Stories for Tories: the Party's holiday book list

As Labour head for seeming self-destruction, the message to the Conservatives is clear: head for the sand, and read for government. A "Summer Reading List" of 37 tomes has been circulated to all 195 Tory MPs.

Much to the Tories' doubtless chagrin, there is not a Lord Archer page-turner or Edwina Currie bonkbuster in sight. Rather, a daunting list of history and political philosophy, albeit interspersed with the odd, light-hearted look at the rise of the esteemed leader himself and of his mayoral pal Boris Johnson.

Political Hypocrisy, by the Cambridge don David Runciman, a contemporary of David Cameron's at Eton, is a notable inclusion, making the case for the inevitability of hypocrisy in modern democracy. His previous work, The Politics of Good Intentions, championed Tony Blair as "not simply the boldest liar, but also the best". Voters take note.

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Nudge, this summer's hyped popular psychology text, is "required reading". Its co-author, Professor Cass Sunstein, who joins Harvard Law School later this year, said he felt "greatly honoured". "The book's most important lesson is that 21st-century governments should try to improve people's lives not through mandates and bans, but through creative nudges that do not force anyone to do anything." So much for critics of Hug-A-Hoodie.

Foreign affairs features prominently – no surprise, given that it was compiled by the shadow Foreign Office minister, Keith Simpson. Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq, by this newspaper's correspondent Patrick Cockburn, features, as does A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, by Barack Obama's former adviser, Samantha Power.

The relevance of Roger Crowley's Empires of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean 1521-1580 is more questionable. According to its author: "There are lessons to be learnt in the handling of power. Both the main protagonists in the book – Suleiman the Magnificent and Charles V – were burned out trying to micromanage their empires." Something for Dave to ponder on his Cornish beach.

For those Pimm's drinkers who have spent the summer dancing gaily around the polls, Norman Fowler's A Political Suicide: The Conservatives' Voyage Into the Wilderness, is a timely reminder.

The shadow Schools Secretary, Michael Gove, off to Scotland next week, admitted he did not have the "Stakhanov-like work ethic to get through all of Keith's list". His bags contain the listed A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts The Middle East, by Lawrence Freedman, and Simon Sebag Montefiore's Sashenka.

Boris Johnson's spokesman, Guto Harri, said the Mayor was not doing much reading in Sardinia. Mr Harri, holed up at the other end of the island, said: "Every time I speak to him all I can hear is excited cries in the background of 'Dolphins On The Port Side!' An impressive degree of nautical accuracy from his young family."

And how far through the list is Mr Cameron? A spokesman declined to comment, but he has time on his hands as, holidaying in the house next door near Padstow, has been the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, who said: "The rain has been lashing down, so he can't have spent much time on the beach."

Finally, one included tome which should be mentioned is Clare Lockhart and Asraf Ghani's guidebook Fixing Failed States.

The full list of books

Terror and Consent: The War for the Twenty-First Century, by Philip Bobbitt

Tony's Ten Years: Memories of the Blair Administration, by Adam Boulton

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert Cialdini

Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq by Patrick Cockburn

Empires of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean 1521-1580 by Roger Crowley

Boris v Ken: How Boris Johnson Won London, by Giles Edwards and Jonathan Isaby

A Political Suicide: The Conservatives' Voyage into the Wilderness, by Norman Fowler

Munich: The 1938 Appeasement Crisis, by David Faber

A Million Bullets: The Real Diary of the British Army in Afghanistan, by JamesFergusson

Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan will Shape our Next Decade, by Bill Emmott

A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East, by Laurence Freedman

Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World, by Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart

The Rise of Boris Johnson, by Andrew Gimson

The Pain and the Privilege: The Women in Lloyd George's Life, by Ffion Hague

Inside the Private Office: Memoirs of the Secretary to British Foreign Ministers, by Nicholas Henderson

Good Business: Your World Needs You, by Steve Hilton and Giles Gibbons

Dinner with Mugabe: The Untold Story, by Heidi Holland

Politicians and Public Services: Implementing Change in a Clash of Cultures, by Kate Jenkins

Cameron on Cameron, by Dylan Jones

Vote for Caesar: How the Ancient Greeks and Romans Solved the Problems of Today, by Peter Jones

The Return of History and the End of Dreams, by Robert Kagan

Five Days in London, by John Lukas

Hitler's Empire: Nazi Life in Occupied Europe, by Mark Mazower

Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance, by Giles Milton

1948: The First Arab Israeli War, by Benny Morris

Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes, by Ferdinand Mount

Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, by E Neudstadt and Ernest R May

Britain in Africa, by Tom Porteous

A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, by Samantha Power

Descent into Chaos: How the War against Islamic Extremism is being lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, by Ahmed Rashid

Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West, by Andrew Roberts

Political Hypocrisy: The Mask of Power from Hobbes to Orwell and Beyond, by David Runciman

Good Manners and Bad Behaviour: The Unofficial Rules of Diplomacy, by Candida Slater

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness, by Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein

A Stranger in Europe: Britain and the EU from Thatcher to Blair, by Stephen Wall

Decline to Fall: The Making of British Macro-Economic Policy and the 1976 IMF Crisis, by Douglas Wass

Mr Lincoln's T-Mails: The Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War, by Tom Wheeler

The Post-American World, by Fareed Zakaria