Bookbenchers: Steve Baker, MP

Fleur Macdonald

Thursday, 29th September 2011

Welcome to the inaugural post of Bookbenchers where we ask backbench MPs what they read when they're not white paper-pushing.

Kicking things off is Steve Baker, former engineer officer in the RAF and currently MP for Wycombe – when he isn't helping run the educational charity The Cobden Centre, or skydiving.

What book's on your bedside table at the moment?
Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick

What book would you read to your children?
I don't have children but I have a photo of me reading Jesus Huerta de Soto's Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles to my godchildren.

What literary character would you most like to be?
Captain Jack Aubrey, of the Aubrey-Maturin series. I'd rather be sailing. Or skydiving.

What book do you think best sums up 'now'?
Detlev Schlichter's Paper Money Collapse: The Folly of Elastic Money and the Coming Monetary Breakdown. Unfortunately.

What was the last novel you read?
C S Lewis' Cosmic Trilogy. That the bad guys work at "NICE" seems apt.

What book would you most recommend?
Nigel Ashford's short Principles for a Free Society which Syed Kamall MEP and I handed out liberally in Egypt this summer.

Given enough time, which book would you like to study deeply?
Distributed Algorithms by Nancy A Lynch.

Which books do you plan to read next?
Matthew Sinclair's Let Them Eat Carbon, because we seem to be about to shut down civilisation to save it, and Green's Working Class Patients and the Medical Establishment.

If the British Library was on fire and you could only save three books, which ones would you take?
The collected works of Bastiat, Mises' Human Action and a King James Bible. 

Follow Steve Baker on Twitter.
 

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