The subtitle of Mark Boyle’s latest book – Tales from a Life Without Technology – gives a bare bones summary of its theme.  In the winter of 2017, he decided to unplug from the world and to live, initially for a year, without electricity and everything it powers. No telephone (mobile or other), no computer, no running water, no car. With the proceeds from a previous book, he bought a smallholding in rural Ireland and set about building a home (with hand tools only, of course) and making a new life. His motives for disconnecting changed over time but it was as much to do with savoring the world as it was about saving it.  He wanted to slow down, to connect with himself and his tiny corner of the Earth, and to push away what he had grown to see as the silly and dangerous distractions that for most of us make up more and more of the center of our lives.

Covering the four seasons of a single year, The Way Home charts Boyle’s new daily life and his reactions to it: building his home, fishing, growing vegetables, chopping wood, getting to know his neighbors. What seemed simple proved to be surprisingly complicated, less for practical reasons than for emotional ones. Abandoning phones and computers made it much harder to stay in touch with friends and family, for example.

Boyle is careful not to proselytize and accepts freely that his life choices are unlikely to appeal to many.  His tone is gentle, reflective, and nonjudgmental (though smugness occasionally creeps in), and it’s hard to conclude at the end of the book that he is anything other than a kind, sincere, and honest truth-seeker.  His reflections on what we’re doing to ourselves, our relationships, and our planet are often profound, alarming and true. We can’t all live like Mark Boyle but we ought to try. Trying might just be enough to change the world.

I spent a few days in Nairobi recently, more than thirty years after my last visit.  What I remember as a slightly sleepy backwater in the 1980s has been transformed in the intervening years into a vibrant city of more than 3 million people.  For most visitors taking vacations in Kenya, Nairobi is little more than a launching point to their safari destinations and it’s probably fair to say there isn’t much to detain them.  A quick visit to Nairobi National Park, the giraffe center, and the David Sheldrick conservation center for elephants, and they head off to the Masai Mara, the Aberdares, or wherever in search of animals in the wild.

Anyone with the time or inclination to dig a little deeper, however, will find a city of contrasts.  It’s certainly not a picturesque place.  At times it feels like a massive construction site, choked by traffic, with every road dug up and countless cranes on the skyline.  It’s also a city marked by horrible inequality.  The wealthy live in grand houses hidden behind high walls topped with razor wire, while outside the blind, disabled, and homeless weave between the cars begging for a few coins. The city’s energy is undeniable and it’s a place where the hustle is on 24 hours a day.  Nairobi’s citizens, so hospitable and warm, are quick to complain about corrupt politicians and the Chinese investors using the city as stepping-off point to the markets of East Africa. They deserve better leaders.

There are thousands of publishing brands that mean nothing to even the most dedicated book buyers.  A few, however, make that very rare breakthrough, and become associated in readers’ minds with particular qualities.  Knopf and FSG, for example, stand for me for excellence in literary fiction, to the point where I might buy one of their titles whether I know the author or not.  Among British readers, Faber & Faber has attained a similar status.  For decades it has stood as the preeminent publisher of poetry and literary fiction.  Its list is a roll call of some of the greatest writers of the 20th century: T.S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, W.H. Auden, Thom Gunn, Philip Larkin, Samuel Beckett, Kazuo Ishiguro, Philip Larkin, and many more. The founder’s grandson, Toby Faber, an accomplished author himself, has now written a wonderfully engaging and entertaining account of the company’s history.

The book strings together excerpts from letters and company memoranda, interspersed with explanations and occasionally wry commentary by the author, to tell the story of Faber & Faber from its foundation (originally as Faber & Gwyer) in 1924 to 1989. If that makes it sound dry, I can assure you it isn’t.  Founding a publishing business and running it for decades is hard and risky work, and there were several times in Faber’s history when its survival was threatened, but there was no shortage of fun and one of the enduring memories of reading this book is how committed the company’s leadership has been to publishing the best books, to staying independent, and to enjoying the ride.

There are so many gems from the F&F archive reproduced here, but I have a few favorites.  Even at a distance of more than seventy years, it’s painful to read the rejection letter sent to George Orwell by T.S. Eliot, a letter that deprived Faber not only of Animal Farm but also the chance to publish 1984. Ouch. The Faber reader’s initial assessment of the manuscript that became Lord of the Flies (“Rubbish and Dull. Pointless“.) might have been calamitous if the brilliant Charles Monteith hadn’t thought otherwise. The affectionate friendship between Geoffrey Faber and T.S. Eliot revealed in these pages is nothing short of a revelation to those of us who thought Eliot so buttoned-up as to be incapable of such displays of feeling.  His remarks at Faber’s memorial service are lovely.

