Mike Clarke

Mike Clarke made a comment on his review of Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World " Thank you! "
Feb 27, 2020 12:54PM · see review
Mike Clarke is currently reading Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume Two: Everything She Wants by Charles Moore	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Feb 21, 2020 11:33AM · like
Mike Clarke rated a book liked it A Short History of London: The Creation of a World Capital by Simon Jenkins	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Capital ideas: hold on, Jenkins, I ought to get trading standards on you. For this is no short history of London, it’s a long polemic on London. And the two are very different things. If you’re wondering why he whisks so quickly through the first two ...more
Feb 21, 2020 11:05AM · like · see review
Mike Clarke rated a book really liked it The Tin Drum by Günter Grass	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oskar’s the winner: in which Günter Grass lures the reader with an apparently simple tale of dwarfism, musical dysphoria, incest, Nazism, murder, Oedipal longings, and madness, before spinning into something far more complex. The “imitation of Christ ...more
Feb 13, 2020 02:47PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Tin Drum by Günter Grass. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Tin Drum by Günter Grass <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Mike Clarke rated a book really liked it The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The empire strikes back: apprentice work this may be but Doris Lessing’s debut caused shock and amazement when it landed these 70 years ago, and it’s still confronting now. My confession is that this is a first for me; a Lessing introduction, and I’m ...more
Jan 20, 2020 01:59PM · like · see review
Mike Clarke is currently reading The Tin Drum by Günter Grass	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 20, 2020 01:56PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Tin Drum by Günter Grass. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Tin Drum by Günter Grass <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Mike Clarke rated a book really liked it The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The empire strikes back: apprentice work this may be but Doris Lessing’s debut caused shock and amazement when it landed these 70 years ago, and it’s still confronting now. My confession is that this is a first for me; a Lessing introduction, and I’m ...more
Jan 20, 2020 01:48PM · like · see review
Mike Clarke rated a book liked it Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Ambitious in a vicious manner, or Mummy is the root of all evil: it’s difficult to know in Framley Parsonage whether the greater damage is done by cleric Mark Robarts’s ideas above his station, or the machinations of the dowagers Grantly, Lufton and ...more
Jan 11, 2020 10:14AM · 1 like · like · see review
Mike Clarke liked Andrew Harrison's status update Andrew Harrison is on page 297 of 728 of Thomas Cromwell
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Mike Clarke liked Andrew Harrison's status update Andrew Harrison is on page 48 of 386 of Experience
Jan 08, 2020 02:57PM

Mike Clarke made a comment on his review of Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

" Thank you! "

Mike Clarke is currently reading

Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume Two: Everything She Wants
by Charles Moore

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A Short History of London by Simon Jenkins

A Short History of London: The Creation of a World Capital
by Simon Jenkins

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Capital ideas: hold on, Jenkins, I ought to get trading standards on you. For this is no short history of London, it’s a long polemic on London. And the two are very different things.

If you’re wondering why he whisks so quickly through the first two Capital ideas: hold on, Jenkins, I ought to get trading standards on you. For this is no short history of London, it’s a long polemic on London. And the two are very different things.

If you’re wondering why he whisks so quickly through the first two thousand years, only to spend over half the book on the period since 1800, it’s because it is here he can opine on the things that nark him. Planning, mainly - the lack thereof or its over-application. A Short History of London would better be titled A Long Moan About Stuff. The thoughtless destruction of historic buildings (agreed), the lack of a cohesive approach (agreed), the trouble with London government - all the boroughs’ fault (hmm), wouldn’t Abercrombie have been a dreadful mistake (not sure - and contrary to your earlier grumbles, surely?), the Barbican, the Shard and the Gherkin (disagree).

If that makes it sound terribly disagreeable, it’s far from it. He writes with pace and vigour, and the style reminds me of the history books of a preceding generation: full of moral certainty, the forward march of progress, to the victor the spoils. Jenkins might be forgiven for glossing the first few milennia - there is a shortage of source material after all, except that he tends then to be a tad cavalier with facts and dates. If they don’t fit the narrative drift or are slightly out of sequence, he reorders them or simply brushes them aside. It all reminds me of the Ladybird Book of Kings and Queens I had as a child - this great city story of ours.

The genuine passion of a lifelong Londoner comes through, which is what tends to threaten his journalistic and historian instinct (this is true whenever Jenkins writes on the capital). And his grasp of the BAME contribution to London’s history is thin and weedy indeed - just the dismissal of Sadiq Khan as “His [Johnson’s] successor” on first mention is indicative - demeaning not only to the office of Mayor but also Khan, whatever you think of it or him.

His take on landowners is surer, praising and denouncing in equal measure - such as “the dilatory Grosvenors”. And he has sympathy for the London poor of any stock, describing Henry Fielding’s orphan asylum for deserted girls and his comments that the poor arouse great anger for their misdeeds but little interest in their suffering

I learned also about the extraordinary businesswoman and pioneer Eleanor Coade, whose decorative artificial stone contributed so much to the look of Georgian London. His selection of dramtis personae is as elliptical as the rest of the book.

Fragmentary, fitfully educational and readable, this is to be read alongside Ackroyd, Sinclair and possibly Robert Elms to give a wider lens.

Oh and I got my copy from the library, so relax - I’ll not be calling Trading Standards on this occasion. ...more

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The Tin Drum
by Günter Grass

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Oskar’s the winner: in which Günter Grass lures the reader with an apparently simple tale of dwarfism, musical dysphoria, incest, Nazism, murder, Oedipal longings, and madness, before spinning into something far more complex. The “imitation of Christ ...more

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The Grass is Singing
by Doris Lessing

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The empire strikes back: apprentice work this may be but Doris Lessing’s debut caused shock and amazement when it landed these 70 years ago, and it’s still confronting now. My confession is that this is a first for me; a Lessing introduction, and I’m ...more

Mike Clarke is currently reading

The Tin Drum
by Günter Grass

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Mike Clarke rated a book really liked it

The Grass is Singing
by Doris Lessing

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

The empire strikes back: apprentice work this may be but Doris Lessing’s debut caused shock and amazement when it landed these 70 years ago, and it’s still confronting now. My confession is that this is a first for me; a Lessing introduction, and I’m ...more

Mike Clarke rated a book liked it

Framley Parsonage
by Anthony Trollope

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Ambitious in a vicious manner, or Mummy is the root of all evil: it’s difficult to know in Framley Parsonage whether the greater damage is done by cleric Mark Robarts’s ideas above his station, or the machinations of the dowagers Grantly, Lufton and ...more