Hello my name is David Runsum and this is Talking Politics.

This is the last in our series of reflections from our panelists about things that they've

been reading. We think you might be interested in some of their reflections on an amazing

year in politics. Some some are thoughts to take away to the beach.

I'm Christopher Brooke. I lecture in political theory and especially the history of political

thought here in the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge.

My name is Helen Thompson. I'm talking politics most weeks.

I'm Glen Rarawala. I'm a lecturer in the politics of the Middle East.

When I'm not teaching I do various other things. I season ticket holder at West Ham for

my sins. I'm also a massive Dickens fan if you can talk about 19th century novels in

terms of having fans but I'm obsessed with Dickens.

I work in mostly the Gulf region and I tend to spend quite a bit of my summers and my

east as my Christmas is also hanging around and the cities and towns of the Gulf as well

as much of the rest of the Middle East when I get the opportunity.

The exciting thing for me at the start of the summer, the publication of the edition

of Thomas Hobbes 1651 classic Leviathan that I've been doing for Penguin Classics. That's

taken up quite a bit of my time over the last two years sorting out aspects of the new

text and writing a new introduction and explanatory notes. I'm hoping it will be a popular

student edition.

I've read a lot of different things this year. A lot of that comes from the fact that

I generally read novels rather than books about politics when I'm not actually working

and then they're all Dickens novels either. But I have read one book this year that I think

...