The latest in a sequence of lists of recently-read books, listed in reverse chronological order.
- Byron Janis with Maria Cooper Janis [2010]: Chopin and Beyond: My Extraordinary Life in Music and the Paranormal. John Wiley/Trade Paper Press (Kindle Edition). The recent death of pianist Byron Janis [1928-2024] led me to read this autobiography. The book is well-written and very engrossing, particularly in his descriptions of his many spiritual and paranormal experiences. He discovered some previously-unknown Chopin compositions, and did so in a manner that can only adequately be described as divinely guided.
Some would view the book as showing honesty when the author recounts his many affairs, including one with the wife of his teacher Vladimir Horowitz. The book – and certainly the man – would have been better without those.
- Stuart A. Reid [2023]: The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination. Knopf. Much of this I knew, from Larry Devlin’s book. What was new to me were the machinations of Belgian governments in their former colony, before and after Zaire’s Independence.
- Michael Smith [2016]: Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews. Biteback Publishing. An inspiring story about a British spy and immigration official in pre-War Berlin, who was willing and able to facilitate the safe passage of many German Jews, both to Britain and to British Palestine. He often did so by bending the rules he was supposed to enforce, for example, accepting promises of future payment (IOUs) rather than the actual financial transfers he was required to verify existed before issuing visas for British Palestine.