The Pacific, by Hugh Ambrose

The Pacific is a gripping piece of historical writing following the extraordinary true stories of four U.S. Marines and a U.S. Navy carrier pilot fighting in the Pacific region during World War II. Between America’s retreat from China in late November 1941 and the moment General MacArthur’s airplane touched down on the Japanese mainland in August 1945, five men – Austin Shofner, Vernon Micheel, Sidney Phillips, Eugene Sledge and John Basilone – fought the key battles in the war against Japan. From the debacle in Bataan, to the miracle at Midway and the relentless vortex of Guadalcanal, the war led one to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot and the others to the coral strongholds of Peleliu, the black terraces of Iwo Jima and the killing fields of Okinawa, until at last the survivors enjoyed a triumphant, yet uneasy, return home. In The Pacific Hugh Ambrose focuses on the struggles and triumphs of these men who put their lives on the line for the allied forces. The book is the official companion to the HBO miniseries of the same name, executive produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman – the producers of the Emmy®-winning 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers.

Loops: Issue 02, edited by Lee Brackstone and Richard King

Issue 2 of Loops, the biannual journal dedicated to music writing from Faber and Domino Records, hosts essays from Andy Miller (Est-ce, est-ce ce bon?: Serge Gainsbourg in the Culture Bunker), Dan Franklin (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Fast: Napalm Death and the Possibility of Life’s Destruction) and Frances Morgan on Red Square’s Thirty Three and the resonance of re-discovery after the event.

And then There’s The Man Who Wasn’t There, Paul Morley’s spectacularly honest and revealing portrait of Michael Jackson and his legacy. So much has been written; so little has been said. Morley unravels and indugles the myth to ask just who he was, how we came to piece him together through our collective desires and fears, and why his destiny so inevitably reflected the dysfunctionality of the culture. This expansive essay takes a sober, brave and imaginative perspective on a story that was written before it was told and mythologised before it was considered. Addicted Jackson. Mutilated Jackson. Abused Jackson. Kennedy, Monroe, Diana: the self-piteous pitiful freak. How did we come to make this man and how did we come to claim his as The King of Pop?

Morley sits alongside Simon Reynolds, Nick Kent, Lavinia Greenlaw, Owen Hatherley, Matt Thorne, Rob Chapman, Rubbish Raver, Miriam Linna, Mark Fisher, Tim Lawrence and Elisa Ambrogio in Loops’ second outing.

Whitehall, by Colin Brown

Whitehall – the name of a street now synonymous with the civil service – has been the centre of British religious and political power for over 500 years. Whitehall takes the reader behind closed doors to explore the fascinating history that lies behind the façade of the great departments of state and some of the greatest figures in British history, including Henry Vlll’s playground, the execution of Charles I, Nelson’s tortured love life, and Winston Churchill’s plans for a last stand against the forces of Hitler’s Nazi invaders.

It explores the private house in Whitehall – ignored by tourists today – which became the most notorious address in London, when Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb conducted their very public and tempestuous love affair there.

Inside Admiralty House, screened from public view, is the elablorately decorated boardroom equipped with its own wind clock where Nelson received his orders to attack the French. There is also the dining room where Nelson fumed over dinner with his wife Fanny, who burst into tears at his black mood.

Fragments of the tennis courts where Anne Boleyn watched Henry Vlll playing tennis in his ‘slops’ have survived behind the walls of the Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall. Beyond its glass doors, a secret passageway leads to Number Ten Downing Street.
Cabinet papers reveal that Winston Churchill planned to use Whitehall as a ‘fortress’ in 1940 when Britain faced imminent invasion by Hitler’s Nazi forces. The documents published for the first time show how Churchill prepared for street fighting in Whitehall’s departments, as he made his final stand.

And it also reveals for the first time the films that helped Churchill escape the rigors of war in his underground cinema at Whitehall as the Prime Minister battled to preserve Britain for another 1,000 years.

Class Actor, by Phil Daniels

From his first notable role as a teenage actor alongside Ray Winstone in the cult film Scum, via the central character of Jimmy the mod in the mighty Quadrophenia, to the voice of Blur’s Parklife, Phil Daniels has built a solid reputation as one of Britain’s most talented and well-respected character actors. A graduate of the Anna Scher Theatre in the 1970s, Daniels has always stayed true to his working class roots, lending his roles a much-admired authenticity and integrity. With his distinctive voice, cheeky mistrust of authority figures and wicked sense of humour, Daniels remains a driven individualist committed to his craft.

Daniels’ career covers a period that has seen unprecedented change in UK society, and Class Actor, his first ever autobiography, reads like a provocative popular culture history of the past 30 years. It charts his 1960s childhood in a rundown part of London’s King’s Cross, his passion for Chelsea FC, his coming of age during punk rock, his anger and disaffection throughout the Thatcher years – perfectly realised in highly acclaimed pieces such as Mike Leigh’s Meantime – through to his role as Kevin Wicks in EastEnders and his place in Britpop’s hall of fame. Class Actor is a lively and entertaining insight into the passions of a unique artist who remains driven to tell ‘ordinary’ people’s lives through drama.

