The Monday Media Diet with Charles Cumming

Charles Cumming (CC) is a London-based novelist and screenwriter. I’d describe his books as meticulous. He’s a very sharp observer of geopolitical affairs and the hidden machinations that shape the world. We’re happy to have him share his selections this week. -Colin (CJN)

Tell us about yourself.

I’m a 53-year-old writer living in London, author of 12 spy novels including ‘The Trinity Six’ and ‘BOX88’. I also co-wrote the screenplay for the Gerard Butler action movie ‘Plane’.

Describe your media diet. 

I subscribe to about a dozen different publications including The New Yorker, The London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement and The Washington Post. Do I conscientiously read all of them cover to cover? No. I tend to look at The Times, the Daily Mail and The New York Times most mornings, The Spectator and The Week on weekends. The Economist is my blind spot: I tend to read it only when I need something from the archive for research purposes.

What’s the last great book you read?

I thought ‘Heat 2’ by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner was very cleverly done, even if it was essentially an extended treatment for the movie that we all want to see. Speaking of movies, Ed Zwick’s ‘Hits, Flops and Other Illusions’ is an unusually candid, thoughtful memoir with fascinating pen portraits of several major Hollywood stars. I’m basically a sucker for Tinseltown gossip.  

What are you reading now?

Mostly books about the siege of Sarajevo and the fall of Yugoslavia as research for ICARUS 17, the novel I’m working on. A friend recommended ‘In the Weeds: Around the World and Behind the Scenes with Anthony Bourdain’ by Tom Vitale which I’m enjoying on breaks from deadlines and childcare. Bourdain emerges as moody, confrontational and impatient, but also endlessly curious, effortlessly cool and very, very smart. He wasn’t a bad cook, either. 

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

If it’s The New Yorker, I’ll look for Anthony Lane and Adam Gopnik, geniuses both. In the LRB, John Lanchester. But in these polarised times, I’m also a great believer in reading and listening to people with whom you would naturally tend to disagree, so I’ll always see what Douglas Murray has to say for himself in The Spectator. 

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

Eric Ambler, a great English spy novelist who was at his peak in the 1930s and 40s; John le Carré described him as “the source upon which we all draw”. He typically wrote terse, atmospheric political thrillers about ordinary men – engineers, writers, scientists – who find themselves embroiled in the world of espionage. If you haven’t read ‘Journey into Fear’ or ‘A Coffin for Dimitrios’, seek them out.  

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone? 

I don’t think I use any non-famous apps. My daughter got me into BeReal, which invites you to post one picture every day showing where you are and what you’re up to. I can’t access her BeReal photographs unless I post one of my own, so my account is full of amazingly boring pictures of my desk flung into the ether purely so that I can keep up with what she’s doing. 

Plane or train?

Trains, although they’re in a dire state in the UK, overpriced and permanently delayed. Alas I’m six foot six and therefore too tall for the overnight bunkbeds on the Orient Express or the sleeper to Edinburgh. I sometimes think that I was born in the wrong era. There’s a big part of me which longs to travel to Vladivostock aboard the Trans-Siberian or to sail across the Atlantic by steamship sipping martinis in a First Class lounge. When Cary Grant settles down for lunch on the train with Eve Marie Saint in North by Northwest, he’s living my best life. 

What is one place everyone should visit? 

Can I have two? I fell in love with Senegal while researching Kennedy 35: all of the colours and chaos of Francophone West Africa with wonderful people and great food. But also Scotland. You’d be hard pressed to find a more beautiful country, particularly on the west coast north of Glasgow. Weather is a problem in both countries. Dakar in October was a sauna. Scotland has a complicated relationship with sunshine. 

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into. 

One word. Chess. I’m addicted. To give you some idea of how bad things are, I went away last week, promising my long-suffering wife that I wouldn’t play any games on my phone for the duration of our holiday. When I got back I received an alert congratulating me on reducing my screen time in the previous seven days by 46%. That tells you how long I typically spend playing five-minute blitz games against strangers in Timbuktu and Toronto. The worst of it is that I never improve. If I had been similarly obsessed with the piano and had instead spent an equivalent amount of time practising, by now I’d be able to play Rachmaninov’s 3^rd Piano Concerto. (CC)

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Charles (CC)

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