As you know now, I am more than fed up about all this “wikileaks cult”
As The New York Times editor Bill Keller said:
So if you want to read more cleaver and witty stuff let me recommend you a fantastic book for these holidays.
PARTING SHOTS (Undiplomatic diplomats – the ambasadors’ letters you were never meant to see) by Matthew Parris and Andrew Bryson, Wking, London, 2010.
The book is a serious but hilarious collection of the last private dispatches by British ambassadors before quitting their posts aboard.
Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act these two brilliant journalists have been able to produce an unique and opinionated book.
A candid recollection of more interesting and better written cables than the wikileaks ones, believe me.
How I found this book?
Well, I am a fan of London’s John Sandoe Independent Bookstore.
It’s an addictive little Georgian building where, as Trisha Andres says, “the books are the furniture”
It’s my favorite bookstore in London.
Why?
Because the staff like the same books that I like!
So you enter in the store and the first thing you confront is a huge table with piles of books to browse.
Unknown books waiting for you.
They are displayed in no order, but almost all of them will attract your attention.
Don’t expect the “usual suspects” from PR-driven book reviews in the traditional media.
No.
What you will find is an amazing selection of “the best of the best” according to the staff.
As Andres writes: The selection’s impeccable too and despite its loyal client base, you somehow feel you have the bookshop all to yourself.”
This is the way that I discovered a few months ago this fabulous and entertaining book.
How to get there? Go to 10 Blacklands Terrace, SW3 2SR (Near to King’s Road and Sloane Square tube) Phone: 020 7589 9473.
Tags: Andrew Bryson, British diplomats, John Sandoe Bookstore, King's Road, London bookstores, Matthew Parris, Parting Shots, Sloan tube, Trisha Andres, WikiLeaks, Wiking, diplomatic cables