Political memoir tops MPs' reading list

Published on Sunday 2 August 2009 22:46

MPS heading for the beaches on holiday over the next few weeks do not appear to want to get too far away from Westminster, according to a survey of their reading plans for the summer.

Top of the list for Labour and Conservative parliamentarians is A View From the Foothills by Sunderland South MP Chris Mullin. It is a much-praised memoir of his experiences as a back-bencher and junior minister in Tony Blair's administration.

Several MPs say they will bone up on the economic crisis dominating Britain's politics, with poolside reading including The Storm by Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable, False Economy: A Surprising Economic History Of The World by Allan Beattie, and The Ascent Of Money by Niall Fergusson. But others seem to be preparing for more time off in the years to come.

One MP is taking a guide to colloquial Spanish and others are reading Teach Yourself Polish and Teach Yourself Italian.

The second most popular choice among MPs of both parties was Antony Beevor's history D-Day: The Battle for Normandy.

Third place in the survey conducted by booksellers Waterstone's went to the top novel for MPs this year, Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Hilary Mantel's Booker-longlisted Wolf Hall – a novel of political intrigue in the court of Henry VIII – is the MPs' fourth choice.

Other books chosen by MPs this year include biographies of US president Abraham Lincoln, cricketer Harold Larwood, Ghandi, comedian Dawn French, crime fiction by Ian Rankin, Reginald Hill and Lee Child, and literary fiction by Ian McEwan and Aravind Adiga.

The MP Summer Reading research was carried out on behalf of Waterstone's by ComRes between 29 June and 24 July.

WORDS AT WESTMINSTER

Top reads in the House of Commons:

1. A View from the Foothills, by Chris Mullin

2. D-Day: the Battle for Normandy, by Antony Beevor

3. The Girl Who Played With Fire, by Stieg Larsson

4. Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

5. A Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Labour's top reads:

1. A View from the Foothills, by Chris Mullin

2. D-Day: the Battle for Normandy, by Antony Beevor

3. The Girl Who Played With Fire, by Stieg Larsson

Conservatives' top reads:

1. A View from the Foothills, by Chris Mullin

2. Operation Snake Bite, by Stephen Grey

3. The Resistance: the French Fight Against the Nazis, by Matthew Cobb