Summer reading speaks volumes

AS politicians head off for their summer holidays before a hotly contested election next year, many are reaching for a book to escape the daily grind of politics.

This is something to welcome. Ministers are often bogged down with media clips, cabinet submissions, cables, departmental briefs and correspondence.

Sometimes books and duties happily merge. Bob Carr says he "looted all of the available books" on his US counterpart, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, after being appointed Foreign Minister. He has read only one new book cover to cover since then: Samantha Power's A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. Power, who works in the White House, autographed Carr's copy on a recent visit.

Like many politicians, Julia Gillard read Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln this year. Gillard also read Anna Funder's All That I Am, Peter Carey's The Chemistry of Tears and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (again). Gillard plans to read Funder's Stasiland, Chris Masters' Uncommon Solider and Peter FitzSimons's Eureka.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is following Gillard's lead and reading All That I Am. Perhaps with a hopeful eye to his own future, this summer he is reading Simon Sebag Montefiore's Titans of History. He also plans to read Tom Wolfe's Back to Blood and Watkin Tench's account of early settlement at Port Jackson.

Treasurer Wayne Swan found many comparisons between Joseph Stiglitz's The Price of Inequality about the US and his own writings. After "minding the shop", as Acting Prime Minister, he plans to read Neil Young's Waging Heavy Peace and Markus Zusak's The Book Thief.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says The Book Thief is one of his favourites. Bowen describes the fourth volume in Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, The Passage of Power, as a "masterpiece". He looks forward to reading Sebastian Faulks's A Possible Life and Patrick White's The Eye of the Storm.

Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten will also be reading All That I Am and returning to two of his favourite authors: John Birmingham's After America series and FitzSimons Tobruk.

Arts Minister Simon Crean regards Gillian Mears's Foal's Bread as a "standout" book this year, alongside Favel Parrett's Past the Shallows and Jenny Hocking's Gough Whitlam: His Time. This deals with Crean's father's time as a minister. He will be reading Geoffrey Blainey's Short History of Christianity and Bill Gammage's The Biggest Estate on Earth.

Given the parliament this year, nobody could begrudge Leader of the House Anthony Albanese for escaping into Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series and singer Paul Kelly's biography How to Make Gravy.

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet's reading interests are global like his ambitions. In 2012 he read EH Gombrich's A Little History of the World. Fascinated by the World War II, Combet is reading Antony Beevor's D-Day.

On Finance Minister Penny Wong's summer reading list is David Uren's The Kingdom and the Quarry, George Megalogenis's The Australian Moment, and like others, All That I Am. Schools Minister Peter Garrett is another in the All That I Am fan club. He aims to finish John Keane's The Life and Death of Democracy and read The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley and JM Coetzee's Summertime.

Nicola Roxon also read All That I Am. A fan of Kerry Greenwood, the Attorney-General will read her next book, Unnatural Habits, and Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana.

Looking for something non-political, Mental Health Minister Mark Butler read Frank Moorhouse's Edith trilogy, tracking the fictional diplomatic career of a young woman from the 1920s to the post-war era.

Tanya Plibersek hopes that in her Christmas stocking is Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies. Currently, the Health Minster is reading FitzSimons's Eureka.

So too is shadow treasurer Joe Hockey. Perhaps hoping to divine an insight into the next election, he is reading statistician and election guru Nate Silver's book The Signal and the Noise.

Perhaps thinking about life in a future cabinet, shadow foreign minister Julie Bishop is reading Team of Rivals. Bishop's favourite read this year was Henry Kissinger's On China. Carr re-read it too.

Finally, the two men the public favour to lead their parties, Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull, have each read a stack of books this year and have more they want to finish. before the summer is out.

Turnbull has at least five books on the go at present, including John Lewis Gaddis's George F Kennan and Robert Kagan's The World America Made. He also wants to read Alex Tabarrok's Launching the Innovation Renaissance.

Rudd will be reading Gordon Campbell's Bible: The Story of the King James Version and Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. He is planning to read, ahem, Maxine McKew's Tales From The Political Trenches and Lindsay Tanner's Politics With Purpose.

If they had time for a few more books, I would suggest The Presidents Club by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, about the relationships between US presidents, David Maraniss's early biography of Barack Obama (including his Australian girlfriend) and Mr Churchill's Profession by Peter Clarke, which affirms its subject as one of the greatest orators, writers and scholars.

One of the best researched and readable Australian books this year was Billy Griffiths' The China Breakthrough, about Gough Whitlam's historic visit to China as opposition leader in July 1971.

Politicians looking for election tips should flick through How to Win an Election by Quintus Tullius Cicero (brother of Marcus Cicero, Rome's greatest orator). Jon Meacham's Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power looks promising. So does the final volume of William Manchester's Churchill biography, The Last Lion, co-written with Paul Reid after Manchester was too ill to complete it.

To my mind, the best book this year was Caro's magisterial penultimate volume on Lyndon Johnson, The Passage of Power. To understand political power, how to secure it and how it can ultimately be used for good purposes, this book is indispensible.

There is plenty to bemoan about politics: its propensity towards spin, the sordid mud-throwing, the inability of politicians to inspire or to demonstrate genuine leadership. But at least we can be pleased that many are turning to a good book this summer. After all, good readers are supposed to make good leaders.