• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 437 0

sighed. This morning, one of the books had to go into his right-hand cycle pannier. This would demonstrate willing to Edgar who, Xavier felt, was beginning to question his commitment to their great project. It would also provide a picture for the Mail photographer who would be waiting to snap him on his bike this morning, as he cycled to the House of Commons. The plan, agreed with the paper’s political editor the night before over a couple of mojitos at the Pearl Bar in the Chancery Court Hotel, was to have something suitably erudite peeking out of his bag as he swept into Parliament Square. This nice image, athletic and cerebral at the same time, would be garnished with a headline like ‘Who’s a clever boy, then?’ The media beast would be fed for another few hours, and another microscopic gain in the final push for power would be duly recorded.

So which book to choose? For the umpteenth time, he scanned slowly down the heap, searching for one that vaguely attracted his interest:

Terror and Consent: The War for the Twenty-First Century, Philip Bobbitt

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini

Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq, Patrick Cockburn

Empires of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean 1521–1580, Roger Crowley

How Christian Holyrod Won London, Edward Giles and Isabelle Joiner-Jones

Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade, Bill Emmott

Xavier’s eyes glazed over. His mind evaporated. God, it was impossible! If it had been his own list, it would have been much more user-friendly. With a lot more pictures. He thought of The Big Penis Book, a recent (joke) present from his wife. Now if that had made the list, it would have got people’s attention! Some of their colleagues might even have already read it.

Munich: The 1938 Appeasement Crisis, David Faber

A Million Bullets: The Real Diary of the British Army in Afghanistan, James Fergusson

A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East, Laurence Freedman

Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World, Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart

The Rise of Christian Holyrod, Graham Quentin

The Pain and the Privilege: The Women in Lloyd George’s Life, Ffion Hague

Inside the Private Office: Memoirs of the Secretary to British Foreign Ministers, Nicholas Henderson

Good Business: Your World Needs You, Steve Hilton and Giles Gibbons

Dinner with Mugabe: The Untold Story, Heidi Holland

Politicians and Public Services: Implementing Change in a Clash of Cultures, Kate Jenkins

Carlton on Carlton, Joan Dillinger

The BPB aside, Xaxier couldn’t remember the last time he’d read a book of any description. He seriously doubted whether he’d read thirty-three books in total during his whole bloody life. His advisers had provided two-page summaries for him (two lines on each book), so that he had something to say on each, just in case he got quizzed by a journalist, but he couldn’t even rouse himself to look at that briefing.

Vote for Caesar: How the Ancient Greeks and Romans Solved the Problems of Today, Peter Jones

The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan

Five Days in London, John Lukas

Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Life in Occupied Europe, Mark Mazower

Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of Islam’s City of Tolerance, Giles Milton

1948: The First Arab Israeli War, Benny Morris

Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, E Neudstadt and Ernest R May

Britain in Africa, Tom Porteous

A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power

Descent into Chaos: How the War against Islamic Extremism Is Being Lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid

None of this stuff mattered a jot, Xavier thought. No one actually expected the books to actually be read. Putting together the list, the thought that went into it, was the thing. It had taken a panel of three of Edgar’s most senior advisers – i.e. the ones aged over