with my groups Brilliant Babes (and Dudes) Who Read Selectively and Anglophiles Anonymous. A bit iffy, but certainly not diffy)

Here is New York by E. B. White (A beautifully written puff piece -- today, a time capsule artifact -- capturing the New York of the summer of 1949 in cool, immaculately observed, elegant prose. My, how some things change, and how some things remain the same...)

A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman (Deceptively simple, elegiac, masterful poetry)

Noel Coward: In His Own Words, Compiled by Barry Day

Innocent Blood by P. D. James (An unusual, dectective-less thriller from James, and very good.)

The Best Poems of the English Language, selected by and with commentary by Harold Bloom (A marvelous anthology, and Bloom gives us a brilliant introductory essay.)

Noblesse Oblige: An Enquiry Into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy, Edited by Nancy Mitford. (Addresses that crucial question: Are you "U"?)

The Iliad by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles (A long 'un, but I'm very glad I read it at last. 2,700 years old and very much alive. A monumental poem about the horrors and glories of war, full of breath-taking moments of pathos and violence.)

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (As part of a Book Swap with my group Brilliant Babes (and Dudes) Who Read Selectively. My first Pym. Comedy of the acutely ironic and sad variety.)

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (A writer's poignant look back at paradise lost. Ah, Paris. And lots of fascinating dish served up in terse, manly sentences so it doesn't sound like gossip.)

Queen Lucia by E. F. Benson (a re-read for the umpteenth time, because everyone seems to be doing it. A wonderful comedy of manners.)

Beowulf (translated by Seamus Heaney. Fascinating if remote. Like something you'd hear chanted aloud by a grizzled bard in the halls of Theoden King.)

The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse (A re-read, because I needed a little bracer.)

The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, a play by Edward Albee (Tony-winning dramedy about the love that dare not bleat its name. WTF?)

The Changing Light at Sandover: A Poem by James Merrill (A re-read of this dazzling modern epic poem about the poet's experiences on the Ouija Board. Wonderfully witty, eerie and moving.)

The Play About the Baby by Edward Albee (a breezy absurdist nightmare from one of the best American playwrights)

My Shelf's rating system:
1 star - A blight upon the face of the earth.
2 stars - Don't bother.
3 stars - Well worth your attention.
4 stars - Something extra-special.
5 stars - The crème de la crème! « less