See also: recreate David Cameron's minimalist, retro kitchen in your own home
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1 Austerity Britain by David Kynaston
Authoritative social history of postwar Britain. One ought to know how the other half lives.
2 Chambers Book of Speeches
Everyone from Arafat to Zola. But no Cameron. Still, useful source of ideas.
3 Brown's Britain by Robert Peston
Two birds with one stone. A dissection of New Labour combined with grease-balling the BBC's business editor. Make that three birds; he probably got it for nothing.
4 Alastair Cooke's America
The tie-in to the TV series. Looks good on the shelf but almost certainly an unread Christmas present.
5 Douglas Hurd: The Public Servant by Mark Stuart
Why? No one read it when it came out in 1998. You can understand the expression of patrician solidarity but you would have expected to see Hurd's recent biog of Robert Peel. There again, maybe Hurd never gave him one.
6 Thinking the Unthinkable by Richard Cockett
Definitely one slipped in by the policy wonks. This 1995 homage to Thatcher's think-tanks will go down a storm with old Tories.
7 Dark Continent by Mark Mazower
Last year's must-read 20th-century history for any liberal. So he must have been given it.
8 The Blair Years by Alastair Campbell
Good to keep in with the Prince of Darkness. And just think ... The Cameron Years!
9 Blood & Rage by Michael Burleigh
Terrorism through the eyes of the Daily Mail's favourite historian. Though it turns out to be quite liberal in parts and very long, so it's almost certainly unread.
10 Million Bullets by James Fergusson
You have to rely on an Old Etonian mate for the definitive account of the British army in Afghanistan.
11 August 1914 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
No way. It's the only book published pre-1990 - most are only a couple of years old - and it's one of only two that could be mistaken for literature. Must be a very old, old Christmas present that looks too good on the shelf to chuck out.
12 Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The only other highbrow novel. It has to be Sam's.
13 Saturn's Children by Charles Stross
An "erotic futuristic thriller" according to Amazon. I've never heard of it. And Cameron's never read it.
14 The Spin Doctor's Diary by Lance Price
Has to be yet another unread freebie. No one actually read the book once it had been serialised.
15 The Glassbook of the Dreameaters by GW Dahlquist
Hotly tipped to be last year's sci-fi bestseller, this promptly sank without trace. It must have escaped the eyes of Cameron's PR. After all, you don't want people drawing parallels.
16 Engleby by Sebastian Faulks
Disappointing novel about a psychopathic loner ... Looks like the PR screwed up again.
17 Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell
Feminist icon Kay Scarpetta battles against the anti-Christs. Maybe Sam is thinking of a divorce ...
18 The Last Testament by Sam Bourne
A chap needs a good thriller to read on hols ... You're telling me Sam Bourne is really the Guardian's Jonny Freedland? No way! Perhaps he'll write a few more nice things about me.
19 The Outcast: Sadie Jones
A sensitive first novel that won the Good Housekeeping best debut fiction ... It's got to be Sam's. Or a freebie.
20 Thompson Local Directory
Because at heart Cameron's a neighbourhood watch kind of guy.
21 Complete series of 24 on DVD
Because at heart he's Jack Bauer.
22 Vogue
Stashed away with the World of Interiors but almost certainly the only things that get read from cover to cover Chez Cameron. After all, you've got to check out those Smythson ads.
