Two more books.

 

This has been a good start to the year for my reading. My “To Read” pile grew by half a dozen titles that I had as Christmas gifts. There is the usual selection that represent my interests: some novels, a travel book or two, and an interesting looking history volume. The pile now stands at a round dozen. So I’ve kicked off with two books that could hardly be more different.

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I bought The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk at least two years ago, maybe three, and have been picking it up and putting it down ever since.  I’ve read a couple of other books by the Polish Nobel Prize for Literature winner – Flights and Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead – and thoroughly enjoyed both.  Her writing is funny and thoughtful, and the themes explored wide ranging and grounded in her and her country’s history and culture.  Having lived here for more than twenty years I find they have helped broaden my understanding and respect for both, too.  She also has a superb, prize winning translator to the English language.  Her Nobel was awarded for her body of work after ...Jacob was published and the blurb on my copy describes it as “her masterpiece”.  I wouldn’t dispute either the citation or the award.

It’s a huge book, nearly a thousand pages, and the table of contents alone runs to 23 pages, covering the seven Books... in question.  They in turn comprise in total some thirty one sections, and 253 (yes, two hundred and fifty three!) chapters.  OK, some of them are less than a page long, but they are still distinct parts of the narrative, separate pieces of creativity that go into the whole work. Now, that I hadn’t realized until I bought the thing, got it home and studied it with a little more attention than I had done in the shop.  Then I saw another piece of creativity: the page numbering runs backwards (from eight hundred and whatever at the start down to eleven at the finish).  This is a reflection of its subject matter (briefly, 18th century Jewry) – books in Hebrew are always read from right to left (i.e. back to front).  Gimmicky? Perhaps – but then, does it matter?  When reading a book it’s not normal practice to read the page number, so as long as the narrative is logical and flows, I don’t think it does.  Certainly after the first hour or so’s reading I no longer noticed, and it certainly didn’t spoil the experience.

I say that, because reading The Books of Jacob is not so much an enjoyment (as any good book must be) but something to immerse yourself in.  It’s taken me since Christmas to get through it, reading a little every day – and often a good bit more.  Other books of similar size – The Lord of the Rings springs to mind – have taken me equally as long to get through, but have proved (at least to me) well worth the effort.

...Jacob is a historical novel about an 18th century Jew who establishes, in essence, a new religion in an attempt to prove he is the new Messiah.  He attracts an ever growing number of disciples, they intermarry, have big families, and indulge in a catalogue of strange rituals (many of them involving nudity and what would today be termed orgies) in order to cement their love and allegiance to Jacob Frank (the titular character of the book).  They roam from place to place around present day Poland, Ukraine, Czechia, Hungary, Austria and Germany, where having lived to a ripe old age Jacob dies and his entourage drifts apart as they too relocate and pass away.  The End.  It’s an extraordinary work of research as much as anything else: while reading it I popped in and out of Wikipedia when the names and details of the lives of the main characters sounded familiar or an extraordinary action attributed to them – and they were all there.  Frank existed, as did his group of followers, and they followed the course described in the book.  The fiction clearly falls in the dialogue and personal interactions between them all – and all of that is believable.

Yes, The Books of Jacob was and is a difficult read, the subject matter complex and in places unbelievable – even though based around historical fact.  There’s a lot to absorb, not least the long list of characters, and this is not helped by them having to change their names from Jewish to Polish halfway through the book (it’s a condition imposed on them by the Catholic Church in Poland in order to secure baptism into the church).  From that part of the book the names are used interchangeably, although usually with a clarification (for instance “...Moshe, now Marcin….”).  It could detract from the story, but Tokarczuk manages to do it without spoiling its narrative.

In summary: if you like historical fiction, and if you’re not afraid of a big complex yarn that will take a lot of effort to read and digest – a true reading challenge - then I thoroughly recommend The Books of Jacob.  If not then steer clear!

I loved it.