F&F is fast approaching its centenary as an independent publishing company.  Anyone who knows anything about the books world will understand what’s required to reach such a milestone.  Luck, for sure.  The royalties the company continues to enjoy from the success of Cats was a piece of immense good fortune that kept Faber afloat in rough weather.  But luck alone is never enough.  Great authors and the ability to spot them and nurture them – that’s been the key to survival and occasional prosperity.  Long may it continue.

I wasn’t so naive to think that at 11:30 in the morning on a rainy Monday in June I would  be the only visitor to Van Gogh in Britain, but I certainly wasn’t prepared for a crowd so large that it was almost impossible to see the pictures.  When did looking at art become so popular? The problem has now become acute. The experience of visiting such exhibitions has become so uncomfortable and unsatisfying that organizers will have to take steps to reduce overall numbers or to spread them more evenly across a longer opening period. Unpalatable as it may be for galleries and museums, they will soon have no choice but to announce an exhibition as Sold Out, just as theatre and concert promoters have done for years.

After (partly) seeing Van Gogh in Britain, I had lunch with a friend who happens to be on the Tate’s board.  I wasn’t the first to complain to him about how it had become impossible to see works of art at these “blockbuster” exhibitions, so overcrowded had they become.  Although sympathetic, he explained that the enormous costs of mounting such exhibitions made it impossible to turn away paying customers in order to make the experience more comfortable and satisfying. Many of the obvious remedial measures are impracticable.  Galleries, dependent on the loan of pictures from other institutions around the world, are unable to hold on to items for long periods. Charging more (to reduce demand) is unfair to those on lower incomes, students and pensioners for example, and has more than a whiff of the elitism that institutions are rightly keen to avoid.  It’s a conundrum. All I can say is that unless it improves, I’m inclined to limit my gallery visits to less popular shows.  The irony wouldn’t be lost on Van Gogh, penniless and unrecognized in his lifetime.

After waiting patiently for the crowd to disperse, I finally found myself up close for the first time to a painting I had wanted to see for years, Prisoners Exercising.  And yes, that one encounter made the whole experience worthwhile.

I admit it freely.  Dublin is not my favorite city.  It’s not even one of my favorite cities. Just saying that out loud makes me feel better because Dublin is one of those places that tells you continually and none too subtly that you ought to be enjoying yourself.  Fun (with several exclamation points) is what Dublin is all about. And it’s a particular form of fun – the craic – the type of fun you have with a pint of something in front of you. Now I like a good pub as much as anyone (and there are some excellent ones in Dublin), and I agree with Benjamin Franklin that beer is God’s way of telling us he loves us, but Dublin tries too hard.  Parts of the city center, and Temple Bar in particular , with its countless watering holes and restaurants, have become nasty and squalid to the point that no self-respecting Dubliner sets foot in the place in the evening, leaving it to the stag and hen parties instead.  I have a suspicion that all my Irish literary heroes – Joyce, Beckett, Wilde, and so on – didn’t flee Dublin because of its provincialism or intellectual narrowness, but because they felt guilty they weren’t enjoying themselves enough.

Having got that out of my system, I admit there’s still much to like in Dublin.  Just don’t try looking for those things on a Bank Holiday Monday, as I did on a recent business trip.  The Chester Beatty Library? Closed.  Ulysses bookshop? Shuttered.  Every third rate pub, restaurant, and tattoo shop was open, but not one of my favorite spots.  Even Christ Church Cathedral, open but now charging visitors €7, seemed to be testing my patience. I realize these are tough times for churches, but the velvet ropes blocking access to the nave were telling the pious and the penniless alike “Keep Out.  This isn’t a place of worship, it’s a tourist attraction”.

Dublin’s leaders have worked hard to attract tourists and maybe they have been too successful because the city was crowded during my stay.  As other small cities have discovered (Amsterdam, Venice, etc.), you make a pact with the devil when you commit to encouraging mass tourism.  Much is gained but much is lost also.

Like so many pretty, picturesque places, Kinsale is infested with visitors in the summer months.  Its main attractions used to be its sailing facilities and golf courses, but in recent years it has drawn more and more foodies to its excellent restaurants. Popularity comes with problems; crowded pavements, insufficient parking, and more cafés than anyone could ever need.  Come out of season and you’ll have its charming streets, lovely harbor, and historic sites – not to mention all that wonderful food – without the crowds.  Just don’t tell anyone else.

