July 2022 Reading List
Hey friends,
I’ve been in radio silence for the past two weeks as I’ve been travelling in the Netherlands visiting friends and watching a bike race. While I intended to send this reading list out before I left, and keep up posts while I was on the road, I was unable to find the time to do either.
Now that I’m back home for the next few months at least, I can send out the normal Monday emails again and my reading lists, I also have a few articles I’m working on that should be published in the next month if all goes well.
Anyway, better late than never, here’s what I read during the month of July.
The Future of War - I was expecting the bulk of this book to be about the future when I bought it. Turns out that only some of it look ahead, while the majority of the book looks back to the previous 100 to 200 years of war. While the title is somewhat misleading, this is still interesting reading. The author, Lawrence Freedman, knows his stuff and expertly guides you through phases of war and how they relate to today’s world and the future. If you’re interested in how future wars may play out, and even how the conflict in Ukraine might develop, The Future of War is worth reading.
All In It Together - A fascinating account of England in the 21st century. It’s a bit weird reading a history book about a period you lived through and one that was during your teenage years. There are lots of things in here I remember while there are many more I had forgotten or completely missed too. I appreciate all of you don’t live in England or are English, but if you want to learn more about the country and what makes the people there tick, this book is a good place to start.
Poverty Safari - Darren McGarvey is an interesting writer and his book about poverty is powerful. Its power comes from McGarvey’s own experiences of poverty growing up and living in Glasgow. McGarvey takes us through the reasons for poverty, how organisations can often hinder attempts to alleviate it and the various ways that being poor affects your mental and physical health. Some of the suggestions in this book about how to improve the plight of those in poverty surprised me and made me reconsider some of my own beliefs. Poverty Safari is a fantastic book and one that raises as many questions as it answers.
Zero Zero Zero - Roberto Saviano is an excellent writer and he’s one of the few authors whose books I will read no matter what the subject is. This book looks at the global cocaine trade and it’s just as shocking, and even more so in some ways, than his most famous work, Gomorrah. The quantity of cocaine that is shipped and traded around the globe is insane. This is a billion, probably trillion, dollar industry that crisscrosses the world and avoids taxation all along the way. If just 1% of this trade was taxed, the amount raised would go a long way to improving the issues many countries face. I’m an advocate of liberalising drug laws, and though I’m still on the fence about cocaine, the picture painted by Saviano here pushed me more and more towards jumping off the fence in favour of legalisation and state regulation.
I hope you get around to reading a few of these selections. Whether you read them in the next month or year, I’m not bothered. The idea of my reading lists is to encourage you, the reader, to read more.
If more of us read, and read books outside of our comfort zone, the world would be a better place. You don’t know what you don’t know. Reading is one of the best ways to fill in those gaps in your knowledge.
If you have any comments about the books, maybe you’ve read one before. Or if you have some recommendations for me, I’m all ears. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Until next time,
Tom