Reading List

My 2011 New Years resolution is to read, on average, at least a book a fortnight. This page will chart my reading progress as I finish each book.

A word of warning: I tend to juggle multiple books at once. I’m also counting books that I started in 2010 but haven’t finished yet. It is also unlikely that I won’t read a book a fortnight – some fortnights I won’t read anything, while others will see me read several books. I’ll try to write my thoughts on all of the books I read, but some will be relatively short, while others will be longer – some may not even have more than a sentence.

I should also warn you that my reading tastes will be fairly diverse – I don’t just read politics-themed books, but range from trashy spy novels to autobiographies and biographies, non-fiction history books and more. Be prepared for lots on politics as well though.

The list is from most recently finished to last. This is where things stand.

My 2011 Reading List

Revival

Richard Wolffe

Ron Suskind’s The Confidence Men has got all the headlines recently for its revelations about the dysfunction at the heart of Obama’s White House. But before Suskind was Richard Wolffe, who got high level access and interviews with senior White House staff for his post-health care book, Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House.

Written after the health care (Obamacare) bill was signed into law and the victory of Republican Tea Party candidate Scott Brown, Revival details the personality clashes between the Clinton old-guard and Obama campaign staff, the high level policy failures, and the inability for Obama to prosecute legislation in the Democrat controlled Congress (healthcare notwithstanding). The worst thing to come out of Wolffe’s book is the plausible portrayal of Obama as utterly unprepared to be President.

Revival was an incredibly depressing book to read. I was always of the view that Obama as President could never have lived up to the extraordinary expectations of his 2008 campaign, but what was even worse was the “business as usual” White House aides like Rahm Emanuel. For a more detailed review – including some of the really worrying quotes – you can’t go past the Washington Post’s review.

I’m worried that Obama won’t win in 2012, and I’m even more worried that if he does win, his second term will be more of the same. Revival was written in the context of the passage of health care reform – but in light of recent events, the rise of the Tea Party, the effectiveness of Republicans to demonise Obama and his failure to get out of the debt rhetoric trap, there’s not much revived.

The Third Man

By Peter Mandelson

The so-called British “Prince of Darkness” comes clean with a post-election autobiography that dishes enough dirt on most high profile New Labour figures to make it worth while.

With the political scene in Australia so depressing, I decided to pick up Peter Mandelson’s – architect of Blair’s “New Labour” – autobiography to go back to a happier time. I’ve previously read Alastair Campbell’s The Blair Years, and Johnathan Powell’s The New Machiavelli – both exceptionally intriguing insights into Blair’s premiership.

I won’t go into many details here – except to say that The Third Man really does expose (if more exposure was needed) the depth of the bitter feud between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, and the media-driven crisis response nature of Blair’s No. 10 office. Brown comes off very poorly, but so too does Blair, whose chief failing is his inability to reign in Brown.

Mandelson typically defends his two scandals that saw him twice sacked as a cabinet minister – and also defends his record as a backroom dealer and New Labour media spin-doctor. As the various reviews elsewhere also mention, Mandelson mostly ignores his personal life and his relationship with his partner Reinaldo, who scores only two mentions. Of course, we’re not reading Mandelson’s autobiography for his personal story – we want the dirt.

I found this autobiography both very easy to read, and very pertinent to Australia’s current political predicament. Many of the issues Federal Labor and Gillard are grappling with were also challenges for Blair and New Labour. Hostile, 24-7 media, personality clashes in cabinet and media-driven crisis paralysis for example. Like Powell, Mandelson does reflect on his own failures and the failures of New Labour.

For someone who doesn’t know a great deal about UK politics or contemporary history, the Mandelson, Powell, Campbell trifecta gets you right to the heart of politics from the 1990s to the recent 2010 general election.

Politics and the English Language

George Orwell

This Orwell essay has been recommended to me by several people, and I’ve been meaning to read it for some time. If you’re not familiar with this essay, Orwell deplores the parlous state of the English language and the infiltration of what Don Watson has termed “weasel words”.

Orwell argues that much of contemporary (1940s) English is designed to obscure and confuse rather than to inform. Cliches and jargon at their worst are political weapons that are used to damage democracy.

This essay is short and to the point. Sadly, it is entirely still relevant for modern (2011) English. Again, for progressives with an interest in effective communication, this Orwell essay is essential reading.

The Whites of their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History

Jill Lepore

If you’re like me and you know very little about American history, and you’re bemused by the rise of the conservative Tea Party movement in US politics, then this book is for you.

