‘Nobody [...] really noticed the predominance of brown, or if they did, thought it worth remarking upon. These were brown times.’

They never tell you, when you move to England, that Jonathan Coe’s books are perhaps the best introduction into the history of England of the past few decades. They should.

(The Rotters’ Club, which I just finished, is a brilliant book about growing up in 1970s England. The chapter in which Benjamin takes his sister for a walk might the best thing I’ve ever read. Why I never read any of the man’s until very recently, I don’t know. But guess who will be at the local library on Monday morning, waiting for it to open and to provide him with another book?)