I work in London, and live outside of it. It’s as simple as that.
Some people occupy their time on the commute by playing on their phone, others listen to music, still more watch films and shows. Nobody talks.
I like to read. I like losing myself in a book and looking up with interest, and some quiet panic, as to what the next stop is and if I’ve missed mine. I like immersing myself in a different person’s thoughts, freeing myself from the train and inhabiting whatever ideas I’m reading about.
I particularly like non-fiction. I think it’s because I like to learn. I once read a book called What Colour is Your Parachute. All about changing jobs, one part asked you to pick your life’s calling: are you driven by beauty and the need to create wonderful things; are you driven by meaning and the search for it; or perhaps by wealth and its accumulation.
I’m driven by knowledge; I like to learn and to understand. There’s a quote from The History Boys which sums up my view – all knowledge works even if it doesn’t serve the slightest requirement: I like learning for the pure act of learning.
I especially enjoying seeing things from different perspectives. And seeing how they overlap and pull away from each other. I remember reading a revisionist account of Napoleon – Napoleon The Great – which painted the French Emperor as more complex and more positively progressive than he is often given credit for. Then contrasting this with a biography of Nelson and one of the Duke of Wellington. Nelson’s biography sees Napoleon in the periphery, the larger, shrouded context for his naval victories; whereas for the Duke of Wellington, Napoleon is the great enemy and painted as such. What you come to realise is that Napoleon is all of these and none of them. To read any one biography wouldn’t reveal the real him, and nor should it, but by comparing overlapping views we can come to a richer, truer, more nuanced understanding.
And I love that. One of my favourite past times is to follow a chain of references. To read the book referenced by the one in my hands. And then read the book that one references, and that one, and that one. Each reveals something new, but also connects and overlaps – and often times – contrasts with the last. By forcing yourself to see ideas and people and events from different perspectives you test your own opinions, which can only be for the better.
I particularly like books on ideas. From Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point and Blink, to Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map, to Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy/ Bad Strategy and Rutger Bregman’s Utopia for Realists. I enjoy how they widen your thinking and make you re-evaluate, or just evaluate, something you took for granted.
But often I find it difficult to find a new book to read. Once I’ve exhausted a chain of references, I struggle to find the right book for me amongst the shelves of possibilities. I wish someone would tell me how this new book will fit into a wider idea I’m interested in, or complement something I’ve read before, or simple how suitable it is as a book to read on the commute. So I thought I would write a blog about the books I read to do just that. I know there’s a whole range of book reviews available, but hopefully this one is a little different. And from it you might just find your next book for the train.