The complex life of Mark Twain, a writer dubbed “the Father of American Literature”, is told expertly in Pulitzer winner Ron Chernow’s comprehensive 1,100-word biography Mark Twain (Allen Lane). In the years preceding Twain’s death in 1910, at the age of 74, it becomes a deeply sorry tale indeed. The author of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a heavy drinker, plagued by bronchial coughs and itchy piles. He lambasted “the bastard human race” and dismissed his fellow citizens as “just tubs of rotten offal”. Chernow offers a balanced, insightful view of the whole Twain package and does not gloss over the celebrated author’s “college-girl habits”, Twain’s own phrase for the way he groomed young girls he creepily called his “angel fish”.
Two lighter reads, particularly for those with a taste for quirky travel books, are Ben Aitken’s witty Shitty Breaks: A Celebration of Unsung Cities (Icon Books), and Nigel Tassell’s charming Final Destination: Riding Britain’s Trains to the End of the Line (Mudlark), which offers a guide to 16 journeys (spanning from Wick in upper Scotland to Penzance in Cornwall). The accounts will make any fan of railways want to experience these delights for themselves.
