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.Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media

by: Nick Davies

February 07, 2008
The cover of this book is splattered with quotes saying how important this book is, and they're sort of right. Davies looks with a piercing insiders eye at why the news reported to us -- even from "heavyweight" sources -- is even less dependable than even cynics think. The book clearly shows how commercial factors have all but eliminated any checking of stories, so the media are almost completely at the mercy of PR generated by vested interests.

The problem -- and it's a big one -- is that the book risks being tarred with the same brush (because of carelessness, I hope, and not because Davies sources really are poor). Davies repeatedly quotes the figure of only 12% original input from newsrooms, but only once mentions that there's ... Read More:
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.Gomorrah: Italy's Other Mafia

by: Roberto Saviano

October 03, 2008
The cover of this book is splattered with quotes saying how important this book is, and they're sort of right. Davies looks with a piercing insiders eye at why the news reported to us -- even from "heavyweight" sources -- is even less dependable than even cynics think. The book clearly shows how commercial factors have all but eliminated any checking of stories, so the media are almost completely at the mercy of PR generated by vested interests.

The problem -- and it's a big one -- is that the book risks being tarred with the same brush (because of carelessness, I hope, and not because Davies sources really are poor). Davies repeatedly quotes the figure of only 12% original input from newsrooms, but only once mentions that there's ... Read More:
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.Zone 22

by: Tig Hague

May 01, 2008
Tig Hague's account of his arrest at Sheremetyevo, remand in Moscow, trial and time spent in a Mordovian prison camp is a vivid description of two shockingly different worlds clashing - that of a naive Western European on a business trip and the harshness and brutality of life on the wrong side of the Russian justice system.

Hague was desperately unlucky to be there - he had overlooked the fact that there was a small amount of hashish in his jeans. Then he failed to understand that the corrupt official at the airport wanted a bribe, leading to a search of his clothes, leading to a conviction for drug smuggling and two years of misery and terror.

Zone 22 makes for very compelling reading. The stories are so horrifying that it ... Read More:
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.Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade

by: Bill Emmott

April 03, 2008
I have read this book quite quickly as I found it very interesting.It is well researched and very readable for a lay person like me. An essential read for people who are interested in the future!
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.Homicide:

by: David Simon

September 04, 2008
How do you fill the void left after watching the final episode of one of the greatest tv shows of all time ? Go back to the source and that's what this is without this book there is no The Wire. It's a remarkable book and one that hasn't really dated unlike the TV series of the same name.
The premise is well described David Simon writes about a year in the life of the homicide department of Baltimore what suprised me was that it isn't written for the journalist point of view so instead we get informed what the detectives are thinking. It's hard to explain that for the veteran detectives we see that there is no personal crusade to solve the crimes it's a job and not a highly paid one so if it's not the money what compels these individuals to keep ... Read More:
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.The Fall of Yugoslavia

by: Misha Glenny

October 31, 1996
Glenny has the skill to keep a reader interested during the whole of the book. Although this book is a few years old now and perhaps abit dated (it doesn't cover the Kosovo conflict and was published a year after the war in Croatia and Bosnia ended) it is still excellent reading for those who know little abit the region.
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.Child 44

by: Tom Rob Smith

March 03, 2008
I read this when I saw that it was listed on the Booker longlist and praised for being an authentic picture of life in Stalin's Terror. I was really shocked that it was longlisted. As a thriller, it somehow manages to be dull and obvious. The murderer is revealed far too early for there to be real suspense. The writing is poor. As a picture of Stalin's Russia it was embarrassingly bad. There was not a single sentence in the book that suggested the author had ever been to Russia, let alone that he could summon up the atmosphere of 1953. The whole thing is a joke. There are elementary mistakes throughout the book - streets and buildings, metro lines in Moscow appear here that did not even exist yet in 1953 - suggesting that the author doesn;t even know how to ... Read More:
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.Descent into Chaos: How the War Against Islamic Extremism is Being Lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia: How the War Against Islamic Extremism ... in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia

by: Ahmed Rashid

July 03, 2008
I've really enjoyed this wide ranging and very readable book. It is an excellent introduction to the complexities of Western involvement in Afghanistan, to the failures of policy in Pakistan and to the tactics employed by the CIA under the "war on terror" umbrella. This is an indispensable book for anyone interested in current day politics, because decisions and events which are played out in this region have a tremendous influence on Western governance. It deserves to be on the bookshelf of every NATO officer and NATO government MP.
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.Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-first Century

by: Philip Bobbitt

May 29, 2008
This book is a really interesting look at 21st-century terrorism, from its evolution in history to its current aims and capabilities and to future predictions as to how society will live with terrorism in the future. Central to the argument of the book is the paradigm shift that a globalised and decentralised terrorist network represents to 20th-century thinking over state provision of security to its citizens. Where terrorist networks adopt the tools of a globalised world. The Internet as a tool for the dissemination of propaganda, the recruitment of supporters, and creation of a virtual "ummah" (Muslim brotherhood). The franchise model of market capitalism for the outsourcing of terrorist attacks, motivated by disparate grievances and perpetrated by disparate ... Read More:
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.Dark Heart: The Shocking Truth About Hidden Britain

by: Nick Davies

July 30, 1998
It will open your eyes to the hidden deprivation in this country and change your perspective on things. poverty is not the fault of the poor.
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