31 March 2013
Seeking inspiration?
Who's reading what? I asked the AQR Committee recently. The results form part of our occasional reading list.
Welcome to Biscuit Land: A Year in the Life of Touretteshero, Jessica Thom, Souvenir Press
Jessica suffers from Tourettes and one of her tics is to say the word "biscuit" aloud about 16 times a minute, 6 million in a year! The book is a month-by-month account of a year in her life and it is full of courage, humour, compassion as well as illustrations of crass ignorance and cruelty. Jessica has a website and blog "Touretteshero" and you will be delighted by your visit.Geoff Bayley
It's worth subscribing to this weekly, hour-long public broadcasting show for the stories. The (mostly) true stories they pick, the way they research them, the interviewing that gives people a voice, and the quality of production guarantees an hour well spent. Often poignant, sometimes funny, always insightful: I rarely miss an episode.Paul Hutchings
Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett, Pan
I got absolutely hooked on this novel, knew nothing about it when I picked it up at the airport and have not found anything to better it yet!Vanessa Rogers
Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace, Abacus
I appreciate this one isn't exactly new on the market — originally published in 2005 — but it is a fantastic and thought-provoking collection of essays from the brilliant, surreal, unique mind of David Foster Wallace. The essays look at everything from ghost written sports biographies through to the ethics of consumer gratification, and from Kafka to the American porn industry "Oscars". Foster Wallace has a real knack for looking at issues in a truly original way and then articulating them in an enormously enviable style of prose. If you find yourself hooked on his work I can also recommend, among others, Oblivion: Stories. It contains a wonderful tale about a focus group that is guaranteed to make you simultaneously smile and question yourself.Kirsty Yeomans
Presented by Roman Mars and described as a "tiny podcast about design". Worth a listen because they're lovely and short, brilliantly diverse, not at all pretentious or worthy and endlessly curiosity-inducing.Chloe Fowler
Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner present a regularly updated series of engaging, pithy, living and breathing series of lessons on behavioural economics and all things wonderfully clever.Chloe Fowler