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Recommended book of the month

October ’22

• Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing by Peter Robison
• To Live by Élisabeth Revol
• Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK by Simon Kuper
• Breaking the Social Media Prism by Chris Bail
• The Life of an MP by Jess Phillips
• The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation by Michael Matthews
• PhD by Published Work by Susan Smith
• Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre

I’ve already commented on Chums below so won’t add more. I happened upon Flying Blind as it was longlisted for the 2022 FT Business Book of the Year. Quite Ugly One Morning was the first Brookmyre book and I had a hankering for a bit of darkly humorous crime.

I enjoyed Chums by Simon Kuper and it is certainly a book for modern political times. (Though it would be relevant at any point in recent years/decades.) The Matthew Parris quote on the cover sums it up nicely:

“A searing onslaught o§n the smirking Oxford intimation that politics is all just a game. It isn’t. It matters.”

It is a brutal takedown and a damning indictment. Kuper doesn’t generally offer much hope of future change - he seems resigned, though not hopelessly, to the likelihood that the status quo will be maintained.

It’s easy to read this as a takedown of Johnson, Cameron, Gove et al. And, Kuper certainly manages to eviscerate them. It’s not pretty. More importantly, Kuper’s book is just one aspect of a wider discussion around inequalities. It is eye-opening when you breakdown the impact of Oxford and just how much it has facilitated a ruling class to grasp the reins of power. Kuper’s thesis here is that it is profound. Perhaps that won’t be maintained and this is a blip but Kuper’s book presents evidence that it is simply the way things have been done for a century at least. It is the norm.

And, although there is not much space devoted to it, a sliver of optimism is offered at the end that it could be done very differently at institutions like Oxford. (I say “like Oxford” but really Oxford is almost in a class of its own here.) It is certainly done differently at universities in other European countries. They could move to postgraduate courses only and concentrate on research and other teaching initiatives, moving away from undergraduate courses. It wouldn’t break the stranglehold of the independent sector and the domination of just a few schools on admissions but it might help.

Recommended: an eye-opening vision of the future of humanity

September ’22

• Nomad Century by Gaia Vince
• What We Owe The Future by William Macaskill
• Don’t Put Yourself on Toast by Freddy Taylor
• Comedy, Comedy, Comedy, Drama by Bob Odenkirk
• Mud, Rock, Blazes by Heather Anderson
• The Art of Rest by Claudia Hammond
• High Risk by Brian Hall

Nomad Century is the book that I keep recommending to people. On that basis alone it has to be flagged here. It might not be racist to be against immigration but it is certainly economically illiterate. She sets out that case convincingly. The book goes much further though and the vision Vince offers here is of a very different world, one where humanity finds itself pushed up into the higher latitudes by global warming. It is remarkable, almost fantastical, but it could very well be the best future on offer.

Recommended: still not persuaded about the climate emergency? Really?

August ’22

• Against Borders by Gracie Mae Bradley
• Hothouse Earth by Bill McGuire
• Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire by Kojo Koram
• The Meaning of Human Existence by EO Wilson
• The Dirty South by John Connolly
• How Not To Be A Boy by Robert Webb
• Just Ignore Him by Alan Davies
• The Nameless Ones by John Connolly
• Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit
• Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
• An Unsung Hero by Michael Smith

Phew, what to choose for August? I probably have to recommend Hothouse Earth as it is a very powerful compact book. I also read, unusually, a couple of fiction books and John Connolly is my go-to author when I want a dose of high quality crime fiction.

I also have to mention the books by the two actor-comedians in this list - Robert Webb and Alan Davies. Both are very moving and Davies’ account, in particular, is deeply affecting given a keen insight into the experience of sexual abuse. Webb leavens his challenges with humour to a far greater degree in his book. Both are recommended.

Recommended: being ‘anti-capitalist’ can be a lot of different things…

July ’22

• The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan
• Windswept & Interesting by Billy Connolly
• Good Pop, Bad Pop by Jarvis Cocker
• C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too by John Diamond
• Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
• Improvise! by Max Dickins
• How Words Get Good by Rebecca Lee
• How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century by Erik Olin Wright

I read the late Erik Olin Wright’s book last year and so this was second time around. Well worth it too. The best book in July for sure.

Recommended: should be read by anyone with any involvement, however peripheral, in child protection cases.

June ’22

• Unfree Speech by Joshua Wong
• Behind Closed Doors by Polly Curtis
• Classic Scrapes by James Acaster
• The Trespasser’s Companion by Nick Hayes
• My Fourth Time, We Drowned by Sally Hayden
• Sidesplitter by Phil Wang
• Do Not Disturb by Michela Wrong
• Internet for the People by Ben Tarnoff
• The Premonitions Bureau by Sam Knight

Some absolute corkers this month. Perhaps, interestingly, the bestseller The Premonitions Bureau might be my least favourite. It’s decent but the others are tremendous.

Recommended: a remarkable exposé of the situation in Xinjiang.

It’s never good to apologise on blogs so I won’t go there — but it has been a while since I posted. A flurry of reading lists is coming up as I get back up to date.

April ’22

• The Perfect Police State by Geoffrey Cain
• Very Bad People by Patrick Alley
• From Marathon to Ultra by Jonathan Cairns
• Stranger Faces by Namwali Serpell
• Finding Ultra by Rich Roll
• The Lost Art of Running by Shane Benzie
• Failure is an Option by Matt Whyman
• Training Essentials for Ultramarathons by Jason Koop
• Ultra Success by Anthony Rogan

No prices for guessing my interest this month. No less than 7 books about running and ultras… The other two by Cain and Alley are also highly recommended.

May ’22

• In It For The Long Run by Damian Hall
• Otherlands by Thomas Halliday
• Mental Training for Ultrarunning by Addie. J. Bracy
• Still Not Bionic: Adventures in Unremarkable Ultrarunning by Ira Rainey
• The Rise of the Ultrarunners by Adharanand Finn
• Endure by Alex Hutchinson
• Why You Should Be a Trade Unionist by Len McCluskey

George Town, Malaysia. The child on the back makes me think of the Kuleshov effect - how we interpret that facial expression is completely dependent on the context. I’m inclined to think it is happy-terror but in a different context it could be very different.

I love a good book list. (Now through 7 out of 10 of the 2022 Orwell Prize list.) I didn’t know the FT had a book prize. Here are 15 books worth a look. I’ve read Butler to the World by Oliver Bullough and have Nomad Century on pre-order - it is out in the UK on the 25th August. So, a few to go at here…

https://www.ft.com/content/f99809a6-5910-4db3-93dd-02cd7795554d