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Lewis Baston’s Borderlines: A History of Europe in 29 Borders  could not present a bigger contrast to Tokarczuk’s epic.  It does exactly what it says on the tin, in an entertaining and detailed way.  Baston is a political historian I had never come across before, and as an Englishman (and, dare I say it, a europhile) I found the topic of great interest.  I spent the last 20 years of my working life living in Poland and travelling around the world from project to project, much of it within the EU bloc.  My home is still in Warsaw, and hence within the EU and Schengen Zone.  Ten years ago, I voted in favour of Britain Remaining in the Union – because nothing I heard during the rushed and poorly conducted national conversation in the lead up to the Referendum vote from the Leave campaign convinced me that the country (and hence my immediate and extended family) would be better off outside. Better the devil you know, as my sister put it.   Which is not to say the dull and garbled messages from the Remain campaigners (in particular PM Cameron and Chancellor Osborne) made a strong case for the status quo – it didn’t, and in my view they never actually took the issue seriously until it was far too late.  Their conduct in the immediate aftermath, essentially walking away from the clear mess they had contributed much to creating while blaming everybody else, was despicable.

None of this is dwelt  upon at any length or detail in Borderlines, and this is very much to the author’s credit.  A handful of passages suggest he is of a like mind, but his focus is on going back much farther than the Referendum and its fallout, and his net is cast across the entire European Continent: Britain is no more than a quite minor cast member.  Instead, the book is an account of a lifetime spent rambling around Europe and digging into the histories of all the countries he visits and the way the ever changing border areas between them have been affected by decisions that, typically, were made by a cast of national leaders (and their political opponents), some competent, some barely literate, but very few of whom gave much thought to the effects of their decisions on “their” subjects and countrymen.

There are some fascinating stories here: my favourite is perhaps that of a small town on the border between the Netherlands and Belgium called Baarle, where the border between the two countries meanders around constantly, in such a way that one side of residential streets could be in the Netherlands and the other Belgium.  Even an individual house is divided in this way: it belonged to an elderly lady who insisted that she had “always been Belgian” and would under no circumstances enter the house from The Netherlands or consider herself Dutch.  Pragmatically, the local council switched the front door and its adjoining hall window around so that the door itself was left in Belgium and the hall window (never used) in The Netherlands. There is a nice picture (all the book's illustrations were taken by the author on his travels) showing a before and after picture of the white dotted borderline's position. She was perfectly happy with this, as was everyone else. One day I must visit the place.

The book also recounts stories that show clearly that minority groups are invariably treated unfairly when borders are moved, no matter the reason (usually as a result of conflict resolution), and the practice of forced relocation – ethnic cleansing, if you prefer – is neither new nor restricted to Palestinian Arabs, Jews or anybody else.  It has happened time after time across Europe, from its earliest days, through the Polish Partition at the end of the 18th century, and especially in the aftermath of both World War 1 (with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), World War 2 (with the defeat of the Third Reich) and the Fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent collapse of the Warsaw Pact alliance.  Huge numbers of people, mostly refugees, were moved around from place to place in a bid to even up populations and territory and appease despots like Uncle Joe Stalin – and a high proportion of the refugees were not at all pleased with the outcome.  I was surprised to learn that Britain, too, has done its share of this: when the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland was initially drawn in the 1920s, and again as a result of the Troubles and its solution in the 1990s, numbers of Catholics and Protestants were “exchanged” as part of the plans and nation building.

The overall message of the book is that the people who live and work in these border areas generally just get on with it, and live and work together as they always have done.  The growth and influence of the EU, the Schengen Zone and the euro currency has made this much easier to do, with no border controls and visa requirements needed across the majority of the Continent.  The village of Schengen itself is a model: it lies at the confluence of the borders of Luxembourg, Germany and France (the exact point where the borders meet is smack in the middle of the river Moselle) and while notionally in Luxembourg people live and work in their neighbouring countries and hence commute quite freely across the borders multiple times every day – and speak each others’ languages (and English) happily and interchangeably.  The area is wine country: a network of foot and cycle paths spreads out across the countryside that provides a little advertised tourist attraction – another place I need to visit.