Jill Lepore is a Massachusetts professor of Revolutionary history. She too was intrigued by the rise of the Tea Party – which is so divorced from the original Boston tea party, and decided to document the rise of the conservative movement. The Whites of their Eyes is the result – an engaging exercise in contrasting contemporary perceptions of the US Revolution with the documented reality.

An interesting motif that runs through The Whites of their Eyes is the anti-intellectualism of the Tea Party, and the rejection of non-conservative interpretations of Revolutionary history. The Tea Party’s (and the Republican’s in general) depiction of the Revolution is simply factually wrong on many levels. This of course doesn’t matter – conservatives reject any other interpretation as liberal propaganda.

How We Decide

Jonah Lehrer

I found How We Decide to be remarkably interesting and engagingly written. It is basically a lay-person’s guide to the latest neuroscience and is written by author and Wired science-blogger Jonah Lehrer. I find that books about science, written by science-journalists are typically easier to read than books written by the scientists themselves. This is because the journalist is able to take the most interesting, relevant part of the many research papers and journals, and boil them down to useful, digestible tidbits. An Amazon review notes that “Despite best efforts, the book merely ends up reinforcing known and well-popularized concepts (even in popular literature) such as recency bias, cognitive dissonance, loss aversion, etc” – and no doubt if you’re a regular reader of neuroscience books, you will find nothing new here. When talking to my partner about this book, she pointed out that many of the concepts were covered in the book The Brain that Changes Itself.

Nevertheless, How We Decide is an excellent primer on the neuroscience-background to how we make decisions – and I thoroughly recommend it. I especially found it interesting in the context of organising, communications and campaigns. Much of what we consider “common sense” about decision-making is actually not based in fact – for example, that we’re always rational, or even that emotional decision-making is somehow counter to rational decision-making. Combined with Herd, Words that Work and George Orwell’s Politics of the English Language, it certainly has advanced my views on effective communications and campaigns.

Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature

Mark Earls

I bought Herd on a whim, basically because it turned the mainstream way of thinking about behaviour change on its head. Rather than focusing on individual behaviour change, it examines how mass behaviour. Mark Earls contends that humans are a herd animal – a “super social ape” that is exceptionally receptive to the behaviour of our fellows.

Having recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point, I was happy to find a book that challenged the idea that to get mass behaviour change, you simply needed to find a series of hyper-connected, influential individuals. Earls also challenges the utility of CRM (customer relationship management), arguing that the one-on-one attempts to influence is simply not as effective (or even not effective at all) compared to focusing on mass behaviour.

Like Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide, Herd also has a lot to say about psychology and human behaviour. The main letdown for this book was the lack of closure on how to practically implement the ideas presented.

Words that Work

Frank Luntz

What can infamous Republican word-smith and pollster Frank Luntz tell progressives about effective communication?

As it turns out, quite a bit. In Words that Work, Luntz reveals his magic tricks and secret messaging memos, and (for a book written before the 2008 US presidential election) makes some predictions about the future of American politics.

For progressives interested in effective communications, writing, messaging, campaigning and media management, this book should be essential reading. While Luntz and the messages he crafts are conservative, the tools he uses are not political – and in fact should be a part of the progressive arsenal. Luntz’s reputation speaks for itself. He invented the term “death tax” (to replace inheritance or estate tax) and “climate change” (to take the heat out of global warming). He was the mastermind of Newt Gingrich’s successful “Contract with America” during the Clinton years.

The key take-away for Luntz is “it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear”. This mantra is repeated time and time again – and what it means is that effective communication is about how your audience understands your message, not the precise words you say. Some words, phrases and terms can mean different things to what you intend. As Luntz says: “It’s not enough to be correct or reasonable or even brilliant.” This is something that progressive causes can still improve on.

Inside Kevin 07: The People. The Plan. The Prize.

By Christine Jackman

Most of this book is hagiography – although not of Rudd, who comes off as ruthless and largely without personality, but instead the men in charge of the campaign: Mark Arbib and Tim Gartrell, and the various pollsters and agency-men (none of the “people” are women). There is a lot to be worried about in “Inside Kevin 07″.

There is an undercurrent of New Labourism/Blairism. For example, Rudd finding his “Clause IV Moment” by expelling ETU Secretary Dean Mighell from the party. The cold removal of Beasley from the leadership, with the agency of Arbib, Swan and others, is another indicator for concern – and harks to 2010 when Rudd himself was done in.

Despite the fact that this book is mostly filled with praise for the apparatchiks, and mostly ignores the enormous efforts of the Your Rights at Work campaign, and exposes the campaign as mostly a top-down aerial campaign rather than from the grassroots, it is a very important insight into one of the most successful and important election campaigns in recent history.

