This week’s Bookbencher is Stewart Jackson, the Conservative MP for Peterborough. He tells us which Chilean communist poet he read recently, which children’s classic has stayed with him since childhood and which three books he would save from a burning British library.
1) Which books are at your bedside table at the moment?
All Hell Let Loose by Max Hastings, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell and Cyber War by Richard A Clarke
2) Which book would you read to children?
The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier — published in 1956. I read it as a child and never forgot it!
3) Which literary character would you most like to be?
Jack Reacher from Lee Child’s fast paced US action thrillers (soon to be played on screen by Tom Cruise)
4) Which book do you think best sums up ‘now’?
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
5) What was the last novel you read?
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – Never again!
6) Do you read poetry?
I have most recently read the wonderful poetry of Pablo Neruda — a Chilean Communist and Allende supporter! — when I visited the country last year
7) Which book would you most recommend?
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (a brilliant mix of history and fiction in its portrayal of serial killer H H Holmes at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893)
8) Given enough time, which book would you like to study deeply?
All of Robert Caro’s epic four-volume biography Years of Lyndon Johnson of the former US President
9) Which books do you plan to read next?
Dickens by Claire Tomalin and Back from the Brink by Alistair Darling
10) If the British Library were on fire and you could only save three books, which...
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