I’ve read none of the books on which Oliver Sacks’s critical reputation rests (Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat, and so on).  In fact, until now I had read only the posthumously published collection of essays he wrote about illness and dying called Gratitude (2015).

What I remember about Gratitude are the qualities that Sacks’s readers tend to remark upon: his sensitivity, tenderness, and limitless curiosity about what it means to be human.  All are found again in Everything In Its Place.  It’s otherwise something of a hotch-potch of a collection, combining a few very personal essays about things that influenced him in his early life (libraries, museums, and so on) with some clinically-centered pieces of the kind that made him famous.  All are written beautifully.  The explicitly autobiographical pieces are especially good, but it’s an essay in the middle of the collection called The Aging Brain that captured best for me what made Sacks such a deeply engaging writer and, I assume, such a wonderful doctor. The essay is a distillation of what he learned from a lifetime of treating patients with various types of dementia.  It’s not so much the clinical conclusions that matter here.  What sticks is his unshakeable belief in the dignity to be found in every human life, including those ravaged by cruel mental illnesses.

After twenty-plus visits to Tokyo, I think I have quite a good grasp of the city’s main neighborhoods, but just like any other visitor my personal topography of Tokyo is shaped by what I do and enjoy.  For me, working in Tokyo means time in places like Nogizaka, Nihonbashi, and Aoyama. Fun means Ebisu, Hiroo, Daikanyama, and Nakameguro. The opportunity, and maybe the inclination, to explore new areas is limited, so it’s a treat when someone or something introduces me to somewhere new.

Kagurazaka is a small neighborhood within Shinjuku ward that was famous in the early 20th century for its numerous geisha houses.  It has a cultured feel today, perhaps because of the proximity of a number of university campuses and publishing houses, or maybe because it’s favored by French expatriates as a place to live.  At its heart you find a warren of narrow alleyways, inaccessible to cars, where several ryotei (traditional high-end Japanese restaurants) can be found.  It was one of these, Restaurant Kamikura, that took me to the neighborhood.  It’s an enchanting area, quieter than many in the city; a place for strolling, a coffee, and most likely an outstanding dinner.  I’m already looking forward to going back.

Martin Gayford is something of an insider in the London art world and has been talking about painting for more than two decades to the likes of Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, Frank Auerbach, and David Hockney.  (His account of sitting for his portrait by Freud – Man with a Blue Scarf – is a brilliant book). It’s difficult to think of someone better qualified to write a history of what happened in English painting in the time between the end of the Second War World and the mid-1970s. With Modernists & Mavericks, he has written a really engaging and intelligent account of that period, steering clear of both gossipy reminiscence and dry theory to produce a vivid story of what we can now see was an extraordinary flourishing of talent in London.

Gayford’s own critical preferences are clear enough.  He sees Bacon as the towering figure of the period and as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, with Freud not far behind.  He presents a strong case for this opinion and overall I think he manages to avoid the risk of making the London scene in the period feel at some points as having been all about a reaction to these two extraordinary painters. He’s sensitive to what would have been both a critical and historical distortion, presenting important painters as walk-on parts in a drama dominated by Bacon and Freud.  Nevertheless, it’s impossible to give appropriate space to everyone who flourished in London at that time, so we’ll all have to look elsewhere for a full critical appreciation of the likes of Bridget Riley or Howard Hodgkin. And only time will tell if the reputations of others will rise to challenge Gayford’s assessment.  My own hunch is that Frank Auerbach will, as time goes on, be seen as at least the equal of Bacon and Freud.  Time will tell, but in the meantime Gayford has given us a readable, even-handed, and intelligent review of a fascinating period in modern art history.

Faber Stories is a series of short works published to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Faber & Faber.  Ishiguro’s story Come Rain Or Come Shine was first published in 2009 and now appears for a wider audience as a volume within Faber Stories.  It’s a slight and intriguing tale of seventy or so pages.  Ray, an unambitious and mostly unsuccessful language teacher in his forties, comes to stay with his two university friends, Charlie and Emily.  Charlie heads to the airport for a business trip almost as soon as Ray arrives, but not before confiding that his marriage to Emily is in trouble.  Ray is enlisted to help repair the relationship by acting so much his useless self that he makes Charlie look good by comparison.  Left alone with Emily for a day or two, will Ray succeed?

The story starts in a realistic style, but as it develops a slightly dream-like, surreal, and comic atmosphere takes hold.  Even with all his confidence and skill, Ishiguro can’t quite pull this off.  It’s entertaining enough but I was left with the feeling that he didn’t quite know what to do with a promising idea.