With travel and history being passions of mine, I’ve read many books and articles over the years on the subject of the changes to our Continent, and I thought I had a pretty good knowledge.  But Borderlines, in approaching the subject from a slightly different angle, has added to that knowledge, and given me a lot of reading pleasure.  Baston’s writing is clear and concise and the book is beautifully written.  It’s a worthy addition to the genre and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Wow! A full year.....

 

....since I last posted something on here. I should be thoroughly ashamed and give myself forty lashes for laziness.

But I won't.  Essentially it's been more self preservation.  This particular blog is devoted usually to meaningless rants about what is going on in the world, books I've read and enjoyed (even if no-one else has), political whinges...pretty much everything in my dull retired life not connected to travel (my other blog, The World According to Travellin' Bob at https//travellin-bob.blogspot.com has all that).  But even that had a fallow 2025 - nothing posted since May.  Very remiss of me and I clearly have some catching up to do.

Because, actually, 2025 was a pretty good year.  For a start, for the first time - and I'm now touching wood.... - since 2020 I had no serious health issues.  Sure, the odd cold or stomach upset that probably everybody has at some point every year, but this time nothing serious.  No dashes to the A&E room at the local hospital after an accident walking the dog.  No Covid or other serious infection, and no attacks of depression (but I know it's still in me, as with other sufferers, so I guard against it as best I can).  And, thanks be to God, no resurgence of any other condition that may require corrective surgery.  Ok, ok, the joints ache a bit more, the eyesight's not as good as it once was, nor the hearing, and I have to rest a bit more often and for longer periods - but I'm 73 next month, for goodness' sake!  As with anything that's been around the block a few times we humans wear out too, and I'm no different.  Thankfully, My Beloved and the kids remained strong and healthy as well.

I read a lot of good books, no more of which were reviewed here (there were a couple of reviews last year) - sorry about that.  I listened to loads and loads of good music on a variety of radio stations and streaming services (caning the internet), and other streamers provided hours of entertainment like movies, tv series, sports and travel documentaries. I weaned myself off the news providers like CNN, the BBC and so on: that was easy - changing my tv and channel package took care of that, and I have to say I'm a lot happier for doing it.  

And I travelled, more than since pre-Covid times.  Partly that's a result of my improved health, of course, but also the kids are older and can be left to their own devices now (they can both cook very well, even if washing up remains problematical!).  We're also in a slightly better financial position so that's made things better too.  My Beloved was also able to take an unplanned summer off from her work, and we decided to make the most of it.

A lot of the trips were short ones, around the city and surroundings, but we went further afield too.  In May we headed to Venice (I posted a piece about that, the last one on The World According to... referenced above) and had a brilliant time.  I managed a couple of trips back to England, in January and September/October to take care of some personal business: both trips ended up a little trying, as such things often do, but successfully I believe.  I will say no more.  My Beloved came with me the second time, and we had a lot of fun re-visiting London landmarks and going to new places - I must get around to documenting some of that too, on the The World According to....  Job for next week, methinks.

We managed a few days at the seaside, in the Tri-Cities on the Baltic coast here (that's Gdansk, Sopot and Gdynia).  It was only a long weekend, taking our daughter and our dog, but the weather was hot and sunny, and My Beloved and I (plus the dog) spent most of our time on the beach while our girl enjoyed being with her friends.  But the highlight came in early September when all of us (animals excepted) had our first real family holiday since Croatia 2018 (I discount a short break at the coast here in 2021 since illness interrupted that and made it less than a holiday): 10 days in Malaga, and it was brilliant.  Again, a more detailed piece will follow on The World According to... shortly.

