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Claire Fox's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Claire Fox recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Claire Fox's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1

Alone in Berlin

Inspired by a true story, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin is the gripping tale of an ordinary man's determination to defy the tyranny of Nazi rule. This Penguin Classics edition contains an afterword by Geoff Wilkes, as well as facsimiles of the original Gestapo file which inspired the novel. Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear. At the house on 55 Jablonski Strasse, its various occupants try to live under Nazi rule in their different ways: the bullying Hitler loyalists the Persickes, the retired judge Fromm and the unassuming couple Otto and Anna Quangel. Then the Quangels receive... more
Recommended by Alastair Campbell, Claire Fox, and 2 others.

Alastair CampbellSo I wanted to have political leadership, sporting leadership and a novel to demonstrate moral leadership: I have chosen a German novel variously translated as Alone in Berlin or Every Man Dies Alone, and it’s by Hans Fallada. (Source)

Claire FoxThis is an important novel for a range of reasons, because it was written so shortly after the Second World War by a novelist who lived through the Nazi regime. It is a very rare glimpse into what working-class life was like then. (Source)

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2

The Crucible

"I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history," Arthur Miller wrote of his classic play about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts. Based on historical people and real events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town's most basic fears and suspicions; and when a young girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders... more
Recommended by Claire Fox, and 1 others.

Claire FoxThis is the Salem witch hunt in the context of the McCarthy era. The reason I chose it is because I feel that we ourselves, in the contemporary period, are in danger of having our own heresy-calling and witch hunts. It is very popular to say this book proves what it is like when hysterical religions name people as witches, and how intolerant religion is. But I think we can see it in a much more... (Source)

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3
It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town an aging Classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would astonish even his most virulent accuser.

Coleman Silk has a secret, one which has been kept for fifty years from his wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends, including the writer Nathan Zuckerman. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk's secret and sets out to...
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Recommended by Claire Fox, Selina O'Grady, and 2 others.

Claire FoxThe main focus of the novel is a professor of Classics and faculty dean called Coleman Silk. It is a liberal university, and the reason why I chose this novel is to show how doing things in the name of tolerance can lead to a right old mess. (Source)

Selina O'GradyThe book is about the violence that you do to yourself, and to your identity, when you try and imitate the in-group, the majority. (Source)

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4
Outwardly, we live in an era that appears more open-minded, non-judgemental and tolerant than in any time in human history. The very term intolerant invokes moral condemnation. We are constantly reminded to understand the importance of respecting different cultures and diversities. In this pugnacious new book, Frank Furedi argues that despite the democratisation of public life and the expansion of freedom, society is dominated by a culture that not only tolerates but often encourages intolerance. Often the intolerance is directed at people who refuse to accept the conventional wisdom and who... more
Recommended by Claire Fox, and 1 others.

Claire FoxJohn Stuart Mill argues clearly for tolerance, and he is very popular in this modern era. People quote him in school essays and formal debates. But Frank Furedi, in his new book on tolerance, looks at how the spirit of John Stuart Mill has been destroyed in the contemporary era, despite our paying lip service to the term “tolerance”. He talks about an insipid understanding of tolerance. (Source)

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5

On Liberty

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780140432077

Published in 1859, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty presented one of the most eloquent defenses of individual freedom in nineteenth-century social and political philosophy and is today perhaps the most widely-read liberal argument in support of the value of liberty. Mill's passionate advocacy of spontaneity, individuality, and diversity, along with his contempt for compulsory uniformity and the despotism of popular opinion, has attracted both admiration and condemnation.
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Nick CleggThe tradition is that it is given to the president of the Liberal Democrats rather than the leader, which is a subtle but important distinction in Lib Dem land. But you’re quite right. The traditions of J. S. Mill are still handed down like some sort of totemic emblem of everything that we’re supposed to still believe in, even now. It’s extraordinary, given it was written in 1859……What we’re... (Source)

A C GraylingOn Liberty is a very important document, and one which, because of the clarity with which one can read it and its brevity, is slightly passed over. (Source)

Peter SingerMill points out that very often, throughout history, people have thought that they were certainly right, and then turned out to be quite wrong. (Source)

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