Things of Darkness

BBC Radio 4 has a lot to answer for, and listening to A Good Read is particularly dangerous if you're trying to avoid adding to your 'must read' pile - and so it was today. I had picked up a copy of one of the books under discussion a few months ago, but I put it back down on the shelf again. I had decided I didn't really want to read it. The life story of a homeless, criminal drug addict, told backwards from his suicide sounded too harrowing. It keeps winning awards though; and hearing Sue McGregor, Sir Christopher Frayling and Jon Snow talking about it today has put it back on my ever-expanding 'must read' list. It is



Stuart: A Life Backwards
by
Alexander Masters



Meanwhile, the book currently being serialised on Radio 4's Book At Bedtime is one of the many that sit staring at me from the shelves - although by slouching down in my chair I can hide behind my monitor from it's brooding presence.




This Thing of Darkness
by
Harry Thompson

I first heard of This Thing of Darkness when it was included on the longlist for the Man Booker Prize last year. Now any book featuring Charles Darwin is bound to get my attention, and with its echoes of Matthew Kneale's English Passengers - a rowlocking good read from a few years back - it went straight into the queue for the attention of my tired eyes. (My eyes would like me to read less and listen to the radio more to give them a rest - but there's the rub: listening to the radio just leaves me with more books to read.)

Sadly, Harry Thompson died of lung cancer last November, aged 45, having worked for the BBC as a producer of some of the very best comedy shows of the last ten years. As well as being a co-creator of Have I Got News For You and They Think It's All Over, he was also one of the writers on Monkey Dust, so he gave me a lot of laughter over the years. And Stuart Shorter was only 32 years old when he jumped in front of a train. The least I can do is get round to reading their books - but I haven't...yet.