Gary Dexter

Jimmy Stewart and His Poems (1989) by Jimmy Stewart The most intriguing thing about this book is its title. Ernest Hemingway and His Novel by Ernest Hemingway would not work. Katherine Mansfield and Her Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield wouldn’t either. Poems by Jimmy Stewart would be ridiculous, as if he were pretending to be Auden. But Jimmy Stewart and His Poems by Jimmy Stewart is perfect, managing to suggest that Jimmy Stewart realises that writing poetry is a highly eccentric activity, but that he knows he’s a bit of an oddball in a loveable, self-effacing, gangling sort of a way, and so he thought he’d have a stab at it.

A Time Before Genesis (1986) by Les Dawson The rare book shown above (try getting hold of a copy) is Les Dawson’s only serious work of fiction. It provides a disturbing insight into the mind of the late comedian. Its thesis is that the earth has, for millennia, been controlled by alien forces who have had a hand in everything from the Maya to the Miners’ Strike; in its magisterial sweep the book takes in the Spanish Inquisition, the rise of Hitler, the Kennedy assassination, Glastonbury, the Second Coming, cigarettes stubbed out on the eyeballs (twice), various scenes of sexual mutilation, the projected collapse of the EEC in 1989 and the Sino-Russian war of 1992.

My Love Affair with Miami Beach (1991) by Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer, the 1978 Nobel laureate, wrote mainly on the Jewish experience in pre-war Poland, the Holocaust, Israel, and the diaspora to the USA, particularly New York, not an awful lot about Miami Beach. But Miami Beach nevertheless held a special place in his heart: it was his home for much of the latter part of his life, and was the hub of a unique population of elderly Jews in flight from the rigours of the northern US climate. My Love Affair with Miami Beach, for which Singer provided the text, is a photographic tribute to this suburb, with its art deco hotels, nursing homes, barber shops, Judaica stores and synagogues.

The Horror Horn (1974) by E.F. Benson‘Are you ready for the ultimate in sheer horror?’ asks the back cover of this 1970s paperback. ‘Here are stories from the darker reaches of the mind, stories which will cling like mould in your memory because there is something horribly real and convincing about them.’ Well, of course there is. They were written by the author of the Mapp and Lucia books, who always aimed to be horribly real and convincing. E.F. Benson was the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, a prolific author who, in between writing his classic high-camp stories of life in Tilling, knocked out a few ghost tales which were repackaged for the 1970s.

Cry Shame (1950) by Katherine Everard Cry Shame! is the torrid tale of a 13-year- old girl who leaves home to become a dancer: in her brief career she learns things she is too young to know, runs off with a man four times her age, assiduously breaks the seventh commandment, has an affair with an ‘ambisextrous’ Hollywood screen idol and ends her harlot’s progress in a seedy hotel room with sleeping pills and bourbon. ‘Definitely adult reading!’ bawled the Cincinnati Enquirer. ‘Frank and revealing!’ ululated the Dayton Daily News. What no one knew at the time was that Katherine Everard was a fresh-faced young man called Gore Vidal.

ZABIBA AND THE KING (2000) by Saddam Hussein The first of several novels by the world’s bestselling war criminal, Zabiba and the King is a clunking allegory in which the king represents Saddam, Zabiba (a beautiful maiden) represents the Iraqi people, and Zabiba’s abusive husband represents the USA. Most of the book is presented in the form of a dialogue on statecraft between Zabiba and the king, who loves her madly (as Saddam loves his people), though he never has relations with her (that might be going a little too far). One of Zabiba’s musings, which may refer to Russia (the bear), reads as follows: ‘Even an animal respects a man’s desire, if it wants to copulate with him.

The Devil’s Own Song and Other Verses (1968) by Quintin Hogg The Devil’s Own Song and Other Verses (1968)by Quintin Hogg Yes, that Quintin Hogg, Lord Hailsham of Woolsack fame. ‘Quite suddenly, during the summer of 1940, my personal and emotional situation was such that I felt an irresistible urge to write short lyrics,’ he says in the introduction. ‘I cannot explain this. I had not then, and have not now, any swollen-headed ideas about my quality as a poet ... Somewhere about 1963, whatever little rill of inspiration I had, dried up.

