FLOAT, FLOAT ON… Here’s a slightly odd one, but something I find very useful when I’ve had a hard week, or I’ve got bogged down in the usual. Go shut yourself in a flotation tank in Southwark. You can spend an hour in complete silence and darkness, floating in water at 37°, with a solution …more

A MOSQUE IN MUNICH: NAZIS, THE CIA, AND THE RISE OF THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IN THE WEST Ian Johnson Houghton Mifflin, £18.99 list, or £14.95 on Amazon Or, the unexpected consequences of partnering with your enemies’ enemies. Johnson, a Wall Street Journal reporter tells a rattling tale of how elite units of Muslim thinkers and …more

HOW TO DO BETTER CREATIVE WORK Steve Harrison Prentice Hall, £14.99 or £8.58 on Amazon Hands-on advice with a pleasingly bullshit-free tone. Veers between the somewhat obvious and the genuinely thought provoking (thankfully more the latter). Although somewhat biased towards agency heads/account people/the DM fraternity there’s more then enough writerly advice to make reading it …more

A SHORT RESIDENCE IN SWEDEN & MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN Mary Wollstonecraft & William Godwin Penguin £ 11.99 list, or £8.39 on Amazon This wonderfully schizophrenic book (introduced and edited by Richard Holmes) features two deeply connected but very different works. A Short Residence in Sweden contains 25 letters Mary …more

FROM THE HOLY MOUNTAIN William Dalrymple Flamingo, £9.99 or £6.90 on Amazon This rich account of a quietly remarkable perambulation sees Dalrymple retrace the steps of two sixth century pilgrims – John Moschos and Sophronius the Sophist. Their pursuit of Christian wisdom took them from the Bosphorus across modern-day Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Israel to …more

A MAN ON THE MOON: THE VOYAGES OF THE APOLLO ASTRONAUTS Andrew Chaikin Penguin, £10.99 list, or £7.66 on Amazon Sure, we know the story. And sure, it’s just all nostalgia now, 40 years on. But whatever angle you look at the whole enterprise from: a heroic extending of man’s capabilities, a tragic waste of …more

WUTHERING HEIGHTS Emily Bronte Penguin, £6.99 or £4.21 on Amazon This may seem like a ridiculous recommendation, but what the hell, indulge me, it’s Christmas, for I’m giving a maniacal recommendation for Wuthering Heights.  Having just re-read it to support our 18 year-old’s A levels, I’m chastened by the reminder of how supremely transcendent the …more

2666 & GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Robert Bolano & Stieg Larsson Quercus, £3.95 & Picador, £4.92, both on Amazon I’ve been much occupied by two books in the past three months. The first, 2666 by Robert Bolano, is an enormous doorstop of a literary novel – 900 pages, translated from spanish, five separate but …more

TED TALKS You probably already know about TED talks. But if you don’t, TED stands for Technology, Education, Design, and you must check it out. TED is a wide-ranging annual conference in America that looks very broadly at subjects within these themes. The TED site is a seemingly endless mine for fascinating information about all …more

  REVENGE OF THE LAWN Richard Brautigan Canongate, £5,49 on Amazon They may be ultra-fashionable now, but ultra-short stories have a long pedigree, especially in the USA, where the short story has a lot more cultural traction. Brautigan, a late Beat author was probably the best short short writer. A clear influence on the playful …more

5:55 Charlotte Gainsbourg Atlantic, £8.99 on Amazon This CD has wormed its way into my consciousness in the last two months, so much so that it is now the playlist that is first accessed on my iPod. It ticks all the usual boxes that you might expect of sophisticated Gallic pop, and for those of …more