A political role model

Work-life balance is W important, and it's crucial to seek light relief. When my children were young, I liked nothing better than to turn them out to play while I curled up with a giant book about the Nazis.

- Charlotte Grimshaw

These days, as I follow every twist and turn of our elections, with an eye on the circus that is American politics, I've made sure to vary the mood. This time, my light bedside reading has been all about the Soviets.

Before he won the Booker Prize for his novel The Sea, Irish writer John Banville published The Untouchable, his brilliant fictional portrayal of the Cambridge spies. They were the five Englishmen who spied for the Soviet Union while working for British Intelligence after World War II. It's a tale that feels relevant to the time, particularly because it involves spectacular demonstrations of mendacity and duplicity.

Banville based his character, Victor Maskell, on Anthony Blunt, adviser on art to the royals (with references to "Mrs W and her Ma", and blackly laughing asides about their hats and their drinkies).