Kindling by the pool – the changing face of holiday reading

I’m writing this by the pool in Greece. It’s not a pool I own, you understand (though give it a couple of years and we might all be able to afford one). No, it’s the pool in the resort to which my partner and I have repaired for a week, safe in the knowledge that our son can be deposited in the excellent childcare facilities every afternoon, trapping him until such time as we deign to return and collect him. (You have to give a pre-arranged password to prove you’re the parent, by the way – one couple chose the place in which said child had been conceived. I con you not.) Afternoons by the pool are meant for reading, and in the presence of the sun and the absence of the son I’ve been motoring. Young Adolf by Beryl Bainbridge fell within hours. David Frost’s account of his Richard Nixon interviews fared little better, and included confirmation that the ex-President’s small talk before one taping session really did include the line ‘did you do any fornicating this weekend?’ Mark Miodownik’s Stuff Matters, meanwhile, an examination of why different materials behave the way they do, is now my tip in the soon-to-be-published stakes.