So for us: a great year.  For the rest of the world - not so much.  In fact, I would venture to suggest it was probably the worst year so far this century - worse than 2016 and That Stupid Referendum Decision that has, as detailed in LBC presenter James O'Brien's brilliant book, ...Broken Britain.  Perhaps worse even than the Pandemic Years, when at least we were all suffering together, battling the same insidious, invisible enemy, all over the world.  We didn't triumph over it, whatever some people would have us believe: Covid is still out there, still mutating and still (sometimes) taking lives, but the sometimes ridiculously maligned vaccines that were developed and distributed in record time back then seem to have helped most of us build enough resistance in our bodies to avoid the worst of the plague now.  Probably the virus mutations themselves also crippled itself too, and weakened its virulence: I don't know, I'm no scientist - but we do seem able to live with it now.

No, 2025 globally was awful.   The war in Ukraine dragged on (it's now in its fifth year, and shows little sign of ending).  Russia continued to successfully attack cities and civilians hundreds of miles into Ukrainian territory, killing tens of thousands of innocent people (the elderly, men, women and children) just trying to live a normal life using an arsenal of drones and missiles - it's like Hitler's V1 and V2 weapons, only in use simultaneously and in much greater numbers every bloody day.  Ukraine forces battled ferociously (and reasonably successfully) to stop any further incursions into its eastern territory, aided by NATO weaponry and training (but not troops on the battlefield).  But so far, despite diplomatic efforts, there is still no real end in sight.

The genocide of Gazans by the Israelis, in response to the Hamas terrorist atrocity three years ago, was allegedly ended after a US and Qatar brokered cease fire, after almost 100,000 civilian deaths and the reduction to rubble of the vast majority of buildings and infrastructure.  But given that the IDF broke the terms of the agreement the day after it came into force (and continues to do so even now, three months later, on an almost daily basis, as well as blocking aid convoys and expelling aid agencies like MSF) it's impossible - at least for me! - to accept the conflict is over.  It angers me that more is not being made of either situation (Ukraine or Gaza) by the world's press - they should be all over it.  Or maybe they are, and I've just become immune to it......fuck, I hope not.

There is a link between both.  In January Donald bloody Trump was elected as President.  Again.  Despite being stupid, old and perhaps borderline senile (or simply nuts); despite being demonstrably the worst President in history; despite being shown to have tried to overturn, illegally, the previous election in 2020; despite even being a proven felon, mysogenist and liar (and potentially a serious, serial sex offender) the American public somehow chose to elect the bloke for a second time.  He proceeded to ride roughshod over all the laws, local and international, that have been the basis of Western democracy for at least 80 years, withdrawn the US from over 50 UN agencies, including the COP climate change body, because (his words) "they are of no value to the US and cost us billions of dollars for no benefit", undermined the NATO Alliance and took the side of both Putin and Netanyahu in their respective atrocities, and been openly abusive and rude to virtually every international leader, president, prime minister or senior official he had spoken to - all idiots and anti-American losers apparently.    Perhaps worst of all, he created an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency that reports directly to him, dresses in military fatigues and balaclavas, and is armed to the teeth.  It is charged with the rounding up and deportment of "illegals and criminal gangs", dumping them in interrogation centres while they, allegedly, check their visa status, before deporting them.  From Day One they have made mistakes: the one that sticks in my mind  is that of the Welsh girl in her early twenties, on vacation, who was picked up in one their sweeps (simply in the wrong place at the wrong time), and held in a squalid cell for a couple of days before being "processed". Despite having a valid ESTA visa in her British passport and absolutely no connection with any illegals or criminal gangs, she was deported, in chains.  No apologies.  There have been many cases like this one, and recently matters have got even darker: over a ten day period, two innocent bystanders were gunned down and killed in Minneapolis, both subsequently branded "domestic terrorists" or "radical left agents" by Trump and his apologists, despite being nothing of the sort, and despite the global outrage.  ICE is, in effect, Trump's personal militia in the same way as the SS were Hitler's, and the KGB (or at least its forerunners) Stalin's.  These are dangerous times. 

