John Lanchester

Journalist and author John Lanchester takes time out of his busy writing schedule to reveal the three books that currently have his post-work and pre-bed attention...(during working hours, his attention is of course squarely on his own recently-published and quite indispensable guide to the current financial crisis, Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No-one Can Pay.)

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
John Lanchester admits to being a fan of detective fiction, and rates Kate Atkinson as “a wonderful writer of what people call literary fiction...One Good Turn is the second novel about [private eye Jackson Brodie]...and they’re just exceptionally real, rich, satisfying and, to use a cliché, they are un-put-down-able – once you start you are going to finish.”
It is summer, it is the Edinburgh Festival. People queuing for a lunchtime show witness a road-rage incident - an incident which changes the lives of everyone involved. Jackson Brodie, ex-army, ex-police, ex-private detective, is also an innocent bystander - until he becomes a suspect. In One Good Turn, Kate Atkinson’s masterful plotting is revealed: Like a set of Russian dolls, each thread of the narrative reveals itself to be related to the last. Her Dickensian cast of characters are all looking for love or money and find it in surprising places. As ever with Atkinson what each one actually discovers is their true self. Unputdownable and triumphant, One Good Turn is a sharply intelligent read that is also percipient, funny, and totally satisfying.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy
Lanchester also loves the new translations by married couple, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky: “They are working their way through the canon of great 19th century Russian fiction, producing these wonderfully fresh, paint fresh, new versions of the classic novels.”
On learning of Ivan Ilyich’s sudden demise and death, his former colleagues begin vying for promotion; it seems neither in life nor in death has Ivan Ilyich made any lasting impression. And, as Tolstoy takes us back to Ivan Ilyich’s early days, it is a life of futility, of emptiness and primarily of spiritual barrenness that is revealed. Yet Tolstoy also reveals how, in the face of serious illness, Ivan Ilyich had made a final resolute gesture to come to terms with his mortality.

Too Big to Fail: Inside the Battle to save Wall Street by Andrew Ross Sorkin
Lanchester describes his third current bedtime book as “the most amazing feat of reporting”. New York Times journalist Sorkin’s account of the fallout from the failure of Lehman Brothers in 2008 is detailed and immediate:  “I don't know how he’s done it. He’s got everybody who was in the room to describe what they were thinking and feeling and doing and it’s vivid, it’s funny, people swearing and cursing and losing their rags at regular intervals.”
Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami. From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea, Russia and the corridors of Washington, Too Big to Fail is the definitive story of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego, greed, and, ultimately, the fate of the world's economy. "We've got to get some foam down on the runway!" a sleepless Timothy Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve of New York would tell Henry M.Paulson, the Treasury Secretary about the catastrophic crash of the world's financial system would experience. Through unprecedented access to the players involved, Too Big to Fail recreates all the drama and turmoil, revealing never-disclosed details and elucidating how decisions made on Wall Street over the past decade sowed the seeds of the debacle. This true story is not just a look at banks that were "too big to fail", it is a real-life thriller about a cast of bold-faced names who themselves thought they were "too big to fail".