the latest episode of the EU Confidential<\/a> \u2014 where you\u2019ll also find a complete list of our book tips.<\/p>\nKaja Kallas, the EU\u2019s High Representative, doesn\u2019t take a break from foreign policy, even in her reading choices. She recommends picking up Peter Hopkirk\u2019s The Great Game, a historical book accounting the 19th-century power struggle between the Russian and British empires in Central Asia, as well as Do Not Disturb by journalist Michela Wrong, which delves into the political landscape of Rwanda.<\/p>\n
From across the Atlantic, Kallas suggests a book called The Situation Room by George Stephanopoulos, an adviser to former U.S. president Bill Clinton and co-host of Good Morning America, and author Lisa Dickey. And for a deep dive into how modern authoritarian regimes work, she points to Anne Applebaum\u2019s Autocracy, Inc.<\/p>\n
Glenn Micallef, the EU Culture and Sport commissioner, told POLITICO he is reading I Giorni di Vetro (The Days of Glass), a book by Nicoletta Verna about the lives of two very different women set in Italy during the rise of fascism. Micallef also recommends a collection of short stories from Pierre Mejlak, an author from Malta, called What the Night Lets You Say.<\/p>\n
From Sweden, minister for EU affairs Jessica Rosencrantz recommends Human Acts from Nobel Prize winner Han Kang. The book draws from the Gwangju uprising, a series of student-led demonstrations in the 1980s against the dictatorship that were brutally suppressed.<\/p>\n
Your POLITICO Confidential host, Sarah Wheaton, recommends reading a poetry collection, There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die, from Danish author Tove Ditlevsen. As an American living in Europe and going back to the U.S. for holidays, Sarah also recommends a popular book, I\u2019m a Stranger Here Myself, by Bill Bryson, who details his readjustment to American culture after 20 years in England. <\/p>\n
If you care to read something really different, check out H is for Hawk from hawk enthusiast Helen Macdonald. A book that Sarah describes as \u201cgenre-bending\u201d is partly a nature writing story, partly a spiritual journey, and partly a biography of Arthurian novelist T. H. White that Macdonald wrote as she was trying to tame a hawk she got while dealing with grief when her father died.<\/p>\n
Dionisios Sturis, POLITICO\u2019s Confidential producer, advises reading Olga Tokarczuk\u2019s latest book, The Empusium. This time, the renowned Polish novelist has written a horror story set in a health resort in the Silesian mountains, inspired by Thomas Mann\u2019s The Magic Mountain, and told in a collective \u201cwe\u201d voice. Dionis also recommends Elizabeth Strout\u2019s Tell Me Everything, a book that combines the art of storytelling and small-town drama.<\/p>\n
Sarah Wheaton and Dionisios Sturis contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European quarter is empty, businesses are closed, and MEPs are gone \u2014 it\u2019s the perfect time to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,457,134,51205,51206],"class_list":{"0":"post-64026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-books","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-kaja-kallas","13":"tag-summer-holidays"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}