The April Reading List

 As we cruise into May, I thought it was timely to actually get around to writing the April Reading List. Astute readers will of course notice that the March Reading List appears to be lost in the ether somewhere... this is not actually through a lack of reading on my part, but rather through a lack of writing. Nonetheless, I shall endeavour to get back on track from here, and will try to present the May Reading List in a much more timely fashion. 

Anyhow, without further ado... This is possibly the most varied reading list in terms of content I've ever constructed, so I hope you enjoy it. As always, please keep firing the recommendations my way!   

Persian Fire: Tom Holland

So I actually started read this one back at the end of February, but the reading list was already pretty full and I wanted to pass over a couple of chapters again before writing it up. Anyhow, I realised last year that my knowledge of ME history was fairly weak and I jumped into a few books such as The Return of a King  by William Dalrymple (on the British interventions in Afghanistan back in 1839) but what I realised I was missing was more of a superstructure over my understanding on ancient history in the region. 

In Persian Fire, Tom Holland (who also featured in the old iteration of the reading lists with Dominion) takes an expansive look over Persian History looking back all the way to Xerxes in 480BC and outlining the massive expansion of the empire in the next 100 years of history to become one of the great empires. Carefully chronicling particular battles, Holland manages to create an in depth and engaging narrative while still covering a huge scope of history. 

I will confess, I was a bit slow getting into this, and initially worried it might be even too advanced a text for me to stick my teeth into with very limited knowledge on the subject matter, but Holland keeps it easy with nothing assumed. I'd highly recommend this as an entry level book to the period. 

Losing It: Sophia Smith Galer - Dispelling the sex myths that rule over our lives

I discovered this book while attending a meeting of the Cambridge Reproductive Rights society a couple of months ago when I went to see Sophia Smith Galer. This book is totally out of the scope of anything I've featured on a reading list before, but I felt it important to include since it helped me dispel some of the myths most common in sexual health, but also greatly enhanced my understanding of a wide range of sexual health issues for both women and men, and exposed a great many flaws within the UK's own sexual education system. 

I will not refrain from some mild mannered criticism though - this book is not an academic piece. The author is a journalist and this book really does take that attitude with stories from the individual, and I often felt like this book could use some additional academic expertise to provide further credibility. This absence doesn't necessarily take away from the book, but I feel like a collaboration for a second edition with sexual health professionals could be beneficial. Nonetheless, I highly recommend this book for everyone - it has opened my eyes to a topic I'd have probably ignored as taboo, and changed the way I think around the issue. 

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie: 

Next up we have a classic, Dale Carnegie's highly influential "How to Make Friends and Influence People". This book is a series of lessons in things we should already know - Smile more, remember people's names, treat people with kindness etc etc. 

And yet, despite the obviousness of most of the statements from Carnegie, and their now slightly aged nature having first been written 80 years ago, this is a highly relevant book today - and I think the world would be a slightly better place if everyone took a leaf out of Carnegie's book. But this is a book review and not a call to love thy neighbour... so what I will say is this book is jam packed with examples, filled with opportunities to analyse and improve yourself, and learn from one of the most influential books ever written. 

I highly recommend this, and it's my top pick of the month! 

The Great Crash: John Kenneth Galbraith

Firstly, a confession... this is probably the fifth or sixth time I've read this book through. I can hear you all cry... why?! The simple reason is this, in my opinion, is the best book for tempering one's own bullishness by recognising the madness of the people around you. Galbraith expertly and eloquently takes us through the madness of the 1929 stock market crash in an epic tale of stock delusion and despair. 

What I particularly love about this book, is the ongoing wit of the author with his dry writing style gently mocking the excesses of the period, while still conveying the seriousness of the catastrophe. Galbraith is such an entertaining author too since he does not withhold criticism - there are infinite texts of a more academic nature (read... "on the one hand this..." find me an economist with one hand!) - and he has an opinion. Of traditional theories posited at the time of the crash he has no hesitation to throw them out - such as Britain asking for lower US rates to prop up the £ not being the sole cause of the speculation. 

Likewise, he does not absolve the people involved in the speculation of blame - pointing to the unique American propensity to feel destined for a get rich quick scheme - backed up by multiple examples including the 1925 Florida land price boom. This book is a masterpiece, digested down into a mere 200 pages, you can quite happily sit down and read it this weekend - in fact, when you're tired of watching rolling news and seeing the crown hitting the new king's head for the hundredth time on the bank holiday, I highly recommend you sit down and read this instead. It's always a good idea to keep one's own bullishness in check, and the best way to do that is to psychoanalyse yourself while reading about the delusions of others. 

That turned out to be longer than I'd expected, but I hope you enjoyed this month's edition, and do keep those recommendations flying in.