‘After all – there is nothing like a good book!’
To mark World Book Day, we asked each member of the Audley team to tell us about a book they’ve read that changed the way they think. Reflective of our wide range of interests and reading habits, our selection is an eclectic mix from childhood classics to heady non-fiction about the future of our species. Maybe this is the start of an Audley office bookshelf…
In Extremis by Lindsey Hilsum – Lucy Thompson
In Extremis is a biography of the great war correspondent Marie Colvin, who tragically lost her life reporting on the war in Syria in 2012. Her life is memorably chronicled by friend and colleague Lindsey Hilsum who based the book on hundreds of unpublished notes and diaries she left. It tells of her turbulent life covering the major conflicts of our time – Israel and Palestine, Chechnya, East Timor, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The book is filled with life-or-death stories about crossing rebel lines, eccentric encounters with Muammar Gaddafi and Yasser Arafat, and the horrific face of war she captured. The heart-breaking scenes of war are described alongside her double life of glamour – the days spent drinking with Allen Ginsberg, her eye patch which she studded with rhinestones for parties, and her penchant for vodka martinis. It’s a captivating and compassionately told story of her life, her boldness, bravery, and the personal risks she took for a story. However, it doesn’t shy away from her struggles. The unhappy love affairs, her loneliness, and the scars of war which often left her anxious and scared. As someone who was at one time an aspiring journalist and idolised her growing up, this tribute made a great impression on me. The book continues to raise important questions about the lengths journalists go to and the personal cost – as Colvin said herself: ‘What is bravery, what is bravado?’
The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch by Ronda and David Armitage – Rose Hall
I’m a voracious reader, many books over the years leaving a lasting impression on me, but one that’s changed the way I think, now that’s a harder ask. It may not be an obvious choice but the book that sprang to mind when asked this question was one of the first books I remember being read to me aged three or so: The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch by Ronda and David Armitage. It may not be a long read – only 32 pages, most of which are filled with wonderful illustrations – but it packs quite a punch on the life lessons front. It is the story of Mr Grinling, his wife, Mrs Grinling, and their daily battle against a marauding pack of seagulls with a lively interest in his packed lunch. Not only does the book convey the importance of perseverance, it celebrates ingenuity and encourages resilience in the face of adversity. Learning early on that nearly all obstacles can be overcome with determination and a resourceful outlook has served me well in my career to date, never more so than when grappling with the delivery of the Invictus Games. But perhaps most importantly, it taught me never to eat a mustard sandwich!
Travels with Epicurus by Daniel Klein – Michael Lockett
‘Our society worships at the fountain of youth. Each year, we try and delay the arrival of old age.’ A light and amusing read that addresses whether it is better to be forever young, or to live an authentic old age drawing on the lives of great philosophers. The book sets out to discover the secrets of aging happily. An escapist travel memoir, a drole meditation, and an optimistic guide to living well. It was given to me by a very good friend whom I occasionally meet for breakfast and who always leaves me quietly smiling and feeling better about the world. The book prescribes an approach that is the very antithesis of my own philosophy about life, but it made me think.
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert – Fiona Johnston
I have loved Elizabeth Gilbert since first watching Eat Pray Love, quickly reading the book, and then re-watching the film several times more. She impressed me with her honesty, commitment, and delicious descriptions of Italian food. As my second serving of Gilbert, Big Magic didn’t disappoint. In it, she describes ideas as ephemeral things which drift around us looking for willing humans to create them into being. After a reasonable amount of time and if the human it happens upon isn’t ready to collaborate, an idea will leave in search of a more eager host. Creative ideas are varied: a melody, a poem, a business plan; as are the possible reasons for letting them move on: too distracted, too busy, too unwell. But Gilbert focuses on the most common reason, often lurking beneath the other excuses: too scared. She explores how to welcome creativity into your life and find the courage to use it. Whether you agree with her hypothesis or not, the message is thought-provoking: notice when an idea arrives on your (figurative) doorstep and if you decide not to do anything with it, let it not be out of fear. Certainly, it is one that has stuck with me.
Journey into The Mind’s Eye by Lesley Blanch – Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton
Journey into The Mind’s Eye is autobiographical and in two parts. Part one takes place before and during the First World War. It tells of Blanch's love affair with an exotic Russian Tartar prince, a friend of her father’s. Each time he visits England he brings her a present from a stop-off on his journey along the Trans-Siberian railway from his estates beyond the Urals. With the 1917 revolution, he returns to Russia to fight for the Whites and disappears, lost somewhere in the chaos of Russian rebirth. The second part of the book is set thirty years later. Blanch has married a Frenchman, a novelist and diplomat, and has lived an extraordinarily exciting and varied life with him, but she is now alone again. Never having been able to entirely forget her Tartar prince, she resolves to find him or at least find out what happened to him. It charts her journey across Soviet Russia on the Trans-Siberian following the trail of where the presents came from. It made a huge impression on me because it screams ‘don’t live a boring life’ and, if you find yourself getting bored, move on! It’s also beautifully written.
