5 August
Up this morning betimes, as Pepys puts it, and at eight o’clock, Honor [Guinness, Channon’s wife], Harold Balfour and I took off for Berlin.
6 August
In a grand car with a Storm Trooper at the wheel, we whizzed off to the Olympic Stadium… after an hour or so of watching boring sports there was some commotion, and we were told that perhaps Hitler might be coming.
Suddenly the crowd [was] shouting and bellowed ‘Heil’ at a large, gay, rotund figure dressed in a white uniform that appeared.
It was the famous, fantastic Göring. He waved a greeting and sat down in the front of the official box. Presently the crowds roared again, and the amplifiers called out ‘We want our Hermann.’ Göring smiled, rose and bowed and sat down again, as we did and the games proceeded.
Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka (Bloomsbury)
The Nobel laureate’s first novel in almost 50 years promises “murder, mayhem and no shortage of drama” in contemporary Nigeria.
The Thursday Murder Club 2 by Richard Osman (Viking)
Last year the
Pointless co-host’s cosy crime debut set in a retirement home broke sales records; here comes the sequel.
Waters of Salvation by Richard Coles (W&N)
A new crime series from everyone’s favourite vicar begins as a proposal to refurbish a village church ends in murder; Canon Daniel Clement must investigate.
Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout (Viking)