All I Read for Christmas...

Brief reviews of all the books I've read since Christmas, mostly Polish related in some way.

Blood Lands by Timothy Snyder - sadly had to leave this at home due to its weight. Ryanair cabin restrictions broke my heart this Christmas.

The Sound of My Voice by Ron Butlin. Drearily brilliant, the portrait of a secret middle aged alcoholic. Something in the style reminded me a little of George Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Belzec, Sobibor & Treblinka by Yitzhak Arad. Relying primarily on material from the trials of SS and Ukranian guards from these three camps, this was a brisk book that covered a lot of material on the organisation and implementation of these three industrial execution centres.Definitely recommended.

The Warsaw Ghetto: Guide to a Perished City . An exhaustive book which is so heavy I can't hold it up for very long, or rest it on my chest in bed for fear of breaking a rib. This is probably not the best primer on this topic, for that I would recommend Words to Outlive Us but it covers in microscopic detail every element of life behind the walls and barbed wire in Warsaw from 29 - 45. Also comes with additional fold-out maps without which it would be impenetrable. Will take me some time to finish.

Fighting Warsaw by Stefan Korbonski. An amazing book, because the whole story of exceptional bravery is told in such a dry, modest way that by the end you suddenly realise just how exceptionally lucky and bold this chap was, and what a good patriot to his country. As a key member of the underground, this book has given me an excellent understanding of the personalities who put in place an organised resistance in Warsaw, and the importance of radio communications with London, mentioned in some detail from the London point of view in Rising '44, is made very clear from the author's involvement in this chapter of the resistance.

The Dead Yard: Tales of Modern Jamaica . A brisk trot through Jamaica's turbulent history. Slightly selective in the characters and groups he interviews in the book  - middle-upper class focussed and clear preference to raggae over dancehall culture and preference to interpret Jamaica's progress via her former colonial status - Ian Thompson's sardonic and occasionally dismissive writing style still left me feeling affection for this hot, aggressive and creative culture.

Women by Charles Bukovski. I was bitterly disappointed by this book. Bukovski vomits, drinks and has sex with woman after woman, but after this fairly repetitive train journey through his sex life we end up nowhere at all. Much better degeneracy in The Ginger Man by Dunleavy (as a very distant relative of the author I must declare an interest).

There's a Egg in my Soup and other Adventures of an Irishman in Poland. Very disappointing. Starts off promising as author moves to Poland in 1994 on a whim and teaches. Falls in love (of which we find out nothing) but despite living there for about five years ends up dismissing ogorki kaszone as "slugs" to be avoided. Book descends very quickly into unconnected anecdotes about various social issues, which all read like he's cobbled them from the newspaper column he wrote whilst in Poland. For example on crime, author writes about getting some lost property back unexpectedly, and a brief encounter with the police when he thinks they should have bothered some nearby yobs, chuck in a couple of statistics and that's it.  Maybe you had to be there to appreciate it, but I didn't really detect any adventures to be found. Sour grapes or poor craic? Buy the book and be the judge yourself! But for a much better book about Poland during this period, a much better canter through its history and a much, much better love affair, try Michael Moran's A Country in the Moon.

So after an epic orgy of book reading since Christmas I am now back to staring out the side of the bus, trying to spot English-language advertisements. Do widzenia.