This week’s Bookbencher is Sir Peter Bottomley, MP for Worthing West. Not only does he have a magnificent eye for detail but he’s given some truly original answers. He’s managed to ignore Shakespeare, Chaucer and the Magna Carta in favour of da Vinci, and has also revealed a certain predilection for unpopular opinions and Dorothy L. Sayers.
Which books are on your bedside table at the moment?
A Bible: read in a year with daily sections of OT, NT, Psalm and Proverb
Daughter of the Desert: The
Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell by Georgina Howell
Transition in Afghanistan 2011-2014, NATO Parliamentary Studies
The Etymologicon, a circular stroll
through the hidden connections of the English language by Mark Forsyth
The Second Book of General Ignorance by
John Lloyd & John Mitchinson
Elizabethan England by G B
Harrison, No.116 Benn’s Sixpenny Library
Which book would you read to your children?
(unpublished (unfinished too)) ‘What you might be interested in after I die’ by Peter Bottomley (the children’s ages sum to 115)
Which literary character would you most like to be?
Keith Stewart, the technical journalist featured in Trustee
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in