Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me and more

CHOICE OF THE WEEK

Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and I
John Sutherland
Weidenfeld & Nicolson $ 32.99

I guess it’s inevitable that any biography of Philip Larkin’s longtime lover (of the many) carries an ubiquitous air of grumpy dissatisfaction. Monica Jones and Larkin went to Oxford at the same time during the war, but did not meet until 1946, when she was teaching at the University of Leicester and he was the librarian. Sutherland, one of his students, weaves personal and other people’s stories into history – Jones emerging as a combination of liveliness, intelligence, and appealing elegance, as well as sharpness, loneliness and racism. . She was quite Larkin’s intellectual match and Sutherland suggests that he would not have become the poet he became without her, Larkin’s famous poem, Tomb of Arundel, having been written for Jones. Like a Larkin poem, with its mixture of plaintive in bed amid strange reflections of the sun, it really appeals to you.

Alexandria
Edmond Richardson
Bloomsbury $ 29.99

For many of us, Alexandria is synonymous with Egypt and Laurence Durrell. But, as Edmund Richardson points out in this rare combination of serious scholarship and utterly entertaining reading, there was a lot of Alexandria. Its eponymous ancient city was in Afghanistan, not far from Kabul. But the title notwithstanding, the subject is Charles Masson (aka James Lewis) – the East India Company deserter who roamed Afghanistan throughout the 1830s, enduring incredible misfortune, who ultimately rediscovered the place. One of those larger-than-life figures (a famous archaeologist in his day) condemned to become a footnote by dint of imperialist design, he has now found a biography worthy of his achievements. Richardson is not only knowledgeable, passionate and witty, he incorporates astute intellectual leaps.

The New Academic
Simon clew
UNSW Press $ 34.99

The term “academic writing” is generally a code for jargon, the idea being that academics are good at talking to each other but not to a larger audience. Simon Clews, former director of the Melbourne Writer’s Festival and writing speaker, has written a clear guide for academics looking to expand their readership. It’s full of great practical advice, like saying it as simply as possible (academics have always struggled with this), getting a good idea for who you’re writing for, avoiding pitfalls like deliberately shortening things and condescending your comments. readers and ways of dealing with Writer’s Block, among many other things. It is particularly useful text for those periods of publication or disappearance where academics are judged on published output, as well as the universities themselves. Witty and very knowledgeable.