Peter Stothard

Pick up a Penguin, or a Bob Dylan...

With Christmas around the corner, we asked some of north London’s literati for their book of the year

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PETER Stothard is the former editor of The Times and the current editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He is also on the board of trustees at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm.
“The book that really stood out for me was Absent Minds – Intellectuals in Britain by Stefan Collini,” (Oxford University Press, £25) he says.
Collini is a Cambridge professor who specialises in intellectual history. His book considers the relationship between the British nation and intellectuals, and asks why being dubbed an intellectual is a badge of shame rather than something to be proud of.
“It is about why Britons are so frightened of being called intellectuals. The idea sounds vaguely French, and gives the impression that you are living on a cloud somewhere.
“Or intellectuals, their intelligence is seen to be somehow detached from reality, which is quite wrong. Britons are not scared to be called intelligent but they disguise the fact.”

SINGER Hank Wangford, who lives in Kentish Town, has spent most of the past year on the road – travelling the country on a tour called ‘No Hall Too Small’, which aims to bring live music to small venues, like village halls.
He is currently keeping a journal while he travels – and it was partly this experience that prompted him to take Bob Dylan’s autobiography, The Dylan Chronicles, (Simon and Schuster, £7.99) with him. “I am fan,” he says. “He is a giant.” But Hank – whose real name is Sam Hutt – did not rush out to buy it. Instead it was on the back of enjoying Dylan’s latest album.
“His most recent album was strangely his first number one album in America,” says Hank.
“I was curious as to how it would turn out, so I went and bought it. I first really took notice of Dylan when he did the albums Highway 61 Revisited and Bring It All Back Home.”
Hank continues: “The book is very unaffected, written very straight and very clear. People and situations are well observed. He does not get flighty, and this makes it an easy read.”

BBC Radio presenter Robert Elms has brought his own book out in the past year, A Life In Threads, which describes not only his West London childhood but his fascination with fashion.
His favourite book this year was the third part of an American trilogy.
“Perhaps the most enjoyable book I have read is called the Lay of the Land, by Richard Ford (Bloomsbury, £10.79) He wrote The Sports Writer, which is a personal favourite of mine – a brilliantly observed story,” he says.
“I am a big fan of Ford’s, and this is really one of the great American novels. It is funny – and it is about real life. The leading character has become an estate agent in New Jersey, and that is basically all it is about.
“He is aged 56, in to his second marriage, that has fallen apart. It is a very deadpan tale, but superbly told.”

JOAN Bakewell is in the midst of a self-induced Ashes frenzy. The Primrose Hill-based columnist and broadcaster has been staying up through the night to watch the latest in the cricket series.
She has chosen a book about the game as her favourite read of 2006, Penguins Stopped Play (John Murray, £12.99). She says: “Penguins Stopped Play is by Harry Thompson. He was an immensely talented BBC producer who sadly died earlier this year, aged just 45.”
Thompson, who wrote comedy, worked on shows such as Have I Got News For You and The Harry Enfield Show – and Ms Bakewell says his book about his local cricket team is hilarious.
“He ran a very bad little village cricket team, and they decided to embark on a world tour, aiming to play a game with his local XI on every continent of the world, and when they reach the Antartic, penguins did literally stop play.
“It is ever so funny – it’s not the world’s greatest piece of art, or an amazing biography, but if you like cricket, and I do, it is a very nice cricket book.”

Food expert Claudia Roden, who lives in Hampstead, is a best selling cookery writer. And although she has spent much of the year reading books for research one novel stood out this year.
She says: “The book I’d nominate is Suite Francais, (Chatto and Windus, £16.99) by Irene Nemirovsky. It really affected me.”
Nemirovsky died in Auschwitz concentration camp – and her book, written during World War II, was left unread until 1990. “It was found by her daughter but she left it in a suitcase – she thought it would be too painful,” says Ms Roden.
Suite Francais is part of a trilogy the writer never finished and deals with the fall of France. Finally published in 2004 and quickly becoming a best seller, it was translated into English this year. Ms Roden says: “It is an epic book – she was writing about events as they happened. It is a contemporaneous account about the Germans about to enter Paris – it lays out the panic and the chaos. It is so moving – written with lots of perception and intelligence.”

AUTHOR Tom Bower, who lives in Belsize Park, saw his timely biography of former Daily Telegraph mogul Conrad Black come as the newspaper proprietor faces a criminal investigation over his business dealings.
His favourite book this year was historian Antony Beevor’s book The Battle for Spain (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, £25).
He says: “I am interested in 20th-century history and I found this fascinating.
“I have read Stalingrad and Berlin by Anthony Beevor, and he writes a great narrative.
“Most historians just set out the facts without thinking about how to seduce the reader, but Beevor works hard to tell the whole story. You feel the thread as you go through the book, and he takes you through the critical issues.”
Antony Beevor had access to Russian state archives – and this changed Mr Bower’s perception of what happened in Spain.
He says: “I had always been under the impression that the left was defeated by the Fascists, but from Beevor’s book it becomes clear the greatest enemy of the left in Spain was the left itself.”