Nico Macdonald

Malcolm Balen: A Very English Deceit: The Secret History of the South Sea Bubble and the First Great Financial Scandal
Covers similar material to Janet Gleeson's 'The Money Makers', including John Law. Recommended by the FT.

Jenny Uglow: The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future
The English Enlightenment at its best. Is it still possible for individuals to be as inventive as Boulton et al? [Not yet published in paperback.]

Philip Roth: The Human Stain
Recommended by a friend along with 'American Pastoral'.

Michael Frayn: Towards the End of the Morning
Recommended by Toby Young in The Week.

H. Petroski: The Pencil
The discovery of graphite and creation of the pencil (by shepherds in the north of England apparently) allow people to sketch things first hand, as unlike ink graphite doesn't run when it gets wet. If this book has more such insights it has to be good.

Iain Sinclair: London Orbital: A Walk Around the M25
A book in the spirit of Patrick Keilor's 'London' film (I suspect) from the author of 'Lights Out for the Territory'

James Tertius deKay: Monitor: The Story of the Legendary Civil War Ironclad and the Man Whose Invention Changed the Course of History
The deployment of ironclad warships and the use of anaesthetics by Americans during the Civil War were early indications that the US would be a country to be reckoned with. The Monitor largely floated underwater with just the two-gun turret exposed.

Rosamund Stone Zander: The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life
Recommended by my colleague Rob Findlay. Sound like it has element of the kind of book I would like to write next.

Walter Isaacson: Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Having read Franklin's autobigraphy I am keen to find out more about his pragmatic wisdom.

Thomas Bender: The Unfinished City: New York and the Metropolitan Idea
To complement Luc Sante's engaging, if depressing, review of nineteenth century New York 'Low Life'.

SIMON: WHAT KIND OF NATION
Having visit the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC I am keen to understand what kind of Enlightenment thinker Thomas was.

Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
My attraction to Franklin is partly that he started life as a compositor, and worked for some time near where I live in London (also writing and printing one of his early pamphlets here). I am intrigued by his mode of self-reflection, though I can't relate to his strictures on self-discipline. He is a strangely conservative character considering his revolutionary role, but his pragmatism and self-confidence are inspiring. The excellent book cover was illustrated by Milton Glaser.

Luc Sante: Low Life: Drinking, Drugging, Whoring, Murder, Corruption, Vice and Miscellaneous Mayhem in Old New York
A painstakingly researched work on the underbelly of nineteenth century New York. It took the shine off my vision of New York, and the US, and beacons of the Enlightenment. But then New York wasn't, as Scorsese claims, primarily born in the streets. It was born as much in radical debate, syndicalism, and the enormous energy of working people and entrepreneurs.