For me, holidays are a prime opportunity to pack in a LOT of reading. In previous years I’ve kicked off by diving into a Robert Goddard, or something similar. You know, a plot into which one escapes for a day, or so, and by the time you emerge from the book the daily grind has magically vanished.

This year, I dived straight into the more serious stuff:

The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, by Daniel Yergin
If you think the title of this book is daunting, wait until you encounter the book itself. Well, I didn’t because I read it on iPad, but it must be quite a tome in physical form. Yergin won a Pullitzer Prize for his 1992 book The Prize (about oil), and he is something of a one-man energy think-tank. I won’t deny that reading the book requires a fairly substantial commitment; apart from its length, Yergin is not the most polished writer around (and, there are irritating errors, like “amuck” instead of “amok”)

The Quest is a bit like a semester course on oil, gas, coal, nuclear, geo-politics, prospecting, renewables, conservation, electricity, cars, and environmental issues. There is quite a large technical component to the book, but Yergin keeps it all interesting by incorporating some fascinating history (and a suprising cast of characters).

Energy, in its various forms, is something we consume – usually without even thinking about it – every second of every day. The world couldn’t be what it is without electricity and our various forms of vehicular transport, all of which require energy.

I give The Quest a definite thumbs-up. It’s worth making the effort to read this fascinating book.

The 52 Seductions, by Betty Herbert
This book is listed in chronological order of reading; there is absolutely nothing that ties 52 Seductions to The Quest. For starters, Herbert is a good – and funny – writer. Secondly, while the title and plot line suggest that sex is the subject, the book is actually about long term relationship, and marriage in particular.

The (real life) story is based upon a pact made by the author and her husband when they realise after 10 years of marriage that they seldom have sex. It’s not as if love has departed the relationship, far from it. No, desire is the missing ingredient. So they agree to take weekly turns at ‘seducing’ each other. Yes, it is a bit of date night with a twist (not all of them have what you might euphimistically call ‘happy endings’), but it’s really about marriage from the woman’s perspective, which is always a good thing for men to know about.

This is a light and easy read, which I’d also recommend.

Even Silence Has an End, by Ingrid Betancourt
By the time I’d finished this book I’d had a rather intense dose of woman-focused literature. Betancourt was a Colombian politician when she was captured by FARC rebels. It’s not that they were targeting her, but once they had serendipitously netted her they weren’t about to release this valuable bit of political capital. This book is about the six-and-a-half years she was in the jungle as their hostage.

She suffered all kinds of abuse – including being chained to a tree by her neck – and deprivations, which at times included a prohibition from speaking, or being spoken to. What preserves her throughout the ordeal is the realisation that, while she is a captive, she remains free to choose how she is going to respond, and what kind of person she is going to be. This is pretty much the same conclusion reached by Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning, which deals with his experiences in Nazi concentration camps.

There were so many FARC hostages in various parts of the jungle that one of the radio stations would broadcast messages recorded by friends and family, which they were able to listen to, sometimes covertly. This component made me think of the fixation we’ve developed with various forms of social media, which enable all kinds of conversations to happen. Betancourt was not only deprived of her liberty, but was restricted to receiving one-way communication only.

Betancourt has written a powerful and thought-provoking book, which I definitely recommend.

Chasing the Devil, by Tim Butcher
Butcher has previously reported from Liberia and Sierra Leone. He returns in order to – literally – follow in the footsteps of Graham Greene, who trekked in 1935 from Freetown, through Sierra Leone, into Liberia, then through Guinea, back into Liberia, and then by boat from Buchanan to Monrovia.

When Greene made the trip he was disenchanted with Europeans. He went in search of a kind of simplicity or purity, which he found in the jungle-dwelling Africans. Butcher has a somewhat different interest, in that he is trying to make sense of the extreme brutality and murderousness which characterised the various internecine wars that have taken place in the region over the past couple of decades.

Butcher observes that the jungle is a harsh environment in which to live. The locals’ best chance at survival is to stick together, which usually means towing the ‘bush’ line. Young men are trained – and indoctrinated – by highly secretive bush societies, or cults. In this context, the local tribe will carry far more sway than a distant government administration which makes no positive contribution to people’s lives, and which may in fact make their lives worse, through corruption and discrimination. He makes the (depressing) observation that, in Africa, Africans survive. In order to thrive they need to go elsewhere.

