What I'm Reading #1

I'm only just now starting to get into my reading groove again:  finishing the book and getting it out onto various platforms for people to purchase took a lot out of me and when you focus in on your writing like that, I've discovered that's it's pretty easy to fall out of a reading groove and harder still to climb back into one.

I've also arrived at a very strange place in my life:  I'm really committed to reading the books I have before buying new ones.  This is, so far, a phenomenon I haven't experienced:  new book guilt! But my backlog increases with every passing year and there are books I genuinely do want to read that I currently own.

My Goodreads account will tell you that I'm about halfway through Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge and just cracking into Defend The Realm by Christopher Andrew.  (My long slog through the 12 volumes of Churchill's history of the Second World War seems to have petered out in the early weeks of Operation Torch.  I'll pick it back up again, though.)  I decided to shake things up though.  I'll still finish Rainbow's End but I'm putting Defend The Realm on hiatus to pick up a biography that's been gathering dust on my bookshelves for far too long:

Gladstone, by Roy Jenkins.

Before I plunge into the subject of this biography, it's worth saying a few words about the author.  Roy Jenkins was a British Politician who rose as high as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party before resigning over the party's (then) decision to oppose entry into the Common Market.  He served as President of the European Commission from 1977-1981 and in 1981, dismayed with the leftward tilt of the Labour Party became one of the Gang of Four who broke with Labour to form the Social Democratic Party- which eventually merged with the Liberal Party to become the Liberal Democrats of today.

In short, when it comes to British politics, the guy obviously knows his stuff- and that's something that gives him a huge advantage when it comes to writing biographies of towering British political figures like Gladstone. (He's also written a beautiful one volume biography on Churchill, which I also have sitting on my shelves somewhere.)

Biographies are a tricky thing.  Too dry and academic, you risk putting readers to sleep.  Too informal and loose and you risk readers questioning the seriousness of your scholarship.  The key seems to be finding a balance between the two ends of the spectrum and Jenkins does and then some.  What helps, I think, is that his writing style is underpinned by a sense of irony and dry wit and a mountain of passion for his subject.

The problem becomes that a Jenkins biography is immersive.  It drops you into the time, the history and does it's level best to get you inside the skin of it's subjects.  'Voluminous' doesn't begin to describe the man's biographies- they're doorstops and they take time, but Jenkins' passion keeps you going.

So why Gladstone?  You know, I'm not really sure.  I think the last time I visited the UK, I found myself in a Waterstones (palatial, wonderful bookstores that they are, despite being a chain) and started perusing political biographies and this one caught my eye.  Between them, Gladstone and Disraeli were the Prime Ministers that defined 19th Century British Politics and although I've yet to find a biography of Disraeli that looks good enough to buy, I thought I'd start with Gladstone and get one half of that titanic rivalry.

Let the learning begin!