Book of the Year

It is the time of the year when most of the newspapers publish lists of their columnists' "Books of the Year".

My old friend, Mark, publisher and editor of "Wiltshire Life" recommended John Carey's William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies. I will certainly be getting that well-reviewed biography in due course. Mark even phoned me to tell me that I get a mention in the book, concerning the time that Golding visited Thessaloniki.

(Update, March 2010: Golding visited Corfu in May 1965 and wrote "Corfu...was wonderful. In a strange way it was Keatsian. I suppose we all got our first idea of Greece as a separate place, from Keats. But this abundance, this fertility, this lushness; this heat and beauty...". I have also found the reference to Golding's 1982 Salonika visit: "The next day he flew to Thessaloniki, where chanting crowrds of communist students were demonstrating against Greek membership of NATO. He hoped this would mean his engagements were cancelled, but the British Council's Jim Potts decided to go ahead. 'Belief and Creativity' had a 'muted' reception, and when he 'slanged' Marx three young men got up walked out". There's no mention of the dinner party we held in his honour, with distinguished Greek writers like Nikos Gabriel Pentzikis and Zoe Karelli).

My own nomination for book of the year is Glyn Hughes' Life Class (Shoestring Press, 2009).

It's a strange coincidence, but I also first met Glyn Hughes in Thessaloniki.


Life Class is a truly inspiring autobiographical poem about his roots, about nature, about his three marriages (including marriage to a Greek woman)and it also covers the period he spent living in Greece.

It belongs up there with Wordsworth's The Prelude and John Betjeman's Summoned by Bells.

Life Class is a modern classic. It's a long poem, but immensely moving and readable.