Culture highlights 2024: Heavy holiday reading and a royal biography

Euron Griffith

Probably the best book I read this year was ‘A Great Disorder’ by the American academic and historian Richard Slotkin.

I’d previously read his fascinating trilogy tracing the history of his troubled country from discovery through to the Twentieth Century (‘Regeneration Through Violence’) in which he makes a cogent point that the US was forged by the gun and that violence is almost an extension of politics both national and international.

In this new book he re-iterates that argument and claims that the roots of the serious division in current American society can be traced back directly to the Civil War and to two distinct visions of what America should be.

He says that both the ‘South’ and the ‘North’ claim that their version of America is the true one and that this may well not be reconciled anytime soon. Especially if Trump wins. Which he did of course.

I read this on holiday in Spain. Which tells you what a fun guy I am to be around.

I’m not a royalist by any stretch but neither am I the kind of person who’d want them strung from the nearest lamppost.

Respect

I actually had a smidgeon of respect for the late Queen and Craig Brown’s wonderful book ‘A Voyage Around the Queen’ is both fascinating and funny. Using a similar style to the one he employed in his previous book about the Beatles, Brown doesn’t write a straight biography as such- more a series of vignettes which add up to not only a portrait of Elizabeth as a monarch but also to the country as a whole.

Hugely recommended even if you want to put Charles and his lot in a stock and hurl cabbages at him.

There have been some great music books this year and two of my favourites were Will Hodgkinson’s study of Lawrence- the enigmatic and eccentric musician who founded the band Felt in the 80s and who now performs with his group Go- art Mozart. ‘Street Level Superstar- A Year with Lawrence’ is both hilarious and poignant as it follows the man around Britain touring and trying to avoid eating anything in public!

Hodgkinson is clearly a fan but he is also aware of Lawrence’s mental health issues and handles them humanely and delicately. Even if you haven’t heard a note of Lawrence’s music I would heartily recommend this book.

The other great music book of the year, for me, was ‘The McCartney Legacy Volume One- 1969- 1973’ by Adrian Sinclair and Allan Kozinn.

Macca was, for many years, blighted with the reputation of being a comparative lightweight when viewed alongside Lennon but recently, and justifiably in my opinion, this general opinion has been reversed.

Not only did he keep the Beatles together after Epstein’s death but he also wrote most of their enduring songs and was also hugely experimental and took an interest in all manner of different disciplines during the swinging sixties whist Lennon was away in Surrey doing not very much at all until prodded into action.

This brilliant book is an in-depth study of McCartney’s solo years up to 1973 (Volume Two is out this month) and, even for a Beatles nut like me, it’s full of things we probably didn’t know.

Re-issues

Most of what I listen to tend to be re-issues. I’m not terribly interested in current pop music and tend to shrug my shoulders and go ‘meh’ at any hagiographic review of a new band or artist.

If they’re still around in five years I might get round to them. But otherwise the relentless pursuit of the ‘new’ tends to leave me exhausted and fumingly cynical.

This probably explains why my favourite new album this year is by a band who could easily have been around in 1972 and who delight in that fact. The Lemon Twigs are an American duo of former child actors and their fifth album ‘A Dream is All We Know’ is, as usual for them, a delicious mix of Nilsson, Beach Boys, Beatles and Doo Wop.

Brilliant stuff. In terms of re-issues I also loved the multi-disc boxed set ‘Rock and Roll Star’ which traced the development of David Bowie’s seminal 1972 album ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.’ We will never see his like again.

Comedy

Frank Skinner was very funny at the New Theatre earlier this year but my favourite comedy gig by far was the inimitable Count Arthur Strong at the Sherman. He is pretty much marmite. My wife doesn’t get him at all and I must admit that even among my friends I’m pretty much alone in giggling like an idiot whenever the Count spouts his confused and tangled patter.

I guess we could trace him back to Harry Worth in the sixties- a man lost in the modern world, struggling to come to terms with it and failing miserably. And hilariously.