Books I Read in November 2024

Impossible City by Simon Kuper is an expat’s view of Parisian society in the 21st century and how it has changed over the last two decades.

Kuper bought an apartment in Paris in 2000 and still lives in the French capital with his American wife and their three children.

From the point of view of a middle-class British journalist, Kuper outlines the mysterious codes which dictate how Parisians socialise, and the chapters about elitism and the rise of Emmanuel Macron are particularly fascinating (Kuper is the author of a book called ‘Chums’ about similar networks in the UK).

‘Impossible City’ also covers changes to the city’s infrastructure ahead of hosting the Olympic Games last summer, and the impact of the terrorist attacks in 2015 and the pandemic.

Brexit prompted Kuper to finally apply for French citizenship, and ‘Impossible City’ is a fond but not overly romanticised portrait of Paris told with dry humour.

I enjoy books which examine popular music from a slightly unusual angle, such as The Rejects by Jamie Collinson about musicians kicked out of bands or Exit Stage Left by Nick Duerden which follows post-fame pop stars.

Hope I Get Old Before I Die by David Hepworth is about the rock stars who are still touring decades after they were in the charts.

It’s easy to forget that the concept of heritage rock bands is relatively new, and over time, pop music has had to evolve from being exclusively made for and by young people.

Hepworth asserts that Live Aid in 1985 was the turning point which created opportunities for artists popular in the 1960s and 1970s to embark on lucrative greatest hits tours, ignoring the flop albums released in the 1980s and concentrating solely on the best of the back catalogues.

There are several examples of bands going on tour solely for the practical purpose of paying enormous tax bills or divorce settlements, while others seem to do it for the adulation of loyal fans.

Hepworth’s encyclopaedic knowledge and gently mocking tone is thoroughly engaging across short, zippy chapters.

A Beginner’s Guide to Breaking and Entering by Andrew Hunter Murray is a comic crime caper about a man known as “Al” who breaks into and lives in people’s second homes when they are unoccupied and leaves them spotlessly clean, describing himself as an interloper rather than a squatter.

However, when one of his break-ins goes wrong, Al ends up working with other interlopers, Elle, Em and Jonny. In the wrong place at the wrong time, they become caught up in a murder case and try to evade capture.

The plot thickens into a complex web of corruption, money laundering and international espionage, but is kept grounded by Al’s self-deprecating humour which lends itself well to puns and one-liners and saw the book deservedly shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.

Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream is a memoir about the 12 years the author lived as a Carmelite nun at the pseudonymous Akenside Priory in the north-east of England in the 1990s.

After a bohemian childhood in north London, Coldstream converted to Catholicism and entered religious life following her father’s death when she was in her early 20s.

Coldstream vividly describes the atmosphere of living in seclusion – joyous and certain at first that this was the right path for her, before niggling doubts start to set in.

Her thirst for theological debate and emotional reactions to events do not align with the total obedience and lack of individuality demanded by the order.

The middle section reads like a gripping psychological thriller as Sister Catherine gradually becomes more aware of the manipulative behaviour and biases of other nuns who form cliques.

In such a claustrophobic atmosphere, the bullying heightens to House of Cards levels of intrigue and ‘Cloistered’ becomes an evocative and suspenseful account of life in a convent.