Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

It's not the New York Times list of books of the year and neither is it the Financial Times list of best reads of 2004, but it's the Rainy Day list and we're as proud of it as any press baron or baroness would be. Mrs Rainy Day is up first with her pick:

Happy Days With The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver. To look at me it doesn't appear as if I eat or even like to eat, but I do, and much more importantly, I love to entertain — well that's obvious when you see how I act and how much I laugh. That's why Happy Day With The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver is my Book of The Year. I picked it mainly because it has helped me to have so many good evenings with friends and family over the year. I mean, I would never have thought of putting a stick of cinnamon in a chilli or adding honey to a salad dressing or serving rhubarb with panacotta, but it all worked like a dream and my guests were impressed. I love the relaxed way Jamie cooks with his concentration on fresh herbs, which most people don't think even exist and which can transform a dish into something sublime. Funny, Jamie says his book is "more like a diary than a cookbook", which is probably also why I have chosen it, as I like reading diaries. By the way, Jamie has great one here, filled with ideas and recipes.

Now it's the turn of the main beneficiary of all the Oliver-inspired cuisine, Mr Rainy Day. Here's his choice:

The Anglosphere Challenge by James Bennett. Four years ago, when French foreign minister Hubert Védrine wrote "Les Cartes de la France à l'heure de la mondialisation", he listed a number of "un-European" traits, including: "ultraliberal market economy, rejection of the state, nonrepublican individualism, strengthening of the universal and 'indispensable' role of the United States, common law, Anglophone, and Protestant rather than Catholic concepts." The one term M. Védrine needed to sum it all up was the "the Anglosphere". But what is the Anglosphere? Simply put, it is all those people who use the English language and who cherish freedom and individualism as political and cultural values. The Anglosphere narrative runs from England's Magna Carta to the US Bill of Rights and its core concepts are contained in sayings such as "innocent until proven guilty" and "a man's home is his castle". As a result, a group of people communicating in English but not sharing these assumptions cannot be part of the Anglosphere. Along with setting out the boundaries of the Anglosphere, James Bennett argues that globalization and information technology are creating new "network civilizations" and the foremost of these will be the USA and the other English-speaking nations, hence the book's subtitle "Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century". The book is accompanied by an informative website, which features a synopsis and chapter samples.