The new Labour government in the UK struggled with its new responsibilities - fourteen years in Opposition while the Conservatives and their allies proceeded to trash the country's economy and way of life - not helped by a well-meaning new leader in Sir Keir Starmer perhaps struggling most. Despite having basically good policies, their implementation has been often muddled and ill-thought out, and there have been rather too many U-Turns for comfort.  Their popularity has plunged in the opinion polls, and they start this year on rocky ground: not so much from a resurgent Tory party (that is just as deeply in the doldrums, and just as disorganised) but from a surge in popularity for both the LibDems and the Greens, and also distressingly from Farage's racist and lying Reform party that is now swollen by an increasing number of senior Conservative MPs - some of them recent Cabinet members in senior positions - that share Farage's fascist views and have hence defected to the party.  Dangerous times here, too.

Climate change action seems to have dropped way down the agenda of many governments, not the least those of the US and the UK.  The die was cast by Trump's insistence (one he held during his first term of office) that climate change is a "scam, the biggest in history" and his decision to withdraw the country from all the major UN and independent bodies trying to combat the very very real crisis.  The last UN  reporting showed that the key 1.5C rise over pre-industrial values that was expected to be reached by 2035 has been hit already, and is likely to be reached again this year - and beyond.  It's believed to be the tipping point before irreversible climate change and we've hit it much earlier than expected. It should have been a huge alarm call for the world to double down on their efforts to develop mitigation measures to cope, like outright bans on fossil fuels and speeding up the development and deployment of more renewable sources (such as wind turbines).  But no: such is the power that Trump and his allies currently wield, and the lurch to extreme right fascist political agendas across the world, that governments have retreated from  (and indeed abandoned) commitments made at successive COP conferences.  History will not view these moves with much fondness, when the books are finally written (assuming there are enough of us left to worry about such things).

So, in a nutshell, given this blog is my safety valve, often a means to let off steam about things that make me angry and matter to me - and doing so does make me feel better after sharing them - there was just too much going on, too much to mentally process .... simply, too much anger .... for me to cope last year.  The words jumbled up in my mind and events happened too quickly for me to manage let alone write and publish. I would not be surprised if this year is similar, but having conquered my news junkie tendencies, and drastically reduced my social media presence I hope I'll be able to focus better on entertaining rather than enraging (or boring) people with my writing.  

But enough of this depressing negativity!  It's a new year (well, a few weeks back anyway) and not time to dwell on this stuff - unless you're a politician charged with dealing with it. Thankfully I'm not.  But it's rather time for a look ahead, to what I plan to do for this year, God and health permitting.  

So: we have much to celebrate in 2026, not least the 20th wedding anniversary of My Beloved and I next month.  For a number of, at the time, sensible reasons I don't think either of us expected to get this far - and yet here we are, still together and still in love.  We've fought many battles, struggled to make ends meet, and still have at least one disagreement a day - but here we are, still together and still as committed.

Then our son hits 21 in October (by which time hopefully he will have passed his driving test) and our daughter, remarkably, turns 18 in May, shortly before she leaves school, finally.  I look at them every day and wonder just where the hell the time has gone!  I think of my three elder sons back home in England: all in their 40's now, with their own lives and careers, and between them two sons and two daughters - my grandkids.  So among my plans are to go to visit them all a couple of times at least.  

We've made no firm holiday plans yet, but our son has just booked a trip to Hong Kong with a friend of his in May - it's a place I'd like to visit myself at some point.  As a family, we're thinking about alternatives - the Canaries is a possibility (I quite fancy a trip to Fuerteventura and/or Gran Canaria), as is Morocco and maybe Greece. So we'll probably end up going somewhere completely off the radar.  My Beloved is off to Bilbao with her best friends for a few days in April, and no doubt they will go somewhere else together later in the year - it's their thing. Or perhaps England: a trip to Cornwall via Stonehenge is something under consideration too.  But wherever we end up going, we'll enjoy our time together and I'll aim to document the best bits.