The presence of valuable natural resources has not improved their lives; if anything, minerals have resulted in more misery, as aggressors seek to control the assets.

Butcher is not only a deep an observant thinker, but also an excellent writer. I’ll be making to effort to read his other book, Blood River, soon.

Edmund de Waal, a ceramic artist, is bequeathed a collection of 264 netsuke (small and intricate Japanese carvings) by a great-uncle living in Tokyo. They entered the once-wealthy Ephrussi family in the 1870s when a Paris-based relative, Charles, bought the collection, which he later gave to a Viennese cousin as a wedding gift.

In The Hare With Amber Eyes, de Waal tells the fabulously engaging story of how his family, originating in Odessa, established something of a trans-European trading and banking empire similar to the Rothschilds’. He follows the story of the netsuke to Vienna, where the Jewish Ephrussi have an inevitable assignation with history.

The Ephrussi escape Nazi Austria, but forfeit their business, property and art. Through the intervention of a maid the netsuke are saved, which leads de Waal to ask the question: “Why should they have got through this war in a hiding place, when so many hidden people did not?”

Cape Town art dealer Michael Stevenson’s PhD thesis, Art & Aspirations, deals with the role that art collecting played in the Randlords validating their mining fortunes. The Ephrussi family, having settled in Paris and Vienna, did much the same thing.

Regardless of how nouveau the riche, old objects trace a path through history, and de Waal has told a wonderful tale around these netsuke. The Hare With Amber Eyes is unquestionably one of my favourite reads of the year.

Does this man look like the writer of lurid sexual fantasy? Nicholson Baker, author of House of Holes

The future of physical book shops is not looking bright. Apart from the fact that many people couldn’t be bothered to read (or, even in developed countries, can’t read), there is the entire digital thing. Books are cheaper and quicker to get in electronic form, and a variety of websites deliver cutting edge references on any subject you can imagine.

I love browsing book shops as much as anyone, but I have joined the ranks of Kindle users (using the Android tablet I bought last month). According to Amazon, by May 2011 they had sold more book downloads than they did in all of 2010!

The thing is this. Yes, it’s half the price, but the immediacy is so damn appealing. Last week I was reading an FT interview with Nicholson Baker, the author of House of Holes, and was able to buy the book without walking more than three steps.

House of Holes is an exercise in unbounded sexual fantasy. Think Roald Dahl (in adult short story format), Enid Blyton fairies and Alice in Wonderland, all of it viewed through a light mist of psychedelia. One reviewer has even tossed a little bit of Tellytubbies into the mix.

The book is largely about body parts – the book even opens with a pleasure-giving arm that has parted company with its host body – that are driven by pleasurable sensations. In the context of this book, the pleasure is all sexual, and no holds are barred.

Baker manages to keep it all light, comical even, with rhythmical narrative that at times is more reminiscent of poetry than prose. Writing about sex also brings up the weighty issue of how one describes it, and the body parts involved.

I haven’t been able to work out why one character refers to his penis (as in John Thomas) as his Malcolm Gladwell, but Baker trots out an impressive sequence of euphemistic references. I found myself chuckling at some of these.

One of the other ways he keeps the book light, I suspect, is by not making much effort to develop any characters. House of Holes is an entertaining read, which is sexual, but not necessarily pornographic.

Not exactly a convent girl, Roxana Shirazi, author of Last Living Slut

Last Living Slut, on the other hand, is a real story, about a real person’s sexual exploits. I was exposed to it in a real book shop, but bought it electronically (yes, I know I was leeching off their overheads). The Slutwalk movement has given new meaning to the word slut, and the author, Roxana Shirazi, is at pains to defend the position of (often promiscuous) women who match men’s interest in sex. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, can’t argue with that.

And, with a surname that is one vowel away from being the name of one of my favourite grape varieties – Shiraz – my curiosity was piqued. I should also add, at this point, that the Facebook page for The Very Sexy Shiraz (one of the products I created at Cloof) has been inhabited by a large number of Iranians (you can read more that here).

