Valerie Plame is a woman with a story to tell, but she’s only being allowed to tell part of it. Her much-anticipated book Fair Game is an intriguing read, and not just for the subject matter. Entire sections of the book are quite literally blacked out, the text beneath it lost. It’s a curious practice (but a growing one) which brings a new meaning to reading between the lines.
As Jamie Oliver learned this week, it’s not easy telling young folk what to eat. And as anxious parents deposited their darlings to universities up and down the country this last fortnight, they undoubtedly enclosed a student cookbook alongside the de rigueur kettle and toaster.
When President Bush’s post-presidency plans were revealed in Robert Draper’s Dead Certain, there was no mention of him writing a book of his own. It suggests he might follow his father by not penning a memoir of his time in office, the only former President in recent memory not to have done so. But, to avoid a gap one the bookshelves between Blair (Tony and Cherie both have books in the offing) and Clinton (Hillary and Bill have two books apiece), George W’s daughter, Jenna, has just published her first book (inspired by her work with Unicef in Latin America), and is working on a second with her mother.
The finest slither in the publishing calendar, Autumn bridges the gap between lightweight beach reads and the conveyor belt of ghostwritten celebrity bilge that threatens to ruin every Christmas. The following are all you need to sustain you until November when the first of seven Lewis Hamilton biographies will finally reveal what he’s been up to for his first 21 years.
I should have had the jambalaya. I know that now. Staring down at my rapidly congealing laksa I realise five minutes too late what I should have ordered instead. Blame the 40 item strong menu, blame the throngs of decisive people gathering behind me but don’t blame me; I’m just no good with knowing what to choose.
