The February Reading List:
I'm pleased to present the February Reading List! This month I've read on Politics, Geopolitics, Art, and Finance. My favourite of the month was definitely the financial thriller Wealth, War and Wisdom, but there's a wide range for all tastes this month.
As always, please do submit your recommendations, comments, and questions - the recommendation list is already quite long, but I promise I will get to them eventually!
Anyhow, let's jump in!
Out of the Blue - Harry Cole and James Heale: A Liz Truss Must Read
The subtitle of this book is... "the inside story of the unexpected rise and rapid fall of Liz Truss", I personally think a snappier subtitle like "Liz Truss... 44 days" would have been better, but there we go. The good news is, the book is short and sharp, I mean what's there to say about a leader who was only in power a few weeks?
The book naturally devotes significant time to writing about the rise of Liz Truss (given her fall was so swift) and it is interesting to see how she actually potentially had the makings to become, at the very least, an adequate PM with a long history in key government offices. The ending, on the other hand, is covered fairly rapidly in the book - but I am sure the endless analyses of the decline and fall of Truss will be published extensively by later authors.
I'd highly recommend this book, it's short, snappy and a good read. Later biographies are sure to follow but frankly this does the job for anyone not particularly interested in investing huge time in the shortest time serving PM in history.
Prisoners of Geography - Tim Marshall: Geopolitical Must Read
Regular readers will recall my reading of the
Power of Geography last month and this month I decided to read the original. It is effectively the same style of book but it covers a different range of regions.
My personal favourite in this installation covered Africa (a broad scope of topic for a single chapter), but it raised a number of reasons and explanations as to why some African countries have failed to develop. Primarily, the author argues, this is down to an ignorance by European / Western leaders in the formation of borders - i.e. colonialists drew lines on maps to define country borders, and when these colonialists left there was no power left to enforce them. Thus you have complex relationships whereby leaders try to lead a nation which has no intrinsic tie together other than the drawing of an historical line.
Again, I'd highly recommend - it's easy reading (I read this one from a sun lounger on a Dubai beachfront) and very enjoyable and informative. If I had to criticise, I'd say the same as about Power of Geography - there are gross oversimplifications and I would also say the author (in fairness, in ignorance at the time) is too sympathetic to Russia, but it still deserves the same title of Geopolitical Must Read.
Winslow Homer - Force of Nature: Christopher Riopelle
I ummed and ahhed about including this in the reading list, given that it is effectively a picture book, but decided to based on how much the gallery has stuck with me. A couple of weeks ago, I went to visit the Winslow Homer exhibition at the national gallery, and a number of the images (particularly the cover image in this) were significantly moving.
Given this American artist is relatively unknown in the West, I thought to include in this month's list. Winslow Homer was an American Artist who covered a huge range of material from the US Civil War to people less sea scenes. Often his paintings had a greater moral message which cuts cleanly across from the artwork and yet does not distract from the art as a quality piece.
Unfortunately, the exhibition has now ended, but should you get the opportunity to see this great artist anywhere else, I recommend you take it.
This is my finance must read for the month by Barton Biggs. Effectively the book is an analysis of what can preserve financial wealth in times of extreme stress. Biggs focuses primarily on the Second World War as a case study of the perceptive ability of the market but also the assets which maintained value.
It is primarily a guide for equities but does also cover a range of other asset classes. The most interesting takeaway I had from the book was that financial markets are often, on aggregate, relatively good at gauging the significant of relevant major events. For example, Biggs takes bottom of the UK Index as an example - which was just before the beginning of the Battle of Britain - i.e. markets perceived in advance that this was not going to necessarily be a whitewash for Hitler. Likewise, the German market peaked when the German advanced forces were in sight of the spires of Moscow - i.e. they anticipated a reversal of German fortunes at the point of their most advancement.
Extrapolating this to today, I thought it interesting how in the aftermath of Brexit, the pound collapsed, but regained significant value in the years ahead. Only now that everything is finished and has come out in the wash, do we find the pound at basically the levels we hit in the immediate aftermath of the referendum - i.e. the market correctly anticipated the overall implications of the referendum 6 years in advance.
This is a must read for my finance fellows - the message is the market must be listened to at key events, and ignore it at your peril.
That's it for this week - have a wonderful month, and I'll be back in March with more reading recommendations.
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