Roxana Shirazi lived in Iran until she was 10, and then moved to the UK with her grandmother to get away from the revolution. A lay psychologist (upon reflection ‘lay’ is perhaps not the ideal word) could have a field day extrapolating an absent, opium-addicted father, physically abusive stepfather and a sexually abusive lodger, into the rock groupie that she grew into.

I can’t say that I found Last Living Slut a satisfying read. Yes, the book is littered with explicit descriptions of her (and friends’) uninhibited exploits with rockers, but once that component is removed, not much remains. I couldn’t say that the book goes anywhere with its potentially fertile material; there must – surely – have been scope for greater examination of deeper issues. Various themes or episodes are left dangling, which include her attempted suicide, and, to some extent, her abortion.

I would fault the book, also, on a generally staccato, if not chaotic, flow, which is also somewhat sloppy (OK, given the context, perhaps this is also not the ideal word). She starts one (short) chapter aged 21, and ends it a few pages later aged 24, without any sense of a passage of time. Perhaps it is what one would expect from a rock groupie, but this one has a Masters degree.

I’ve never been able to sing, nor can I play any musical instruments. But for these basic requirements I could happily have been a rock star. If nothing else, Roxana Shirazi has shown us some of the – admittedly transient – perks of being the object of young women’s adulation (if she ever pitches up at my house I’ll instantly start bashing away at my son’s drums!).

I’m sure she could have done a better job of writing her story. Perhaps she’ll come back to it all at some point in the future and have another stab at it.

Until then, I have to declare the work of fantasy as the winner of this month’s read-off.

I am willing to wager a substantial amount of money that the majority of people in the world have a problematical relationship with failure. Against a backdrop of empirical measurement of our academic ability – especially a method that delivers a pass/fail result – and a general culture that makes it uncomfortable even for sub-optimal achievement, failure is not a condition we can be expected to embrace. We don’t like it, plain and simple. We avoid failure as if it were the plague.

Tim Harford, in his excellent book Adapt, isn’t exactly suggesting that we should seek out failure. Instead he says that experimentation is a necessary part of the evolution and success of organisations (and organisms). Failure is an inevitable consequence of experimentation, so we’ll all be better off if we have a sustainable way of dealing with it.

This matter-of-fact attitude to failure is quite reassuring, actually. It’s a relief to know that one can try something out, that it may not work out, but that’s OK. In fact, it’s normal.

The one part of this book with which I’m not in agreement is the choice of sub-title, “why success always starts with failure”, which strikes me as being intended to shock potential readers into a purchase. It’s not really what the book is about.

It’s not as if Adapt doesn’t describe failures; there are dozens of them, from the collapse of the Soviet Union’s economy to oil spills, Broadway musicals, and yes, the credit crisis. Harford relates the background to many of these failures in a most interesting and readable manner.

While he describes failure as natural, and certainly not a phenomenon that requires any feelings of shame, there are some provisos.

The first one is that failure should not lead to the extinction of the organisation or organism. In other words, the extent of the failure should be survivable.

The second critical component of failure is knowing that you’ve failed. Chasing your losses only makes it worse. So, it becomes critically important to have effective feedback loops. In the command economy of the Soviet Union any dissenting feedback generally resulted in the messenger getting shot. Donald Rumsfeld’s poor management of the war in Iraq was compounded by him shutting out feedback that didn’t accord with his position.

It’s only in the final chapter that Harford gets on to the personal dimension of failure. Up until that point he colours his message with a number of fascinating examples that he keeps at a reassuring distance. However, it was quite early in the book that I started thinking about my own failures.

My biggest failures have not obeyed the first rule of manageability. While there may not have been anything wrong with the experimentation, I committed myself on a scale that made survival almost impossible if it didn’t work out right.

Another example he uses, is of those huge domino set-ups, where disturbing one will lead to all of them getting knocked over. It’s a great spectacle if they start tipping at the correct time, but a disaster if it’s premature. It is for this reason that the builders of these arrangements employ safety gates. This example he likens to the contagion that accompanied the credit crisis. One failure led to a whole bunch of others.

These examples offer just a small glimpse; there are many more.

Adapt is going to go onto my list of the most important books I’ve read. It doesn’t set out to be a self-help book, but for a perpetual experimenter like myself it’s a really important reference.

Where failure is concerned, the only failure is to omit it from the possible outcomes. And not to allow new information to change your course of action.