This week’s bookbencher is Gloria De Piero, the Labour MP for Ashfield. She has a soft spot for Wuthering Heights and Karl Marx’s Das Kapital.

Which book's on your bedside table at the moment?

Race of a Lifetime. I'm half way through it. It's a behind the scenes tale of the last Presidential race. It has real fly on the wall stuff on Barack and Michelle, Hillary and Bill, John and Elizabeth Edwards and John and Cindy McCain. It covers the highs and the lows of their campaigns as well as their personalities, their foibles, their strengths and the tensions between their staff. It's written by two US journos so it zips along and is really good fun to read.

Which book would you read to your children?

I don't have children. My sister in law has 2 young boys who talk about Moshi Monsters a lot. Do they do books?

Which literary character would you most like to be?

DCI Jane Tennison from Lynda La Plante's Prime Suspect. Ballsy, successful, beautiful and a bit flawed too.

Which book do you think best sums up 'now'?

A Policy Network pamphlet written by the best thinkers from the Left around the World. It contains essays which map out some solutions to the global financial crisis. There's exclusive polling in there too. It’s called 'Priorities for a New Political Economy: Memos to the Left', and even though It was published over a year ago it's still the best I've read.

What was the last novel you read?

I read a Ruth Rendell called The Bridesmaid over Christmas. The blurb said it’s probably her best book, but I think Thirteen Steps Down is much creepier and much better.
 
Which book would you most recommend?
 
You have to read Andrew Young's The Politician. No really, you have to. I couldn't put it down. Where do I start? It’s written by the trusted, long suffering aide Andrew Young who does everything for wannabe President John Edwards, and that ultimately means agreeing to take the flak for his illegitimate love child during his campaign to be the Democrat nominee. Why did Young agree to say he was the father? Why on earth did John Edwards think he could get away with it and how the hell could he betray his terminally ill wife? It doesn't just cover a massive news story, it also tracks Edward's decade long positioning as champion of the poor, though Young recalls he didn't seem to like them much. Tina Brown says it’s like a Hitchcock thriller; she's right: it's as compelling as it is disturbing.

Given enough time, which book would you like to study deeply?

Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, said to be the first feminist book. I studied her thoughts at Uni but never read the original text.

Which books do you plan to read next?

The Hacienda: How Not To Run a Club, by Peter Hook. I've just read Shaun Ryder's autobiography. He was in the Happy Mondays, a massive Manchester band in the early 90's, and last year he was runner up in I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. He went to hell and back as a pop star. To say he lived to excess is an understatement. As someone who grew up in the north of England, it gave us pride to have the best bands, the best clubs and even lead the way in fashion in the early 90's. The Hacienda was absolutely central to that. I wasn't cool enough to have actually gone there, though.

If the British Library was on fire and you could only save three books, which ones would you take?

Karl Marx's work had a huge impact on me as a teenager. The World has changed, politics has changed and I've changed, but his ideas have made such an impact on the world that I've decided to save Das Kapital which he wrote in the British Library. Ideas still matter.

DH Lawrence's Women in Love. Lawrence was born in Eastwood, which is the community I represent. God forbid the burning down of the British Library; but if the worst happens, come to Eastwood and see the copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover, his most famous and controversial book, that was used in court at the famous obscenity trial in 1960, at our DH Lawrence Birthplace museum and Heritage centre.

Wuthering Heights, in my view the greatest love story ever. My mate Lindsey and I read it on hols in Corfu straight after we'd done our A levels.

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