There are also a couple of places I'd like to go, solo.  First up: the sleeper train from Warsaw to Swinoujscie, on the Polish Baltic Coast.  It's also right on the border with Germany, and the boardwalk running from the town to the typical sandy Baltic beach runs between two marker posts that delineate where the official border is.  You don't have to go that way: walk west along the beach from any place in the town and you will cross it and be in the German town of Ahlbeck.  From there it's possible to continue strolling along the sands to Peenemunde, the infamous site of the Nazi rocket development centre that spawned the V1 and V2 weapons that came close to winning the Second World War, and subsequently continued its work in the US after the War's end as the basis for NASA's own space exploration program.  Given my interest in rail travel, history and space science I think I will thoroughly enjoy that one.

Second is Schengen.  We all know about the EU's travel zone where borders are basically meaningless and travel is allowed between participating states passport free that is named after the place.  I've benefited from it since it's introduction in both my working and personal life, and I've never understood Britain's objection to it.  But I had no idea where the place actually is.  The answer: a quiet corner of Luxembourg where the borders of the country meet those of France and Germany.  The marker point where the borders actually meet is smack in the middle of the River Moselle that flows through the town (well - a village really: it's population is only a few hundred strong). But there is a network of cycle and footpaths that winds through the village and others in both France and Germany, crossing and re-crossing the borders at will, and winds through the countryside that is wine making country: vineyards abound in all three countries.  I went through the area on a train once, travelling from Dusseldorf to Luxembourg (my flight had been diverted due to bad weather) and it's a lovely area that made me think of the Shire in The Lord of the Rings.  Taking my Nordic poles for a stroll around there would be enchanting, I think.

Third.  When our kids were smaller, ten to fifteen years ago, we used to take them on skiing trips with some friends to the mountains in the south of the country.  We stayed in a small (but now growing) ski resort town called Szczyrk, and once in an even smaller place fifty odd kilometres away, on the Slovak border, called Zwardon.  I didn't ski, but enjoyed the clean fresh and cold air, and the trips to the mountain tops on sometimes rickety ski-lifts to the top of the ski runs, from where the views on sunny days, across the mountain tops to the High Tatras in the west beyond Krakow, were stunning. There are many hiking trails through and around the resorts, and I've often thought I'd enjoy going there, out of the ski season, in spring or late summer, and trek the easier ones with hiking boots and Nordic poles and a backpack with food, drink and a good book to read on rest stops.   Perhaps this could be the year for that, too, just a long weekend or something.

Fourth.  There are cities and places in Poland that I either haven't visited, or want to return too.  Bialystok is one: I spent a day there the year before last and decided at some point I'd like to return for a day or two and see more of the place.  Close by is the Bialolenka forest, a national park with a wide variety of animals including bison, wild boar and deer roaming freely.  There are small bed-and-breakfast hostels and hotels in the forest and it's a place we've been talking about visiting for a while now.  Poznan too is a vibrant city two thirds of the way to Berlin: I visited once, in my early years here, before the kids came along, so it's about time I went back and had a closer look.  Maybe I could double-bubble and take in Berlin on the same trip (given it's only a couple of hours away by train).

I also continue to read voraciously.  My To Read pile extends to about ten books now - novels, history, travel, short story compilations...a good variety.  It will no doubt grow as I see and buy others that are rolling around in my head already.  So as I finish them - or at least the best of them - expect a review and recommendation piece here.  I doubt I will write anything beyond the blogs - I simply don't have the new and fresh story ideas that fed my fingers in past years.  I still have the manuscripts, some finished and some far from complete, of all the stuff, and who knows, at some point I may revisit them.  Just for the fun of it, you understand, as I doubt any of it will ever find its way into a bookshop near you.  One day I'll pass them along to my kids to do with as they wish - but by then I'll be beyond caring, frankly.  Please God that will be ten or more years away!  But my blogs will continue: I enjoy writing them even if they are seldom (if ever) read : they keep my mind active in a way other passtimes never will.  That seems to me to be important.

So there you go.  Let's see what the year 2026 brings.  I hope it will match last year, but for good or ill, I will write up the (less personal) stories here.