Current Work
I am working on a review of George Orwell and Russia by Masha
Karp. There are several new books on Orwell out now, so I will be kept busy doing
reviews. I have paid primary visits to the archives of George Orwell held at
UCL, and Bernard Crick’s archive at Birkbeck.
Three long-term projects are books. I will update the
collection of the Why I Write series that is already in eBook form on Amazon. I
want to add some more writers to a new version. The second will be a collection
of essays on the historian Raphael Samuel. The third will be a short book or
long essay on Oliver Cromwell and the Putney Debates. Cromwell was the subject
of my car crash 2003 dissertation for my BA History at Birkbeck.
I will write a short letter to the London Review of Books.
It published a terrible letter from B. Letzler called The Shoah after Gaza. He managed
to call Bob Dylan’s With God on Our Side
“Dud”
Recent Book Purchases
1.
The Carnation Revolution by Alex Fernandes. I
have written previously on this subject.
2.
Until I Find You by Rachel Nolan. An extraordinary
book well researched on the disappeared children and coercive adoptions in
Guatemala.
3.
Cancion by Eduardo Halfon
4.
The Great Revolutions by Duncan Hallas. In fine
SWP tradition seems to concentrate on what happened rather than why.
5.
The Blazing World by J Healey. This is the
paperback version. I have been meaning to get around to reviewing this for
ages.
6.
Travellers of the World Revolution by B Studer,
Verso
7.
Marxism and the English Revolution by John Rees.
This has not been released yet. I will get a review copy, hopefully.
Recent Events
I regularly attend the online SEP Postal Workers Committee.
I follow their work closely and their stuff on the Post is way better than I
can write. They write about it. I work it. A good combination.
I have started to watch a few episodes of Sky’s Royal Kill
List. What a terrible piece of television. If there was a historian consulted
on this programme, he should share the same fate as Charles 1st.
When a series has so much swearing, it has very little to say and even less
history.
