The former BBC Washington correspondent chooses five of his favourites. His latest book, "The Forever War: America's Unending Conflict with Itself", is out now.
Glued to the box
The first grown-up book I recall buying with my pocket money was this compilation of Clive James's TV reviews, which features a display of linguistic pyrotechnics every bit as eye-catching as the Sydney fireworks on New Year's Eve. In the land of Waugh and Greene, I joined a cohort of aspiring journalists who wanted to mimic "the kid from Kogarah". Not even James's buddy Christopher Hitchens could have pulled off a zinger likening Arnold Schwarzenegger to "a brown condom full of walnuts", or comparing the mascara and geisha-white complexion of Barbara Cartland to the corpses of two crows that had crashed into a chalk cliff.
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Wifedom
Anna Funder, 2023
"Animal Farm" was a formative influence on me as a young child, just as George Orwell was a formative influence on me as a young journalist. But the book I’d recommend is Funder's, which brings into focus the invisible life of Orwell's wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy.
The Bonfire of the Vanities
Tom Wolfe, 1987
More so even than a great American novel, I have always loved a great New York novel. Two stand out. Tom Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities" perfectly captures the energy of the Big Apple.
Let the Great World Spin
Colum McCann, 2009
This book is another masterpiece. For me, it remains the superlative 9/11 novel, even though it’s set in 1974.
President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime
Lou Cannon,1991
Owing to my fixation with American history, there's a special section on my bookshelf for Robert Caro's portraits of Lyndon Johnson. But Caro fans should also read this classic. Ronald Reagan's performative presidency helps make more sense of Donald Trump, a tycoon who in many ways personified the excesses of the Reagan era.
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