To complete the process of placing myself entirely out of my intellectual comfort zone, I’ve been reading Boris Johnson ‘ s biography of Churchill. Normally, my interest in Churchill is nil, which is precisely why I acquired a copy of The Churchill Factor.
Boris Johnson – who’s the Mayor of London, in case you are not aware of him – set out to express his profound love and admiration for Churchill. Or at least I think he did because I just never know when the Brits are joking and when they are being serious.
In spite of the author’s efforts, I now think Churchill was an even greater wanker than I always considered him to be. The idea of Churchill ‘ s centrality to defeating Hitler that Johnson advances sounds very outlandish to me. The book, however, is quite pleasant. Johnson refers to Churchill ‘ s house as “a giant machine for the generation of texts” and to the young Oxford dons who did his research as Churchill ‘ s Google. That sounded very cute to me.
And how often do you read books that you know you will disagree with?
Clarissa's Blog 
I like reading books I don’t expect to agree with, you sometimes learn stuff and you get to exercise your “why EXACTLY do I disagree with this” thinking muscles (maybe that’s only a novelty for a scientist!).
Also, when travelling, it means you can abandon or donate the book, once read, without any regrets…
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Exactly! I’m looking for any opportunity to shrinking my luggage. 🙂
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I do that more with blogs, I always make sure I read a fair number of things I suspect I’ll disagree with. Constant bumbing up against hard surfaces keeps the mind sharp(er) and echo chambers lead to dull, boring groupthink.
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