"Aftermath is one of my favourite Stones albums because it's the first record Mick and Keith wrote all the songs on, there were no covers. It was recorded at RCA studios in Los Angeles in-between dates of their American tours. It has great tracks like 'Under My Thumb', 'I Am Waiting', 'Stupid Girl', 'Lady Jane' and 'Goin' Home'. It has incredible sounds like a distorted bass, which is almost like a pre-Public Image, post-punk bass sound. Also, Brian Jones plays the marimba, harpsichord, sitar and loads of other different instruments. It's a very interesting album and one of my favourites. It sounds more like an American record than an English one. It sounds like the Stones have finally found their voice. A beautiful record with a cool cover as well."

"Jessica Mitford was part of the legendary English aristocratic Mitford family. Her sisters included the novelist Nancy, Diana, who was imprisoned with her husband Sir Oswald Mosley for being a fascist, Unity, who fell in love with Hitler, and Deborah, who became the Duchess of Devonshire. Jessica was the family communist and eloped with Esmond Romilly, Churchill's nephew, to go and fight in the Spanish Civil War. Some of the best bits of the book are her descriptions of her childhood. Their poor mother, desperate to knock some sense into her unruly girls, would make them sit down each week and write out how they would economize for a family on an income of 200 pounds a year. Every week without fail Nancy would write at the top of her paper, “199 pounds : flowers.”"

"This novella is explicitly a book about ridicule and caricature—Professor Pnin is a joke of a man on a college campus. He’s an awkward Russian émigré with bad English, false teeth, a clumsy sense of humor, a tendency to burst into tears or take offense at small slights. Everybody on campus can do an impression of him. He’s a clown. But at the core of the book is the idea that there is a Pnin who is as real as the people who ridicule him. You are invited to laugh at him, and then you are humbled and shamed by your own laughter. It’s a gorgeous, hilarious, humane book that uncovers the reality of a man’s life in sly, piecemeal fashion. I think it’s my favorite novel."