Peter Wishart is the SNP Member of Parliament for Perth and North Perthshire, and the party’s Westminster spokesman on culture, media and sport, among other areas. He shares his own books choices with Spectator readers this weekend.
1) Which books are on your bedside table at the moment?
On my bedside table (or rather bedside ipad) just now is Skagboys by Irvine Welsh, the prequel to Trainspotting, and tributes and selected writings about Douglas Crawford, my SNP predecessor from the 70s.
2) Which book would you read to your children?
Given he is now 21, and a student, it would probably be the current condition of the bank of dad. But when he was small he, and I, loved The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr (that was one bad cat) and the tales of Katie Morag.
3) Which literary character would you most like to be?
Could only ever be James Bond, but the Sean Connery version
4) Which book do you think best sums up ‘now’?
5) What was the last novel you read?
Read lots of novels, but just finished the excellent And the Land Lay Still by James Robertson: a tour-de-force of a novel covering the last 30 years of Scottish politics.
6) Do you read poetry?
Yeah, can handle a bit poetry, mostly Scottish, and can deliver a pretty impressive Burns supper Immortal Memory.
7) Which book would you most recommend?
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Nobody I have recommended this to has been disappointed.
8) Given enough time, which book would you like to study deeply?
Would really like to get properly stuck into Alisdair Gray, particularly Lanark.
9) Which books do you plan to read next?
Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan. The First Minister and McEwan did a great double act last week at the Edinburgh book festival.
10) If the British Library were on fire and you could only save three books, which ones would you take?
It would be the Scottish Library for me and it’s a tough one. Would be A Scots Quair (trilogy I’m afraid) by Lewis Grassic Gibon. The Kilmarnock edition by Robert Burns and Waverley by Sir Walter Scott.
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