What lines the shelves of a man who claimed $1683.06 in expenses to attend a friend's wedding? Not, it appears, copies of Debrett's Etiquette and Modern Manners. Instead George Brandis has been using his generous publications allowance – nearly $5,000 a year intended for titles related to parliamentary business – to build a library that includes Peter Ackroyd's Tudors: A History of England alongside Dick Cheney's memoir In My Time; a three-part history of Byzantium and a biography of Trotsky; Simon Schama's Scribble Scribble Scribble and a history of MI6 in the first half of the 20th century. And of course a great number of law reports. Stephen Murray has a longer list of those books on his political blog, if you'd like to consider what they say about their owner.

All of which would undoubtedly – and ironically – make Brandis a very interesting man to sit next to at, say, a wedding you were only attending out of duty. But what else would you suggest for his bedside table? Which volumes should he be adding to his Kindle for those long journeys to important networking events? Leave your recommendations below.