The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways To Use Social Media to Drive Social Change

By Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith

The Dragonfly Effect should be on the bookshelf of every union communications officer. It is a short primer on how to use social media to achieve positive social change written by Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturers Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith.

The “effect” is based on the four “wings” of the dragon-fly – an insect that can “move in any direction when its four wings are working in concert” – “Focus”, “Grab Attention”, “Engage” and “Take Action”. I read this book recently and was inspired. It is a fantastic, simple road map for progressive organisations to effectively use social media. It also reinforced must of what I’ve been advocating for the last two years on this blog.

The Dragonfly Effect website has some great resources, and I suggest you take a look.

The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World

By Jonathan Powell

Jonathan Powell, chief of staff to Tony Blair from 1994 to 2007, has written a book of ‘lessons’ for political leaders and advisors.

Powell’s “The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World” claims to be neither a memoir of the Blair Years nor an academic treatise on Niccolo Machiavelli. Instead, he aims to “draw some lessons on leadership and the exercise of power for future practitioners, based on my experiences in Number 10.” To underscore these lessons, he draws on anecdotes from over a decade of diaries kept during his years working for Blair.

The holes in the memoirs are acknowledged up front – the Northern Ireland peace process (which he wrote about in an earlier book Great Hatred, Little Room) and the war in Iraq (he plans to write a third book to defend liberal interventionism, foreign policy and defence policy under Blair).

While not the last word of the Blair Years – it does not seek to be – it is an amazing insight into the premiership of one of the most successful British Labour prime ministers of the last 100 years. Someone who has found themself as a senior ministerial advisor or chief of staff could do worse than read this book. And for those interested in UK politics, it is an essential memoir of the Blair Years.

Made to Stick – Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

By Chip Heath and Dan Heath

This book could change the way you communicate. Although it is categorised in the “business” section of bookshops, it’s actually much broader and more useful than for just marketers and entrepreneurs. Non-profits and unions will find the lessons and stories in “Made to Stick” invaluable for their campaigns, fundraising appeals and recruitment. While many of the examples are business examples, many more come from schools, non-profits, environmental movements and governments.

Throughout the book, there were scores of times when I thought about how I could apply the lessons to my own work at the union I work for. It made me reconsider many of my pre-concieved notions and “accepted wisdom”.

For any union communications, design or campaigns professional, this book will be invaluable.

You can read my entire review of “Made to Stick” here…

Switch – How to Change Things When Change is Hard

By Chip Heath and Dan Heath

This is a great read – although it really is constitutes a “weekend book”. I thoroughly enjoyed working my way through. Possibly my only gripe is that the last section – “Shape the Path” – gets a bit trite. It is definitely the weakest section. I also get the feeling that the Heath Brothers have basically repacked a standard textbook on change management using the ideas in their previous book, Made to Stick. It is “simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional and a story” – the ingredients for making ideas unforgettable.

Switch is a book that should be read by leaders of progressive organisations. For organisations wanting to facilitate behaviour change, it is filled with great ideas and though provoking anecdotes. It’s engaging, well written, funny in parts and insightful.

You can read my entire review of “Switch” here…

Holiday Reading…

Hardball: How Politics Is Played Told By One Who Knows The Game

By Chris Matthews

Chris Matthews – a former Democratic staffer for House Majority Leader “Tip” O’Neill and speechwriter for President Carter – has written a contemporary version of The Prince. It is a handbook for staffers, aspiring candidates and ambitious “pols” which aims to give practical advice on how to “make it” in Washington. While leaders come and go, the political staffers remain – and it’s probably the ambitious staffers who will get most out of this book.

Matthews now has a MSNBC show – also called “Hardball” – and appears as a political commentator on numerous other cable shows. The book was written in 1992, but was updated to take into account the Clinton Administration.

Although he worked for the Democrats, since going to TeeVee-Land, he has been criticised by many Democrats for promoting conservative panelists and views on his show. He has said, “I’m more conservative than people think I am. … I voted for George W. in 2000.” Certainly, he expresses admiration for Republican leaders in this book, especially Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. And to read his account of how he came into the political profession, it comes across as though he is willing to work for anyone and just stumbled across the Democrats.

As a relatively short political “primer”, Hardball does a good job of revising and updating The Prince by Machiavelli (who is quoted occasionally) through the prism of US Capitol Hill politics.