The First Family, by Mike Dash

Before Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, there was the one-fingered, cunning Giuseppe Morello and his murderous coterie of brothers. Had it not been for Morello, the world may never have heard of ‘men of honour’, the code of omerta or Mafia wars. This explosive book tells the story of the first family of New York, and how this extended close-knit clan of racketeers and murderers left the backwaters of Sicily to successfully establish themselves as the founding godfathers of the New World.

First Family explains in thrilling, characterful detail how the American Mafia established itself so successfully. Combining strong narrative and raw violence – set against the raucous bustle of early twentieth-century New York, and the impoverished rural life of nineteenth-century Sicily – this impeccably researched, groundbreaking study of a crucial period of American history is a compelling portrait of the early years of organised crime.

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness and Obsession, by David Grann

As Sherlock Holmes once conceded to Dr. Watson, ‘If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the planning, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chain of events, working through generations and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.’ And with such a spirit for investigation and discovery does David Grann set out in The Devil and Sherlock Holmes to unravel the truth of twelve great, real-life mysteries. Although Holmes is the subject of just one of the mesmerizing true stories in this collection, all twelve contain elements of intrigue. Many of the protagonists are sleuths: a Polish detective trying to determine whether an author planted clues to a real murder in his post-modern novel; an arson investigator racing to prove whether a man about to be executed is innocent; a legendary French con man questioning whether he is the one who is suddenly being conned; and scientists stalking a sea monster. Unlike the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, these tales are all true. The protagonists are mortal and pieces of the puzzle often elude them. Some of the characters are driven to deception and murder. Others go mad. But ultimately the stories contained in The Devil and Sherlock Holmes shed light on the human condition, and why some people on this earth devote themselves to good and others to evil. As Holmes put it, ‘Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent’.

The Paris Review, Issue 191, edited by Philip Gourevitch

The Paris Review is a groundbreaking publication bringing together fiction, poetry and prose from great writers all over the world. Its legendary interview series alone represents the single most important body of work that celebrates writing about writing. Publishing quarterly, each issue is a tribute to the possibilities of the written word and under Philip Gourevitch’s canny editorial leadership it looks set to continue and expand on what it has achieved in its illustrious life to date

Jane’s Fame, by Claire Harman

Part biography and part cultural history, this splendid book not only tells the captivating story of Jane Austen’s life, but also her literary legacy. The slow growth of Austen’s fame, the changing status of her work, and what it has stood for in English culture is a story of personal struggle and family dynamics as well as a history of critical practices and changing public tastes. Jane’s Fame is essential reading for anyone interested in Austen’s life, works and unshakable appeal.

Country Driving, by Peter Hessler

In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the long-time Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver’s license. For the next seven years he travelledthe country, tracking how the automobile and the improved transport system were transforming China. Hessler writes movingly of everyday people – farmers, migrant workers and entrepreneurs – who have reshaped the country during one of the most critical periods in its history. Country Driving illuminates the vast, shifting landscape of a traditionally rural nation that, having once built walls against outsiders, is building the roads and factory towns that will shape the twenty-first century.

Read an extract

Apathy for the Devil, by Nick Kent

Pitched somewhere between Almost Famous and Withnail & I, Apathy for the Devil is a unique document of this most fascinating and troubling of decades – a story of inspiration, success and serious burn out.

As a twenty-something college dropout Nick Kent’s first five interviews as a young writer were with the MC5, Captain Beefheart, The Grateful Dead, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. Along with Charles Shaar Murray and Ian MacDonald he would go on to define and establish the NME as the home of serious music writing. And as apprentice to Lester Bangs, boyfriend of Chrissie Hynde, confidant of Iggy Pop, trusted scribe for Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, and early member of the Sex Pistols, he was witness to both the beautiful and the damned of this turbulent decade.

Radio Head, by John Osborne

John Osborne has long been a fan of radio – from late night sessions of John Peel to Test Match Special at dawn, he has always enjoyed tuning in to the riches of our best broadcasts. When his dull temporary job became drearier than ever, John decided to remain attached to his headphones all day to listen to some of Britain’s more unknown stations as well as revisiting the mainstream to fully experience the breadth of our radio output. The result is a funny, disarming ride through aspects of Britain that are uplifting, informative and sometimes plain bizarre.

Throughout his month of intensive radio listening, John flits through talk radio, sports shows, dips into the mainstream and the minority, exalts in specialist music shows, comedy and local radio before expanding his mind with an experimental arts channel. It seems there is something for everyone at the turn of a dial, whether that is the ranting of the permanently enraged, the gentle tinkle of a string quartet, West Indian stomp or the sound of frozen peas being thrown around Elephant and Castle underground station. John also gets under the skin of the radio business by interviewing presenters such as Mark Radcliffe and Nicholas Parsons as well as industry insiders.

John’s daily life is directly affected by his radio habit as he finds himself organising a poker night during exposure to The Jazz, and Zane Lowe’s energy on Radio One goads him into cooking his stir fry at the same speed as Morecambe and Wise prepared their breakfast. Finally, John decides to turn his life around and radio becomes his saviour.

Molotov’s Magic Lantern, by Rachel Polonsky

A writer explores a country and its culture in a luminous, original and unforgettable book.

