It's a pity Viscount Slim got there first. Defeat Into Victory is the title the inspirational Second World War general gave to his memoirs of battling the Japanese in Burma. It's a great read. As I am sure will be the book that I would most like to have by my sunlounger this summer. The book which, more than any, deserves the same title. The memoirs of General David Petraeus.

The American commander in Iraq has made history already. Which is why I'm in such a hurry to see him write it. On his watch, Iraq has turned a corner, with a dramatic decrease in violence, the pacification of provinces where al-Qaeda once held sway and the retreat of foreign-backed militias before a newly resurgent Iraqi national Army. Iraq is now on course to join Turkey and Israel as one of the Middle East's few functioning democracies.

Petraeus is an intellectual in battledress, a standing rebuke to the caricature of the American military as dumb Cowboy Colonels and dumber Imperial Storm Troopers. There's a proud tradition of scholars in the British Army, from Basil Liddell Hart to Rupert Smith, distinguished authors both. But a tradition of condescension towards America has blinded many Britons to the intellectual quality of the US military.

Rupert Smith's book The Utility of Force is a compelling examination of how soldiering has to change to take account of the contemporary conflicts we face - the “wars amongst the people” of Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. But the first defintive study of guerrilla warfare, War in the Shadows, was written by a former US Marine Corps captain, Robert B.Asprey. And it has been David Petraeus, himself the author of the US Army's own counter-insurgency manual, who has shown how it can be done.

Our bookshops are stacked with texts on Iraq, from Thomas E.Ricks's Fiasco to Jonathan Steele's Defeat, but these works are already obsolete. However interesting, they're as limited as a history of the Second World War that stops on the eve of Alamein. I make no condemnation of the authors themselves. How could I, as the author of a book called Michael Portillo - The Future of the Right?

But my recommendation to anyone concerned that they're not up to speed on one of the central conflicts of our times is not to fret, and certainly not to buy any of the cases for the prosecution. Hold out for the Petraeus memoirs. The only way you can know who has won this war in the desert is to wait until the dust settles.

Leave flashy reads behind

And while on the subject of resisting recommendations, can I urge you to ignore all newspaper lists of The Best Books for Summer? They're not.

What they are is a generalised round-up of new titles from the past six months that the literary world is anxious to push as the hot reads of the moment. Avoid 'em. All.

These lists have been composed by people who treat holiday reads the way J-Lo treats holiday luggage - the important thing is simply to be seen with the most fashionable product under your arm. You must read Netherland, Agyness Deyn's loving it. You have to try Jane Dunn's new account of Dorothy Osborne and William Temple's love affair - Jaime Winstone's been working that whole 17th-century bluestocking look this season...

The last thing any of us want on holiday is to be bothered with fashion. Either in what we wear or what we read. Holidays are spent en famille not on the catwalk, and The Best Books for Summer follow that trend, they are relatives of those we already love, not flashy newcomers whose worth we haven't yet gauged.

What you want on holiday are established classics that build on existing relationships. If you like a murder, and have tired of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L.Sayers, then it's time for Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh or Michael Innes. Tempted by Sebastian Faulks's new Bond because you liked the old? I'm sure it's great, but why bother when you can immerse yourself, for a tenth of the price, in a proper thriller from Eric Ambler? Louche society gossip? Well, you could certainly get the new Snowdon biography - but how much more entertaining to take Simon Raven's novels. You're a cricket fan tempted by Netherland, well, OK then, but have you read England, their England first? The best holiday reads are always, always, the tattered paperbacks that fashion forgot - and all suggestions from you as to others which deserve to be in the hand luggage are gratefully received...

David Cameron as Cordelia?

One other question on which I'd love your views. My Shadow Cabinet colleague Jeremy Hunt was asked recently which Shakespearean character David Cameron most resembled. He suggested Cordelia (young, loyal, ideal inheritor of kingdom scarred by division after unseemly power struggles) but conceded it wasn't ideal (apart from the obvious, she pegs it too soon). Others have suggested Henry V, Richmond (who gets rid of Richard the Third) and (my own) Fortinbras. What do you think?

Michael Gove is Conservative MP for Surrey Heath

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