Read more of my review of “Hardball”…

The 39 Steps

By John Buchan

The 39 Steps is one of the first ever thriller novels, written in 1915 and turned into numerous films including one  by Alfred Hitchcock. It focuses on an engineer, Richard Hannay who has returned to London from Rhodesia and is bored with the safe, quiet life of being middle class. Things quickly turn around when a free-lance spy called Scudder barges into his apartment asking for sanctuary from “The Black Stone” – a sinister secret society that plans on killing a European head of state and starting a Continental war. Scudder is killed and Hannay flees the murderers, vowing to expose The Black Stone and stop the war.

The 39 Steps is a very short novel – more of a novelette – but because of its brevity, the pacing is perfect and the writing is tight. Unlike the two books below – The Defector and A Darker Place – this is a genuine classic. While there are antecedents to this book in the area of thrillers and spy stories (mainly Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Poe) – this book is the first true popular “spy thriller”, elevated above the realm of “dime shockers”.

As a book written in 1915, there are a few things worth mentioning.

Firstly, there is some pretty shocking casual racism – especially anti-Semitism – on the part of supporting characters. Hannay himself doesn’t make any objectionable comments (that I can recall), but it is there right from the first few pages. To an extent, attitudes like this are – in my view – like the racism in Huck Finn, King Solomon’s Mine or other books from this time and earlier – they reflect the racist views of many people of the age.

Secondly, a lot of the dialogue and writing is quaint. For the contemporary reader, this makes it a bit strange at times to understand what characters are saying, or what the author is describing. Perhaps it’s just my antipodean vocabulary.

What is interesting to me is the various iterations of The 39 Steps in various movies. In addition to the Hitchcock version, there is also a comedy version and a BCC dramatisation. All of them are substantially different from the book and from each other – mainly through adding a love interest, and significantly contracting the time-lines. The nature of the 39 steps of the title also changes significantly from book to movies.

I thoroughly recommend this book to people who are interested in classic novels, and who want to see the dawn of the thriller/spy genre.

The Defector

By Daniel Silva

The Defector is another holiday spy thriller special – of a much higher calibre than A Darker Place – read over an evening. It focuses on an Israeli assassin called Gabriel Allon, who, in the book, was one of the Israeli assassins involved in Operation Wrath of God. Like A Darker Place, this is the latest in a long series of spy novels that have followed Allon’s exploits against the post-Soviet Russians.

The defector of the title is a former Russian KGB agent-cum-author who in the previous book was extracted from Russia to London. The novel revolves around attempts by Allon to discover the secret behind the Russian’s “re-defection” to Moscow, and the people behind it. Like Spielberg’s Munich, this book is filled with violence and murder, principally committed by the Israeli protagonists against their Russian enemies. In the wings, CIA and MI6 agents assist.

As I said, this book is far superior to A Darker Place – although perhaps this is damning it with faint praise – better written, better paced and the characters, while still mostly cardboard cut-outs, are better imagined. The author also appears to have a better – perhaps more believable – understanding of the world of espionage, especially from the perspective of the Israeli secret services.

If spy thrillers are your thing, then you could do worse.

A Darker Place

By Jack Higgins

A Darker Place is a schlock spy thriller about a Russian author and former Soviet Paratrooper who defects from “Putin’s Russia” to the UK. I read this book in a day while on holiday, so it definitely achieved its purpose of being an “airport read”.

There is little to explain about this book (hardly surprising when the author’s name is larger than the book’s title) – the entire plot, bar the “surprise” at the end, is spelled out on the back:

Disillusioned with the Putin Government, famous Russian writer and ex-paratrooper Alexander Kurbsky decides he wants to disappear into the West. However he is under no illusions about how the news will be greeted at home. He has seen too many of his countrymen die mysteriously at the hands of the thuggish Russian security services, so he makes elaborate plans with Charles Ferguson, Sean Dillon and the rest of the group known informally as the ‘Prime Minister’s private army’ for his escape and concealment.

It’s a real coup for the West… except for one thing. Kurbsky is still working for the Russians. The plan is to infiltrate British and American intelligence at the highest levels, and he has his own motivations for doing the most effective job possible. He does not care what he has to do or where he has to go… or whom he has to kill.

See? The main “twist” is outed in the blurb. There is no other major twist or surprise in the book – and the actual ending has little build up or suspense.

This is apparently the 16th “Sean Dillon” thriller – and you can tell. The author, Jack Higgins basically sleep-walks through the entire book. The repeat characters – Dillon, Ferguson, etc, are barely featured. Most of the narrative follows Kurbsky, who is not a very likeable chap – none of the characters are really. Furthermore, there is no real character development, and the action scenes are sketchy at best.

It is a pedestrian effort that definitely does not keep you on the edge of your seat, although it was entertaining enough to finish reading it.