OFF THE SHELF: FEBRUARY 2025

Indulging Kleptocracy: British Service Providers, Postcommunist Elites & the Enabling of Corruption by John Heathershaw, Tena Prelec and Tom Mayne (Oxford University Press, February, 2025)

A powerful and sophisticated analysis of how Western professionals have enabled kleptocratic elite networks and undermined the rule of law. The blazing pioneer in this nascent field of inquiry was of course the indefatigable Oliver Bullough, who really went there with his book, Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals. The title suffices. This is a more sober account that puts in the hard yards and calls down expertise from an excellent range of contributors.  
Their central thesis is that after the Cold War ended, the British government created the conditions under which a large, multinational class of extremely wealthy kleptocrats based primarily in Russia and Eurasia could move to and thrive in London with a genuine sense of impunity. What is the role of professional enablers in the rise of kleptocracy?
Through a series of rich, gripping case studies, the authors show how powerful legal and financial service industries that know how to game the system have made it possible for corrupt elites to operate with relative impunity. They detail how these enablers exploit deregulation and the under-enforcement of the law, offshore their clients' wealth, and enhance their reputations and influence via philanthropy, political donations and the use of the UK's punitive libel regime. They further argue that kleptocracy is not just a moral and economic problem that sits at the margins of real politics, but it impoverishes the global south and undermines institutions in the global north, eroding faith in democracy by empowering corrupt elite business-political networks in global politics.
While most right-minded folks will applaud the attempt of the authors to offer ways of breaking the indulgence system, one has to wonder whether their broad narrative, which looks backwards, has already been replaced by a completely new narrative where the oligarchs are no longer ‘based primarily in Russia and Eurasia’, and where challenges to the rule of law are completely open expressions of naked political power. Elements were seen in the UK post-BREXIT, where the judiciary were running into issues of politicisation, but the second administration of Trump is something else entirely and may usher in a much broader era of cronyism, making this book look relatively innocent.

Your Last Gift by The Rev Matthew Hutton (Christ Church, 1971)
No one wants to contemplate their demise but it should not be left to blind faith and lady luck, argues The Rev Hutton (Christ Church, 1971).

Matthew noticed a number of friends dying without leaving much vital information. In some cases, they had not even made a Will. The family was left to pick up the pieces. Death is challenging enough - and something we will all face - but by having your affairs in order, it will make the process a whole lot easier and kinder.

The heart of this book, already here in its revised Second Edition after the success of the first volume in 2022, is a comprehensive collection of structured forms downloadable from the website www.yourlastgiftbook.com. These forms are for readers to adapt and complete at their own pace. The unique qualification of the author is that he is both a vicar and a retired solicitor, or as one reader puts it: ‘Matthew's book is a fascinating warning to those who can’t face the idea of death. As a retired solicitor and a vicar, his Book has a practical and a spiritual combination which is informative and soothing at the same time. I enjoyed it very much.’

The Artist by Lucy Steeds (John Murray, February 2025)

The author (Jesus, 2012) has had so much advance praise for this novel that we feel slightly awed by it. It might be a 2025, fictional reply to Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence, published in 1989, a book that proved to be publishing gold and singlehandedly sent a million Brits down to the land of lavender, regional wine that didn’t taste as good once brought back, and Gites where nothing quite worked and there was an odd smell.

But this is a powerful bit of writing, just out last month, and guaranteed to blow up the dreary days of February in a blaze of warmth and light. Set in Provence in 1920, protagonist Ettie moves through the remote farmhouse, silently creating the conditions that make her uncle's artistic genius possible. Joseph, an aspiring journalist, has been invited to the house. He believes he'll make his name by interviewing the reclusive painter, the great Edouard Tartuffe. But everyone has their secrets. And, under the cover of darkness, Ettie has spent years cultivating hers. Over this sweltering summer, everyone's true colours will be revealed.
Says another author Seth Insua, 'Phenomenal . . . beautiful, pacey historical fiction, vividly realised. It drifts with the scent of summer, the land lit up and throbbing, the food piled high and richly painted, the paint as thick and buttery as food. I wanted to eat it. Yes, I even wanted to eat the paint. Read this book!'

Discarded, How Technofossils Will be our Ultimate Legacy by Sarah Gabbott and Jan Zalasiewicz (OUP, February 2025)

What kind of fossils will we leave, as relics into the far future? A blizzard of new objects has suddenly appeared on Earth: plastic bottles, ballpoint pens, concrete flyways, outsize chicken bones, aluminium cans, teabags, mobile phones, T-shirts. The number of our constructions has exploded, to outweigh the whole living world. This new-made treasure chest underpins our lives. But it is also giving a completely new style of fossilisation to our planet, as hyper-diverse and hyper-rapidly-evolving technofossils emit from our industrialised economy. Designed to resist sun, wind, rain, corrosion and decay, and buried in soils, seafloor muds and the gigantic middens of our landfill sites, many will remain, petrified, as future geology.
What will these technofossils look like, in future rock, ask the authors? How long will they last and how will they change, as they lie underground for decades, then millennia, then millions of years? The book describes how they transform as they are attacked by bacteria, baked by the Earth's inner heat, squashed by overlying rock, permeated by subterranean fluids and crumpled by mountain-building movements. These new fossils also have meaning for our lives today. For we live on a world increasingly buried under our growing waste. As our discarded artefacts begin to change into fossils, they may be swallowed by birds, entangle fish, alter microbial communities and release toxins. Even deeply buried in rock, technofossils may break down into new-formed oil and gas, change the composition of groundwater, and attract new mineral growths. They will have a lasting impact.