Jonathan Mirsky
One Man and His Lama
THERE ARE MANY books about Tibet in which the authors' personal concerns alternate with potted history. Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History is one of the best. Patrick French used to be one of the sturdiest Free Tibet campaigners, but he now thinks the Tibetan exiles should make a deal with Beijing and hope that some day the Chinese reform themselves and allow a revival of Tibetan culture. He doubts 'whether a free Tibet has any meaning without a free China'.
The book is full of good stories. Larry King, of Larry King Live, the world's most watched talk show, addressed the Dalai Lama as 'a leading Muslim'. On another occasion, at an event at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles, Sharon Stone, she of no knickers and serial murders
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'Two things prevent [this book] from collapsing under the weight of its own wayward ambition. Colin Jones, one of the finest living scholars of early modern France, is no ordinary historian. And the day in question, 27 July 1794, was no ordinary day'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/night-of-the-guillotine
The Anatomy of Melancholy 'has never quite become a widely recognised, bona fide "classic". For long stretches, the bulk of its readership has been restricted to bibliophiles and scholars. It has had an air of murkiness and desuetude'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/phantoms-of-the-mind
'Don’t think of Watergate as being about a break-in, but about what the break-in exposed: dirty ops, dirty tricks, dirty money.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/all-the-presidents-mendacity