In the 1990s Rachel Polonsky went to live in Moscow with her family, and began a journey of discovery into a country she thought she knew well. She lived in an apartment block on Romanov Street that had, in Tsarist and Soviet times, been a residence of the elite; and one of those ghostly neighbours was Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin’s henchman and arch survivor of that ferocious regime. (Marshal Budenny, hero of the civil war, and Marshal Konev, conqueror of Berlin, also lived there; Leon Trotsky was carried out of the building by the secret police when he was first sent into exile).

In Molotov’s former apartment, Rachel Polonsky discovered what remained of his library. And she learned that Molotov – ruthless apparatchik, joint author of the collectivisations and the Great Purge – was an ardent bibliophile, an eager reader with a particular devotion to Chekhov. He had all the classics; and he owned signed first editions of books by writers he later sent to the Gulag.

The library and the building in which Rachel Polonsky found it are at the heart of the book, the prism through which she looked at Russian history and at Russia as it is under Putin, and she kept returning to it in her journeys around Russia in search of the places associated with the writers in the library and with the politicians and soldiers who had lived in the Romanov house. At first she walked the streets around the Kremlin, writing about Moscow’s buildings and churches, its old bath houses and vanished aristocratic families, about Pushkin and the Decembrists, then widening her search to the towns and artists’ colonies in the region around the capital. Later she went from the far south to the high Arctic, from St Petersburg in the west to the border with Mongolia in the east.

In each place she encountered the past of a country ravaged by war, famine, genocide and totalitarianism, but also the legacy of Russia’s writers: their airy humanism, their tortured insights and nationalist fantasies, their epic responses to war and terror, their commitment to spiritual values and to natural science – a great and contradictory culture that continues to haunt the rest of the world.

The Corner, by David Simon and Ed Burns

The notorious corner of West Fayette and Monroe Streets in Baltimore is a 24-hour open-air drug market that provides the economic fuel for a dying neighbourhood. Through the eyes of one broken family – two drug-addicted adults and their smart, vulnerable 15-year-old son, DeAndre McCollough – Simon and Burns examine the sinister realities of inner cities across the USA and unflinchingly assess why law enforcement policies, moral crusades and the welfare system have accomplished so little.

Read an interview with David Simon

The Woman Who Shot Mussolini, by Frances Stonor Saunders

7 April 1926: on the steps of the Capitol in Rome, surrounded by chanting Fascists, the Honourable Violet Gibson raises her revolver and fires at the Italian head of state, the poster-boy of the European Right and darling of the British ruling class. The bullet narrowly misses the dictator’s bald head, hitting him in the nose. Of all his would-be assassins, she came closest to changing the course of history.What had brought her to this moment? She was the daughter of an important Anglo-Irish peer, born to privilege and ease. Her family was Protestant, Unionist and conservative. She should have married into the aristocracy and lived the life that women of her milieu were expected to lead.

Yet terrible unhappiness lurked beneath that glittering surface. She was a serious-minded young woman in an age when girls were meant to think as little as possible and to avoid intellectual or political excitement. Her spiritual quest brought her to a kind of left-wing Catholicism and to sympathy for Irish nationalism, to the horror of her family who exacted a severe emotional cost from her for her rebellion. And she fell in love with Italy, and watched as Mussolini’s thugs took it into the moral cesspit of Fascism. She felt she had to act.

But Violet Gibson, unlike Hitler’s attempted assassins, never received the smallest recognition for her gesture. She was merely a ‘mad woman’, or judged to be so by a world that then thought Mussolini perfectly sane. She was confined to a lunatic asylum after a ten-minute interview with a society doctor, condemned without trial to a whole-life sentence without parole. She died in 1956. Her letters to friends languished unsent, and she never had a chance of being released, even after Mussolini declared war on Britain.

Frances Stonor Saunders’ unforgettable and compulsively readable book rescues this gentle, driven woman from a silent void and restores her dignity and purpose.

Thatcher’s Britain, by Richard Vinen

It was, May 2009, be thirty years since Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street. Thatcher was the longest serving prime minister of the twentieth-century and her period in government coincided with extraordinary changes in British society and in Britain’s place in the world. Thatcher’s image permeates, not just discussion of recent British history, but also films and novels — there has even been a musical based on her career. Curiously, the emphasis on Thatcher as a kind of cultural icon has often gone with a declining interest in the details of what her government did. This book tells the story of Thatcherism for a generation with no personal memories of the 1980s — as well as for those who want to revisit the polemics of their youth. It aims to describe Thatcherism in a way that is both detached and engaging. Most of all, it seeks to rescue Margaret Thatcher from being seen as John the Baptist for Tony Blair. It stresses that Thatcherism was not a timeless phenomenon that can be traced back into the nineteenth century or transported forward into the twenty-first. It was rooted in the 1970s and 1980s — a time when the Soviet empire seemed to be expanding and when the British economy seemed to be on its deathbed. Anyone who wants a flavour of the times should recall that Margaret Thatcher received her first ever letter from Ronald Reagan on the day that Saigon fell to the Viet Cong.

Read an extract

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