September Wrap-up and October Reading Plans
"Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its longsought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination."
I’m playing catch-up as I didn’t post my September wrap-up at the end of September. I enjoy reading other people’s wrap-ups (and watching them on YouTube), so before I get too far behind that I can’t catch up, here I am!
Books mentioned:
Margaret Thatcher: The Prime Ministers Series — Iain Dale
Maggie: Her Fatal Legacy — John Sergeant
The Gulag Archipelago: 50th Anniversary Abridged Edition — Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The White Guard — Mikhail Bulgakov
Dragon Haven — Robin Hobb
Villager — Tom Cox
📖 Margaret Thatcher: The Prime Ministers Series, Iain Dale, 2025
Non-fiction, Audiobook (Narr. Iain Dale)
Thatcher was the first prime minister that I remember. She was a formidable and divisive leader, and not at all popular in Scotland. Having grown up in Scotland, I did once feel a sense of guilt for admiring her in later life. Thankfully, I’m much too curmudgeonly to care about that and, instead, I’m choosing to learn more about her and the period of history in which she was in power.
I heard author Iain Dale on the TRIGGERnometry podcast, which inspired me to listen to his book. The book is aimed at younger generations, inspired by the author’s surprise at their lack of knowledge about this political and historical figure. It’s an interesting summary of Thatcher’s life and times, and it was an excellent primer that inspired me to delve deeper into her life by reading Charles Moore’s three-volume biography—I’m reading the first volume now. Dale’s book was easy to read, felt well researched and had a good flow. Dale commented on the challenge of writing a short book over a longer one, bringing to mind the quote, “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.” Whether it was Mark Twain or not is a matter of debate. In terms of his intended audience, I think Dale has hit the mark.
📖 Maggie: Her Fatal Legacy, John Sergeant, 2005
Non-fiction, Audiobook (Narr. John Sergeant)
John Sergeant was a BBC political correspondent while I was growing up. His book on Thatcher was my first book on my shiny new Audible account in 2008, when I’d just moved back to Scotland after many years overseas. I suppose it marks the beginning of my interest in recent British political history in general, and of Margaret Thatcher in particular, an interest that clearly has continued to the present day.
As a political correspondent during Thatcher’s leadership of the Conservative Party, Sergeant was well placed to record the events of the day. He does so with no small amount of self-deprecation and humour, making his book both fun and informative. I was inspired to listen to it again after finishing Iain Dale’s book, and it added some meat to the bones.
📖 The Gulag Archipelago, Abridged: 50th Anniversary Edition, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, 2023
Non-fiction, Physical (Translated by Harry Willets and Thomas P. Whitney)
This is a book that had been on my list for thirty years. A friend gave me the first volume of the unabridged edition when I went to Odesa, Ukraine, for a year as a student in 1995, and I just never got to it. I saw this edition in Waterstones and its cover drew me in. This abridged edition has a foreword by Natalia Solzhenitsyn, the author’s widow, and is abridged and introduced by Edward E. Ericson, Jr. (obituary)
What surprised me the most about this edition was just how readable it was. I knew the subject matter was going to be difficult to read of course—who doesn’t?—but I didn’t expect it to be quite so relatable.
So let the reader who expects this book to be a political exposé slam its covers shut right now.
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Solzhenitsyn endured almost unimaginable hardships, but he never lost hope. It reminds me of Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl in that regard, the idea that “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”
It’s a book that I wish more people would read, especially in today’s world of identity politics and ideology.
Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its longsought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.
p77
The camps were filled with ideological prisoners, some imprisoned for thought crimes and yet others for nothing at all. It makes me shudder when I think of today’s Non-crime Hate Incidents in the UK, of Graham Linehan’s being arrested at gunpoint for social media posts, of Lucy Connolly’s imprisonment for the same.
But the Gulag Archipelago knows no pangs of conscience! Out of one hundred natives—five are thieves, and their transgressions are no reproach in their own eyes, but a mark of valor. They dream of carrying out such feats in the future even more brazenly and cleverly. They have nothing to repent. Another five … stole on a big scale, but not from people; in our times, the only place where one can steal on a big scale is from the state, which itself squanders the people’s money without pity or sense—so what was there for such types to repent of? Maybe that they had not stolen more and divvied up-and thus remained free?
And, so far as another 85 percent of the natives were concerned—they had never committed any crimes whatever. What were they supposed to repent of? That they had thought what they thought?
p300
I could fill the screen with quotations from the book, a testament to just how much this book resonated with me. I’ll leave my review with this one:
To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good.
📖 The White Guard, Mikhail Bulgakov, 1925
Fiction, Physical Book (Translated by Roger Cockrell, 2016)
This was the subject of a read-along on my channel during October. It had been on my shelf since I was a first-year student of Russian language and literature at the University of St Andrews (about which time I’ve written a series of posts, starting with this one). Due to a quirk in the exam system at St Andrews, I’d managed to avoid reading this book, and it was a great delight that I read it for the first time in September.
