Bookbenchers: Sir Menzies Campbell

Here’s the latest in our Bookbenchers series of posts. This week, Sir Menzies Campbell pulled up a pew and told us what he’s reading.
 
What book’s on your bedside table at the moment?
The End of the Party by Andrew Rawnsley.
 
What book would you read to your children?
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson to my grandchildren.
 
What literary character would you most like to be?
Captain Horatio Hornblower.
 
What book do you think best sums up ‘now’?
The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk.
 
What was the last novel you read?
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (mainly because it was the only book my grandchildren uploaded on to the Kindle they bought me for my birthday!)
 
What book would you most recommend?
Because of my interest in US Politics, Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson.
 
Given enough time which book would you like to study deeply?
Impossible question! But for friendship’s sake, Roy Jenkins’s biography of Asquith.
 
Which books do you plan to read next?
Lloyd George by Roy Hattersley.
 
If the British Library was on fire and you could only save three books, which ones would you take?
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle; and the complete works of Dylan Thomas.

Fleur Macdonald is editor of The Omnivore.