Bookbenchers: Keith Simpson

This week’s bookbencher is Keith Simpson, the Conservative MP for Broadland. He tells us about a book which argues that the Cold War might have been avoided, and of his desire to be Tom Jones — the Fielding variety. Also, he wouldn’t save Shakespeare from the flames, because someone else would.

Which book’s on your bedside table at the moment?

Donna Leon’s novel Wilful Behaviour, which is one of her excellent ‘Commissario Guildo Brunetti’ series set in Venice and Frank Costigliola Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War. His thesis is that FDR, Churchill and Stalin all valued personal relationships and if FDR had lived, maybe the Cold War might not have occurred. Maybe.

Which book would you read to your children?

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. My dad read it to me and I can still remember being scared of Blind Pew and the Black Spot.