It follows the Turbin family, a middle-class family in Kiev in early 1918. The October 1917 Revolution has happened in Petrograd and the civil war between the revolutionaries (Reds) and the imperial conservative monarchists (Whites) is under way. The Turbins are Whites and we follow their lives during forty-seven days in Kiev as the Germans flee the city with the ruling Hetman and leave behind a power vacuum.
Bulgakov portrays the chaos of the time beautifully in this short novel. I had a great time reading it and running the read-along on my channel in October, and I’m happy to have spent so much time studying it. The one issue that hampered my first reading of it was my lack of context. Even though I’ve read multiple books on Russia during 1917, I didn’t know much about what Ukraine was going through at the time. Some background research proved to be valuable in understanding the novel. I wrote an essay with some of the background for my read-along, which you can read here:
📖 Dragon Haven, Robin Hobb, 2010
Fiction, Audiobook (Narr. Jacquie Crago)
Long-time readers of my blog will know that I enjoy reading epic fantasy. Robin Hobb has long been a favourite author of mine, and I set a goal at the beginning of the year of reading the remaining books of the Realm of the Elderlings series. Dragon Haven is the second book in The Rain Wild Chronicles, which is part of the fourth series in the complete Realm of the Elderlings.
Dragon Haven follows the dragon keepers as they accompany the malformed young dragons up the Rain Wild River to seek the ancient Elderling city of Kelsingra. I was a little disappointed with the first book in the series, Dragon Keeper, as it was more of a young-adult romantasy than what I’ve been used to with Hobb’s other books in the Elderlings series. Not that that’s a bad thing in itself; it’s just not what I was expecting. Romantasy isn’t really my cup of tea. Still, being the completist that I am, I decided to persevere with The Rain Wild Chronicles to gain the knowledge I need to get the most out of the last trilogy in the Elderlings series. Now that my expectations were somewhat aligned with The Rain Wild Chronicles, I actually found myself rather enjoying this one. It was an enjoyable palate cleanser between reading about GULAGs and the civil war in Ukraine. It’s still not a patch on the trilogies that preceded it, but as a fantasy series goes, it was fun. Hobb’s prose is still great, so that helps to get through reading about a bunch of angsty teenagers and their sexual exploits. At the time of writing this, I’m about two hours away from completing the whole Rain Wilds series and it does pick up. Oh, and Jacquie Crago’s narration is superb. Rather annoyingly, she narrates only one of the four audiobooks and I wish she’d done the whole series.
📖 Villager, Tom Cox, 2022
Fiction, Physical Book
I’ve been following Tom Cox online since I saw a social media post of his a few years ago about the old Ladybird books I loved as a kid. I enjoy his newsletter, and I bought this novel when it was first published, just after signing up for it. It’s a rather quirky book, which is precisely what I was expecting it to be. It follows the life of the fictional village of Underhill in southwest England, possibly in Devonshire, where Cox was living at the time and may still be. I say ‘life’ deliberately, as that’s how Underhill is portrayed, as a character in history whose inhabitants and visitors live, love and leave their mark on it. I know that Cox has written as a music journalist, and that has found its way into the novel. The novel has a strong folkloric element, reminding me a little of Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence, but in Cox’s case, it would be The Light that is rising.
DNFs
📖 Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944–56, Anne Applebaum, 2012
Non-fiction, Physical Book
I enjoy Applebaum’s writing and fully intend to read Gulag very soon. This one just wasn’t covering my areas of interest. Give me Russian and the Soviet Union and I’m there. The satellite states not so much, at least for now.
📖 Looking at Women, Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary, Victoria Amelina, 2025
Non-fiction, Physical Book
This was a recommendation on Substack (as indeed was Iron Curtain). I do enjoy a war diary, having read and enjoyed Scots journalist Jen Stout’s book, Night Train to Odesa, last year. For some reason, Amelina’s book wasn’t doing it for me. Maybe it was simply down to mood, so I’ll maybe come back to it.
October Reading
Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume 1: From Grantham to the Falklands, Charles Moore
This is a long-term read that sits by my bed to be picked up during bouts of insomnia. It’s great to read a few pages in the wee hours. The edition I have is the US edition; the UK edition’s subtitle is Not for Turning, which I much prefer.
The Art of the Personal Essay, edited by Philip Lopate
A compendium of essays—another slow-read to dip into when the mood strikes
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (Translated by Rosamund Bartlett)
A slow-read hosted by Henry Eliot, read in monthly installments as it was originally serialised in the Russian Messenger publication
City of Dragons, Robin Hobb
Diary of a Madman and Other Stories, Nikolai Gogol
A Short History of Russia, Mark Galeotti
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I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Thankful to be made aware of an abridged version of The Gulag!
Good stuff, Cams! It’s funny how one book leads to another, isn’t it? Sometimes leading us away from our original path, and I look up one day and think, wait, where was I going again? Yours is the second reference to Viktor Frankl that I’ve come across today, so something’s in the air.