Culture

‘I did not know about sympathy or sadness. They educated us from birth so that we were not capable of normal human emotions. Now that I am out, I am learning to be emotional. I feel like I am becoming human.’ You may have heard of Shin Dong-hyuk, the man who feels he is becoming human. He is the only person born in a North Korean concentration camp to have escaped to the West. He was 23 when he fled. Ten years before, he betrayed his mother and older brother’s escape plans to a camp guard in the hope of winning favour. He was pleased when they were executed, pleased that a threat to his safety had been eliminated. North Korea breeds children like Shin.

I’ve recently been going to bed with Alan Bennett. He’s a very comforting presence as I drift off to sleep, his gentle voice soothing me with tales of what he’s been up to that day, or sometimes anecdotes from his long and successful past. It’s a real treat, the last thing I hear before nodding off being his mellifluous Yorkshire tones relating a Peter Cook one-liner from 1963. I’m talking audiobooks, of course. There’s a nebulous point somewhere sleeping and wakefulness, a state where insomnia still reigns but you’re too tired actually to turn the light on and read. The solution? An audiobook. You get the hypnotic effect of a book without the hassle of reading it yourself.

The latest intellectual maverick to win the 2010 Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, Laurent Binet certainly isn't shy, especially when it comes to his literary tastes. A single paragraph in his debut — a postmodern take on Heinrich Himmler's righthand man Reinhard Heydrich — reveals his position on Camus, Desnos, Flaubert, Hasek, Kafka, Marquez, Rimbaud and Hemingway among others. Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones is summarily dismissed as 'Houellebecq does Nazism'. Binet's next book, an account of Francois Hollande's presidential campaign, is unlikely to be quite as provocative. He lets us know what's on his book shelf. He tweets @laurentbinetH 1) What are you reading at the moment?

The Observer’s William Skidelsky has taken it upon himself to list ‘The 10 best historical novels’. The usual suspects are present: War and Peace, The Leopard, I Claudius and The Blue Flower. There are a couple of surprising inclusions, too: Eliot’s Romola, for instance. And, of course, there are some glaring omissions — of which, more later. Above all, though, Skidelsky’s subjective list suggests that historical writing is fashionable. He picks Wolf Hall at number 2 — a demanding book that may prove too demanding for future readers. And he also says a word for Andrew Miller’s Costa prize winning Pure — a slight book that may prove not demanding enough for future readers. And so to the omissions.

Astrophil and Stella 1 Loving in truth, and fain my love in verse to show, That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain; I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain, Oft turning others’ leaves to see if thence would flow Some fresh and fruitful shower upon my sunburnt brain. But words came halting out, wanting inventions stay; Invention (Nature’s child) fled step-dame study’s blows: And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.

There are so many axes being ground in Tom Watson and Martin Hickman’s fascinating and explosive new book, Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain, that it should be handled with asbestos gloves and read behind protective goggles. The health warning that should be given before reading is that two of the most persistent and relentless pursuers of News International and all things Murdoch are Tom Watson and Chris Bryant, who, after contributing to the downfall of Tony Blair, became the targets of appalling intrusions into their personal lives, sometimes by illegal methods. If they hadn’t been so persistent, I doubt we would have the Leveson Inquiry and a serious debate about the feral nature of the British tabloids.

T.S. Eliot once commented that “humankind cannot bear very much reality.” Reality, Reality, Jackie Kay’s latest collection of short-stories, explores the thin line that separates art and the supposed real world. In these 15 stories, 14 of which are written in an intimate first-person voice, Kay brings the reader on a journey with the lonely and dispossessed, as they try and comprehend their own perceived reality.

I am beginning to lose my patience with the weather. I suspect I am not alone in feeling utterly dispirited by this endless onslaught of rain. We have just come out of the wettest April on record, and still the rain falls … It’s too terrible for words. Except that nothing is too terrible for words. Words do rather a good job of getting things right. So I have turned to words – to written words – to seek advice and find inspiration in the dreadful wet weather. The weather is so deeply ingrained into the English psyche that it is no real surprise to find its presence equally pronounced in English literature. From an admittedly biased and cursory survey of some of my favourite books, when rain appears it seems to be urging one of two things.

It’s a dangerous business: rereading books you loved first time round. I found myself with some time on my hands last week and so returned to The Hare With Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal’s award winning family history, told through an elaborate collection of netsuke, which he inherited from his great uncle. The book was published to fevered critical acclaim. There is evidence of this on the copy I bought last week. The inside and back covers are crammed with luminaries gushing superlatives. It is masterpiece, everyone said. I agreed with them then, but, having taken a more leisurely second read, I’m not so sure. De Waal’s book is certainly original. It is certainly captivating in parts.

Three clichés walk onto a stage and start telling bad jokes. Welcome to Love, Love, Love, the newish play by Mike Bartlett, playing at the Royal Court until 3rd June. It is 1967, on the night of the first global TV show, when the Beatles sang All You Need is Love. Still reading? Here are the characters. Henry is Jimmy Porter, but 10 years out of date. His younger brother Kenneth, a self-absorbed Oxonian, has pitched camp on his sofa for the summer. Henry is planning a date with Sandra, a tarty waif, also down from Oxford. While Henry’s out buying fish and chips, Sonia and Kenny get stoned, cop-off and vow to embark on a life of adventure. Fresh, they say. But the facts of life are little more conservative. It is 1990.

Hilary Mantel dominates the bank holiday books pages. Bring Up The Bodies, the sequel to the Booker winning Wolf Hall, will be published this Thursday, and the acclaim has already begun. Mantel has been interviewed for the Telegraph by the renowned Tudor historian Thomas Penn. They talked of history and fiction, very carefully and very slowly: Penn says that Mantel speaks in ‘perfect paragraphs’. The Telegraph also carries an extract from Bring Up The Bodies. It has the searing pace and all the subtleties that characterised Wolf Hall. Cromwell travels to see Katherine of Aragon, and the two speak of the king’s latest woman problem, in this case Anne Boleyn’s childlessness.