As a child, I was fascinated with the book Ivanhoe . I love the story of knights and their heroism and altruism and fighting for a great cause. I kind of have a romantic notion of right and wrong and good and evil. But in terms of the book I’ve given away the most, of course that would be Bladesmithing with Murray Carter , of course the book that I first authored. It was the first of three books that I’ve authored. It’s a great instructional book on bladesmithing techniques in general, but more specifically the application of traditional Japanese bladesmithing techniques.

In Ge Hong's A Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies (肘后备急方), I noticed one sentence "A handful of Qinghao immersed in two liters of water, wring out the juice and drink it all" (青蒿一握, 以水二升渍, 绞取汁, 尽服之) when Qinghao was mentioned for alleviating malaria fevers. Most herbs were typically boiled in water and made into a decoction before taken by the patients. This unique way of using Qinghao gave me the idea that heating during extraction might have destroyed the active components and the high temperature might need to be avoided in order to preserve the herb's activity.

Climate Change is something which I’ve spent a lot of time on. I would highly recommend a book by Tim Flannery called The Weather Makers , which was one of the books that opened my eyes to the problem that we have in the world. I’m just reading Homo Deus , and I will carry on to read Sapiens , one of his first books. I just love the style of his writing. I love books where you’re learning something from them, rather than if I want fiction, I’ll get a good film out. If I’m reading books, I like to read books which have got some substance.

So, I love podcasts, and I love audiobooks. I feel like I’m somebody who learns by listening. I retain information better. So, I do like TV, but I just don’t have a ton of time for it. I feel like I’m constantly on the go and so I’m listening to audiobooks, whether I’m walking through airport security or in a cab to the airport. And I love – there’s this book, The Four Agreements, that I recently gave my sisters, who are graduating from college. And I just think it’s got a lot of great principles and ideas.

And yet, despite the high moral and ethical quality of social commiseration, political dedication and a deep commitment to equity, there was something rather disturbing about standard leftwing politics of that time: in particular, its scepticism of process-oriented political thinking, including democratic procedures that permit pluralism. The major institutions of democracy got no more credit than what could be portioned out to what was seen as "bourgeois democracy," on the deficiencies of which the critics were most vocal. The power of money in many democratic practices was rightly identified, but the alternatives – including the terrible abuses of non-oppositional politics – did not receive serious critical scrutiny.

This was a co-educational school, with many progressive features. The emphasis was on fostering curiosity rather than competitive excellence, and any kind of interest in examination performance and grades was severely discouraged. ("She is quite a serious thinker," I remember one of my teachers telling me about a fellow student, "even though her grades are very good.") Since I was, I have to confess, a reasonably good student, I had to do my best to efface that stigma.