One of the most surprising revelations of George W. Bush’s recently published memoirs – the only one according to some critics – was the former US president’s well- concealed passion for reading books.

Mr Bush cultivated an anti-intellectual frat-boy image for most of his political career. But Decision Points reveals him to be an avid reader. In particular, Mr Bush says he found solace in reading history while he was busy making it, devouring 14 biographies of Abraham Lincoln during his time in the White House.

Less surprisingly, Mr Bush appears to have regarded reading books as a form of competitive sport. He recounts how he once squared off with Karl Rove, his intellectually agile political adviser, to see how many books they could each read in a year. Mr Rove, nick-named the president’s “Brain”, won the competition. For the record, the final tally – noted by Mr Bush with somewhat disturbing precision – was 110 books to 95, or 40,347 pages to 37,343, or 2,275,297 square inches of text to 2,032,083.