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2nd December 1955: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien ( 1892 – 1973) the South African-born philologist and … More author of ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord Of The Rings’. Original Publication: Picture Post – 8464 – Professor J R R Tolkien – unpub. Original Publication: People Disc – HM0232 (Photo by Haywood Magee\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
With the holiday season approaching I wanted to put together a new set of recommendations \u2013 along three criteria \u2013 books on finance, books that help us to understand the changing world and to take readers minds off this changing world, enjoyable fiction.<\/p>\n
To start with finance and economics, Ireland is unusual internationally in terms of its budget surplus, other countries are in a much tougher place. In particular, Britain\u2019s Chancellor Rachel Reeves has had a difficult year, granted the backdrop of a high deficit and heavy debt burden. It is a difficult job, as evidenced by Reggie Maudling\u2019s letter to his successor in 1964 \u2018Sorry to leave it in such a mess, old cock\u2019. In this respect, Roy Jenkins book \u2018The Chancellors\u2019 is worth dusting off, and few other books by finance ministers are as analytical (Tim Geithner\u2019s \u2018Stress Test\u2019 and Ben Bernanke\u2019s Courage to Act\u2019 were fairly dull). However, the other book in this realm that I recommend, with Fed chief Jerome Powell under pressure from the White House, is Liaquat Ahmed\u2019s \u2018Lords of Finance\u2019.<\/p>\n
With some markets creaking nervously (bonds) and others behaving complacently (equities), it is time to re-read Roger Lowenstein\u2019s \u2018When Genius Failed\u2019 the story of the collapse of the LTCM hedge fund. I recall a seminar where David Modest, a partner in LTCM recounted, with some emotion how it came asunder. Another classic, from before the LTCM era, but that is relevant to private assets, is \u2018Barbarians at the Gate\u2019 by Bryan Burroughs and John Helyar.<\/p>\n
Then, if the summer weather is too hot, it\u2019s always good to have a few trophy books lying around, that will certainly never be read, but nonetheless confer an aura of wisdom on their owners, such as \u2018A History of Interest Rates\u2019 by Sydney Homer and Richard Sylla.<\/p>\n
Moving on to books that will help steer readers through intense geopolitical change, I want to start with the late Joe Nye\u2019s \u2018Soft Power\u2019 and \u2018Life in the American Century\u2019, which give a now nostalgic glimpse of a more internationalist America. Two pre-occupations in Washington are defence, and wealth. On the former, Alex Karp\u2019s \u2018Tech Republic\u2019 was more thoughtful than I had expected, and the two futuristic books on the defence threats that the US faces, by Admiral Jim Stavridis and Elliott Ackermann \u20182034\u2019 and \u20182054\u2019, give us a sense of how conflicts of the future will be fought, even if these books are being overtaken by events.<\/p>\n
Then, with the recent Trump budget (Big, Beautiful Bill) set to tilt the economic scales in favour of the wealthy, Evan Osnos\u2019 book \u2018The Haves and Have-Yachts\u2019 is worth a read, as are Oliver Bullough\u2019s books \u2018MoneyLand\u2019 and \u2018Butler to the World\u2019 on the topic of wealth and corruption.<\/p>\n
Universities have been in the news this year, and ironically, there are very few good books about university life. In a previous note I had recommended Tom Sharpe\u2019s \u2018Porterhouse Blue\u2019, and would add Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, Changing Places by David Lodge and for fans of university sports, the classic \u2018True Blue\u2019 by Dan Topolski.<\/p>\n
Switching continents and genre to fiction, a few works of fiction are worth reading to help shape our view of Russia (and Ukraine), most notably Vasily Grossman\u2019s \u2018Everything Flows\u2019 and Mikhail Bulgakov\u2019s \u2018White Guard, and then more generally Pushkin\u2019s Eugene Onegin (decent as an audio-book on a long journey).<\/p>\n
For well written fiction, I think William Boyd\u2019s writing is superb (his latest book is Gabriel\u2019s Moon), Shuggie McBain by Douglas Stuart is an example of very original, inventive use of English, and for those readers who can\u2019t escape finance, Lionel Shriver\u2019s \u2018The Mandibles\u2019 gives a glimpse of how it might be to live in a financially broken world. Sentimentally, I wanted to also mention Edna O\u2019Brien, who died this time last year \u2013 have a read of \u2018Country Girls\u2019.<\/p>\n
As a last word, I am taking a collection of very different books with me this summer \u2013 a friend has kindly given me a copy of Ed Luce\u2019s \u2018Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski\u2019, which I look forward to not only for colour on one of America\u2019s great strategists, but I expect for Luce\u2019s generally excellent writing.<\/p>\n
I would also like to read \u2018Kingmaker\u2019, Sonia Purnell\u2019s account of the life of Pamela Harriman, former US ambassador to Paris, amongst many other roles. In addition, in a world of \u2018deal-making\u2019 I am packing the ancient, Fran\u00e7ois de Cailli\u00e8re\u2019 \u2018L\u2019Art de n\u00e9gocier sous Louis XIV\u2019 and the \u2018Letters of JRR Tolkien\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2nd December 1955: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien ( 1892 – 1973) the South African-born philologist and … More…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-17266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}