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams – Charlotte van Grutten
I think I was read this by my mother when I was about six and had mumps. It is a story about a toy rabbit’s quest to become ‘real’. Like most six-year-olds, I had cried about plenty of things, but it’s the first time that I remember being in tears about something which was actually happy and also a bit sad. I wouldn’t have been able to articulate this at the time, but it started my understanding that amazing prose can provoke powerful and often conflicting feelings. Thinking about it now, as an adult, like most great children’s books it tackles some pretty big themes: the transformative power of love; remembering those who have helped you along the way; and to quote the Skin Horse, the notion that, ‘Real isn't how you are made… It's a thing that happens to you.’
Full Disclosure by Andrew Neil – Chris Wilkins
I picked up a copy of Neil’s book as a young man in a cheap bookstore in Cardiff. His account of his career, particularly battling the power of the Unions during the print strikes in Wapping and holding the great and the good of Thatcher’s governments to account, opened my eyes to a world far from South Wales and to the vital role politics – and political actors – play in shaping our everyday lives. It sparked an interest in politics, policymaking, and the media that took me on my own journey from South Wales to Westminster, and ultimately to the heart of Number Ten. Neil’s belief in the importance of speaking truth to power and giving the public a voice in the political process resonated with the young me, as did his own story. He was not born into politics but grew up in a lower middle-class household in Scotland, far from the corridors of power. Nevertheless, he went on to become one of the most influential political journalists in the country – helping me recognise that, with hard work and determination, anything is possible.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo – Iara Cardeira
Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives of twelve characters (mostly black women) over the course of several years. Some are directly linked to each other whereas others are family members or friends of the first few characters, all with their own stories. What makes Evaristo’s ‘experimental novel’ stand out is her use of punctuation, or should I say lack of it. She removes conventional punctuation, using line breaks instead to show the start and end of a sentence. What I really enjoyed about this book was the way in which the subject of race was approached. It talks about issues in the way you would to a close friend. The conversations between these women give the reader a fly-on-the-wall perspective as there is no overuse of sensitivity or formality revealing very honest and sometimes vulnerable opinions. The characters are a breath of fresh air as they simply are who they are – unapologetically. Through its characters, this book gives queer themes a space amongst the black community without the heavy tone of acceptance or struggle – a rare occurrence!
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr – Imogen Beecroft
I read The Shallows in snatches, between emails; WhatsAppAdmin; Tortoise long reads; and Twitter scrolling. Undoubtedly, I’d be distracted mid-sentence by a news alert I couldn’t ignore or a notification that demanded an instant response. In short, the book rarely had my full attention. This is precisely Carr’s point: born out of an Atlantic article entitled, 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?', The Shallows explores the effect of the internet on our ability to think, concentrate, and remember. Its premise is that the constant multitasking encouraged online, by a medium programmed to, ‘widely scatter our attention…insistently,' has an impact on our neurological responses. Even as adults, our brains are plastic and adapt to whatever we spend most time doing. The more time we spend digesting information in this way, the less able we are to sit down and lose ourselves in one single novel. Thankfully, I’m yet to struggle with this, but I now think of it as a discipline. Attention spans are something to be exercised, and if the solution is sitting down with a good book and no distractions, that’s fine by me. In fact, it’s probably the only workout I’m up for. Except maybe yoga, it’s good to stretch. I think. Isn’t it? Where was I?
The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy – Katie Lockett
Now whilst hardly a high brow read (recommended reading age is 5+), The Worst Witch is the book I will always be most grateful for. I struggled to read as a child but with perseverance from my mother, and an understanding that one day there would be the right book for me, it was this one that finally captured my imagination. It changed the way I felt about reading, something I previously thought was purely an academic pursuit. It opened up the world of storytelling for me and in time gave me, in a tangential way, what would eventually become my professional career by deepening my understanding that essentially all human understanding is driven by narrative (loosely known as the Narrative Paradigm). A firm favourite that will never go out of fashion, to my mind it has all the ingredients for success: an unlikely heroine in the clumsy Mildred Hubble, adventure and trepidation, the friendship that comes from shared experience, and just a touch of magic!
21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari – Harry Wynne-Williams
I read this in the summer, having previously devoured Sapiens and Homo Deus and I found it so pertinent in what it tackled and so compelling in how Harari challenges received thinking while offering alternatives. Harari revisits some themes explored in his previous books – the nature of human achievement being largely due to our ability to cooperate (Sapiens) or the coming effects of infotech and biotech on the human condition (Homo Deus) – while describing how so many political ideas, cultural norms, and aspects of identity are already becoming outmoded this century. He runs through all the virtues, ethics, and ‘isms’ so deftly with a brief chapter apiece, exposing many cherished myths we tell ourselves without dismissing our need to keep constructing such unifying stories in order to progress. It’s giddy stuff at times, as it challenges even how we define ourselves, but he promotes a liberating mindset that can face uncertainty and change while asking the right kind of questions to understand and adapt. As I stare down the barrel of 50 and wonder what lies ahead, it’s the kind of thinking I’m trying to keep to!