Answers to Cancer (1962)by William Gaddis The William Gaddis canon is limited to five novels (The Recognitions, J. R., Carpenter’s Gothic, A Frolic of his Own and Agapé Agape), now recognised to be among the most distinguished in American literature. His career got off to a bad start, though. His first novel The Recognitions (1955) was either ignored or dismissed as sub-Joycean stuff (Gaddis commented, ‘I recall a most ingenious piece in a Wisconsin quarterly some years ago in which The Recognitions’ debt to Ulysses was established in such minute detail I was doubtful of my own firm recollection of never having read Ulysses.

The Passing Show (1937)by Captain W. E. Johns The story behind this one-off by the author of the ‘Biggles’ books is probably best told by the editor of My Garden magazine in 1937, Theo A. Stephens: ‘The offices of My Garden were next door to those of Popular Flying, of which paper Captain Johns was, and still is, the editor ... I asked Captain Johns whether he had ever written about any of his gardening experiences. He replied that he had not, but was so tired of writing articles and books on flying that it would be a relief and recreation to write on gardening.

James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution (1946)by George Orwell Managerial revolution? What next? The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Polem- icists? Luckily, no.

The Exploits of Mr Saucy Squirrel (1976) by Woodrow Wyatt LORD WYATT of Weeford, Chairman of the Tote, the ‘Voice of Reason’, and the only member of the British peerage whose cigars could remain alight underwater, says in the preface to this tale, ‘Mr Saucy Squirrel has an alert and enquiring mind. That is how he discovered a hoard of gold sovereigns though he did not know what they were at the time. His curiosity prompts him to live in the style of a human being and to find out what goes on in the world. His belief that everybody is entitled to have a good time provided that they don’t hurt other people encourages him to set about having a good time himself.

Lecherous Limericks (1975) by Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov’s ambition was to have a book in every one of the major Dewey Decimal categories. This one fits in the category labelled ‘dirty poems’. It’s a collection of 100 original limericks dealing with what Asimov called ‘actions and words concerning which society pretends nonexistence — reproduction, excretion, and so on’. They are accompanied by prim exegeses on metrical structure and rhyme-scheme, which at least have the virtue of making the book a lot longer than it would otherwise have been. Perhaps surprisingly, given the possibilities of ‘young women from Venus’ and ‘old men from Uranus’, none of the limericks have extraterrestrial themes.

Trilogy(1978) by Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Brezhnev produced the standard documents for a Soviet leader: speeches, articles and Leninophiliac tracts. In 1978 he added three books of jaunty memoirs: Little Land, Rebirth and The Virgin Lands, which told of his part in the Great Patriotic War and its immediate aftermath. Sample scenes include him single-handedly repelling a Nazi attack, then leading the way across a mined potato field. Since he had spent the war as a political commissar rather than a military officer, these were not regarded by everyone at the time as exhibiting the most complete veracity.

Oriri (1940) Marie Stopes Marie Stopes, the birth control campaigner and author of Married Love, was notoriously plain-speaking (‘Never put in your vagina anything that you would not put in your mouth,’ she told the bemused, mainly male readers of The Lancet in 1938). Her sexual frankness was central to her campaigning success — but it had its origins in a notably idealised view of sex as the supreme spiritual experience, imbued with ‘holiness and divine beauty’. Nowhere is this idealism more apparent than in her unsuccessful career as a great poet.

The Big Green Book (1962) by Robert Graves The Big Green Book (1962) by Robert Graves The Big Green Book, a children’s story illustrated by Maurice Sendak (before he won fame with Where the Wild Things Are), contains some familiar Gravesian themes. Jack, an orphan, finds a big green book of magic in the attic and uses it to transform himself into a druidic-looking little old man with a knee-length beard. He then begins to torment his elders. To his uncle, he says, ‘You see these three peas? Put them in a row in the middle of your hand, and see if you can blow away the middle one without blowing away the outside ones.’ The uncle tries, but can’t. Then Jack covers up the two outside ones with his fingers and blows the central one away.

War With Honour (1940) by A. A. Milne Alan Milne rather resented being known only as the author of Winnie-the-Pooh. As he liked to point out, he had also written plays, novels and non-fiction. Among his works in the latter category was Peace with Honour (1934), which called on Britain to avoid war with Germany at all costs (Milne had first-hand experience of the first world war, having served in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment as a signals officer and seen action on the Somme, so perhaps this was understandable). But War with Honour was his thoroughgoing retraction of Peace with Honour. Piglet had spoken; now it was Eeyore’s turn.