Thursday, June 8, 2017

Top ten books about Westminster politics

Terry Stiastny’s debut novel, Acts of Omission, won the Paddy Power Political Fiction Book of the Year award 2015. It was also longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel prize. Her new novel is Conflicts of Interest. Before becoming an author, Stiastny was a BBC journalist. She worked in Berlin and Brussels, covered politics in Westminster and spent many years reporting for Radio 4 news programmes. Born in Canada, she grew up in Surrey and was educated at Oxford University.

One of her ten top books about Westminster politics, as shared at the Guardian:
House of Cards by Michael Dobbs

It’s hard to remember now, but the book that became two television adaptations was prescient. Dobbs, a Conservative insider, foresaw the infighting that would come after the fall of Thatcher and then exaggerated it. Chief Whip Francis Urquhart’s utter villainy and a leavening of black humour made this story part of the landscape and the political language of our times.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue