Murder in Samarkand

Murder in Samarkand - A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror Craig Murray (2005)

While at times it does get a bit wearing hearing Murray talk about how he was right about everything and the British government was entirely in the wrong, and how his motives were as pure as the driven snow, it is clear that Murray was the victim of a great injustice.

New Great Game

The New Great Game by Lutz C. Kleveman (2003)

This is an excellent work that is well written, concise and gives a real flavour of the excitement, colour and passion of the region.

Kleveman originally wrote this book in his native German, and the translation does not interfere with the text at all. In fact if anything, the perspective of a national with no strategic interest in the region gives a refreshing change and he is able to write with an objective eye but also with real engagement in the subject.

The strategic objectives of both Russia, and the United states are clear, as well as to a lesser extent China and Iran. As with the British and Russian empires of the 19th century, the US and Russia are trying to secure access to and control of as much resources as they can.

Kleveman writes honestly about the US involvement in Afghanistan, and his view of the Iraq conflict.

Highly recommended.

Wonders of the Solar System

Brian Cox (2010)

This book gives an interesting overview of the Solar System from particle physicist Prof Brain Cox. His PhD was in particle physics rather than cosmology or astrophysics, and so he is not much more qualified than I am to speak on the subject.

Nonetheless, the research is good, and he is occasionally movingly poetic, particularly when talking about the Arctic circle and the Aurora Borealis. I'd give this 4/5 as it is pretty good, but not as excellent as his documentaries.

The Assault on Reason

Al Gore (2007)

Losing the presidency allows Gore to speak his mind much more freely on many issues, and this book provides an excellent example of this. His hostility to the Iraq war and of the fawning media coverage of Bush is coherent and visceral. His opposition to the torture brought in by the Bush administration is heartfelt, and well argued.

Imperial Life in the Emerald City

Rajiv Chandrasekaran (2007)

Imperial Life in the Emerald City is a journalists account of living in the green zone in occupied Iraq and their effectiveness of lack of it in running the country. It is clear that Chandrasekaran has a great deal of time for the soldiers and ordinary workers and feels that many of them are trying to do a hard job in a difficult place. Nonetheless it is also clear that he is also sceptical about the motives and abilities of the army in general. His Indian ethnicity perhaps gives him a perspective that Caucasian journalists would not necessarily have to the same extent and he makes frequent forays to the red zone to see what the Iraqis have to say. Overall an interesting book, but it would have been more worthwhile if he had spent more time in Iraq proper rather than simply staying with the Americans.

Flat Earth News

Nick Davies (2008)
Davies challenges the notion that journalism is fair, reasoned, or well researched, arguing that journalism has been replaced by what he calls 'churnalism', journalists rehashing press releases without having sufficient time to properly research or fact check pieces. He makes constant references to public relations being dressed up as news and the consequent impact on discourse. He also makes clear that there is a reliance on what he calls the 'dark arts', that is to say illegal practices such as wire tapping to get out information.

He alos makes the controversial claim that the Chernobyl disaster is an example of 'flat earth news', saying that the number of people who died is merely in the dozens, and that anything higher is speculative and consequently untrue. This is where Davies and I part company. Having worked in a Nuclear power research centre and having a physics degree perhaps gives me a slight advantage in saying that I think that we need to be very cautious in dealing with nuclear power, and in particular making the balck and white claim that Chernobyl was not a disaster. Several people did die, and it is still unclear what the total death toll is, although a WHO report states the death toll is around 5,000. Davies cites this same report as proving the death toll is only 66, so we clearly differ in our interpretation of this document, and I would invite interested readers to look through it themselves.

Nonetheless despite this flaw, in the main this is an excellent book, with excellent chapters on deception by the media, about the dangers of becoming too close to power and of corruption.

The Sprit Level

Richard Wilkinson, Kate Pickett (2009)

Excellent, engaging, well researched and well argued, this book is crying out to be read and shared with more widely. Its basic thesis is that societies with greater economic equality tend to fare better in a number of different areas: mental health, trust, life expectancy, crime social wellbeing, obesity, teenage pregnancy. Countries with high inequality such as the US or Portugal tend to fare worse, and those with low inequality such as Japan and Norway tend to fare better. The authors suggest that low inequality is a social positive, and have formed a charity, the eqaulity trust to promote their message. Will their views be heeded?

Imperial Ambitions

Noam Chomsky (2008)

This ia another set of conversations between David Barsimian and Chomsky, and the informal chatty style of the conversations means the prose is much more easily digestable compared to Chomsky's normal style.

Fourteen days in May

BBC (1988)
Fourteen days in May is a stark and honest portrayal of the last fourteen days of the life of Edward Earl Johnson, a death row inmate.
I've heard a lot of words spoken about this documentary and how touching it is.
Whilst this is true, the initial impression is of clear and bland honesty about the reality of prison life.
The crew walk around the prison and endless sequences of doorways and corridors and the banality of everyday life is shown.
Nonetheless, the quiet simple humanity of Edward Earl Johnson shines through like a beacon.
All the prisoners, the guards and the film crew warm to him due to his likeable personality, his easygoing personality and his likeable nature.
It becomes increasingly clear also that he is an innocent man. It also becomes increasingly clear that his ongoing pleas for clemency will not be heeded.
Clive Stafford Smith ends the film with the immortal line:
"I have had the pleasure of spending the last three hours with Edward Earl Johnson.
I was asked by the family why he died, and my only response was: 'It's a sick world. It's a sick world'."
What is also clear is how all the characters in the story are human. The prison warder is doing his job, and is far from a bloodthirsty revenge filled state authority figure out for retribution against a murder, but rather a technocrat following orders.
If the film has a broader message it is that following orders is by far the most moral course of action.

Maus

Art Spiegelman (1991)
Maus is Spiegelman's description of his father's time in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, interspersed with commentary on the relationship between the father and son.
Touching, worthwhile and well written, it given some inkling of the savagery and brutality that occurrs in a situation when one group is labelled as subhuman.
The overwhelming brutality of the Holocaust is evident and yet simultaneously one is never wishing to stop reading. Moral ambiguity is touched upon more than once: is Spiegelman doing the right thing by profiting from the memory of the Shoah?
He also touches on the fact that those who perish cannot so easily have their story retold. The most notable part of this book is how clearly recognisably human all the characters seem: his father is not portrayed as a saint but a man put in an impossible situation, and a good man but with his own foibles: bad tempered, racism towards blacks.More quiestions are raised than answered, and my time spent in Rwanda has shown how hollow the notion of "never again" really has been.
One will hope that the brutality of the 21st century will be less severe than that of the 20th century, but the recent violence enacted by my own government in Iraq shows how fragile such a hope can be.

Footnotes in Gaza

Joe Sacco (2009)
An excellent, engaging, witty and heartfelt portrayal of the authors expeditions in Gaza in 2002 and 2003 in search of information about a specific series of killings that occurred one day in 1955.
It is a brilliant graphic novel, and the ease with which it is accessible allows the reader to understand more deeply some of the points being made about a region sometimes seen as impenetrable.He asks questions about how reality can be recorded, about conflicting narratives, and about the nature of enquiry whilst simultaneously making an accesible read.
His training as a journalist is evident, and his interviews and work draw upon similiar themes to that in Palestine.
Well recommended.

The Outsider

Albert Camus (1942)
Originally published in French as L'Etranger in 1942 this was seen as a work of existentialism, a label Camus himself avoided. Camus was born in Algeria, and had previously been on the youth team for Algeria as a goalkeeper. The book speaks of emotional disengagement and the protaganists failure to connect with what society regarded as normal behaviour. Other reviewers have mentioned how Camus draws out the sensations as being important: heat, light, colour, smell rather than emotion. This is indeed true as it has been regarded as one of the most influential works of fiction of the 20th Century.
The emotional disengagement felt by the protganaist does strike a chord with me, I have to say. Nonetheless, it doesn't resonate with me as much as it has done many other readers. Perhaps a second reading would explain why Camus later won the Nobel prize for literature.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/apr/12/books.comment

Cosmos

Carl Sagan (1980)
There are insufficient superlatives to describe Sagan's excellent work. He genuinely takes us on a mental journey through time and space in a way I have never seen done before or since.
He explains with such richness and such evocation that you are swept along by the magic of what he is saying.

The Shock Doctrine

Naomi Klein (2007)

Klein's excellent book looks at globalization from another perspective from her well researched and coherently argued debut No Logo. Shock Doctrine is arguably one of the most important books of the year, and she points to the relationship between neoliberal politics and shock, be they economic shocks of shock therapy whereby governments reduce public spending dramatically and consequently the public as a whole feel the strain; and also of the relationship between human rights abuses and neoliberal regimes. This is highlighted most clearly in south America where a number of regimes - Pinochet's perhaps being the most notable - have both instituted neoliberal policies and simultaneously been involved in human rights abuses.

One of her most forceful claims is that neoliberal changes have only ever been enacted without recourse to democracy, and indeed she argues they are profoundly undemocratic.

Bitter Fruit

by Stephen E. Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer



This is an excellent and riveting account of the 1954 US led coup against the Guatemalan government. I've heard many times in outline the timeline of events that led to the coup, but never is as much detail or with such a great and engaging story line.

I still find it breathtaking how the foreign policy of the United States towards Guatemala was able to be dictated essentially by one relatively small mulinational company.

Essentially, what occurred was that Guatemala democratically elected a moderately left wing government who enacted very mild social reforrms, including land reforms that threatened the interests of rich landowners and also the United Fruit company. However, the reforms, although left leaning in some ways were in the words of the World Bank broadly in support of the interests of business as a whole, and turning the country into a modern capitalist democracy.

The United Fruit company was also planned to be renationalised, and its assets would be paid for and shareholders compenated. The United fruit comapny acted with horror at this, and a very effective PR campaign was enacted by the their Public Relations manager Edward Bernays. Bernays managed to convince the US government and population that this moderate left wing capitalist governemnt was a bastion of communism and thus a threat to US interests.

The idea that the government had a communist ideology was demonstrotably false, and this underlines the shocking nature of what then followed.

The US was by now convinced that the government of Guatemala posed a threat to US interests, and was committed to covertly destroying it. The CIA managed to employ mercenaries in neighbouring countries and fly in several bomber planes. The US had an arms emargo to Guatemala and had pressured other countries to do the same which meant Guatemala was unable to defend itself.

The proxy army then went on to invade Guatemala, killing and injuring thousands. The desperation of the foreign minister of the time is clear in the book. He repeatedly pleaded with the US government for an end to the bloodshed. Not only did the US not stop the violence, but they openly lied about their actions, denying having anything to do with the coup.

Overall 200,000 people were killed over the next few decades in the civil war that resulted. But what really shocked me wasn't the numbers, it was the culture that developed as a result of the coup. Those in power had no right to be there, and therfore felt no need to serve the people. They served the interests of the powerful and the vast majority continued to live in abject poverty. A culture of impunity developed whereby political oponents were murdered openly, and the courts refused to prosecute them. Overwhelmingly the violence was committed by members of the security forces - police officers and soldiers.

These BBC news stories about the current social situation detail the incredibly high murder rate of women and of political candidates. More than one woman a day has been killed in Guatemala this year, and 50 political candidates were assaninated in the run up to the election.

So the US led coup left a very bitter taste in the mouthes of the Guatemalan people. Of course, it is important to remember that in any conflict there is no black and white, and there are often ethical ambiguities.

Take for example the story of Rigoberta Menchú, a Guatemalan peasant who received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in pressing the civil rights claims of her country's indigenous peoples. A decade earlier, her memoir, I, Rigoberta Menchú, had appeared, and it was immediately welcomed. However, her account in her autobiography was later found to have several misrepresentations, and a professor named David Stoll wrote a book about the affair, in which he tries to replace what he believes to be the prevailing romantic image of Guatemalan rebellion with something that comes much closer to the murky, morally shaded truth.

The Full Montezuma

Relatively easy read, Peter Moore's jolly romp around central america and the way he grates with his girlfirned is an enjoyably duiverting if rather light read. To be honest my mind was half on my own trip to the region while I was reading this.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

by Toby Young

Youngs's title implies he is a bit of a failure, but in fact it is his english self deprecating way of telling you that he is actually quite sucessful. After Oxford, Harvard and Cambridge, Young returns to America as Social Affairs editor of Vanity Fair. His comic misadventures - inviting a stripper on bring your daughter to work day for example - are genuinely quite amusing and entertaining.

His description of his fathers work is genuinely touching. Young's father coined the term meritocracy and had a large hand in the post war poliical consensus by among other things drafting the 1945 Labour manifesto, and Young has great admiration for his father.

The God Delusion

by Richard Dawkins

Dawkins can at times be a great writer - his 'Selfish Gene' was a joy to read. The God Delusion is an interesting and thought provoking discussion on god, religion and the effects they have on our politics and culture.

He makes the point that he has been dismissed as a fundamentalist atheist, and replies this is not so, being as he is confident but not entirely sure that there is no god. Dawkins argues that the worst he does is argue using words, wheras religious believers use suicide bombing, rocket launchers and all kind of other methods to kill and maim people who they disagree with.

He rightly points out the huge gap between contemporary morality and the morality in the Bible. How many people today regard it as acceptable for children to be executed if the dishonour their mother or father? Yet this is what it states in the Bible. Many contemprary christians would argue that not all such things apply today or should be interpreted litearlly. So, Dawkins reasons, if we are to ignore sections of the bible, and rely on our own inner morality and common sense, what need do we have for the Bible at all?

My own view is that it is indeed true that Religion generally can be very harmful, and the world would be a better place if there was noone to fight to the death for their religious beliefs. Are not the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland; Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir; Jews and Muslims in the middle east ample enough evidence for situations where religous differences have been a factor in divides that have caused violence? Yet I also feel that evangelising for atheism is not a good idea. I think Dawkins strays clear of this, and I can only commend his book.

Affluenza

by Oliver James

This book diagnoses a new disorder: Affluenza. This, argues the author is a 'virus' infecting the mind, making people want to be richer and more beautiful than they are or can ever possibly be.

Although I agree with some of the points James makes, I felt that on the whole the smug mates tone combined with pseudo science irritated me greatly. His statement that "Russian women are beautiful" is typical of the way he generalises attributes to a whole nation on the basis of the few encounters he has made. He reminds me of 'Dr' Gillian McKeith in this respect, the nutritionist who gained her doctorate from an unaccreditted online university, and makes statements like "chlorophyll oxygenates your blood".

With chapter titles such as "Be Beautiful (Not Attractive)" and "Wakey Wakey!" he echoes the language of piss-poor self help books, and this undermines his arguments. And the following line pretty much sums up everything that grates about his overly matey style: "You may still dismiss me as a high-falutin, patriarchal tosser ... but ignore me at your peril". 'High falutin'? 'Patriarchal tosser'? What sort of language is this? He then tries to ingratiate himself by telling his readers he isnt that highbrow because he watches the Bill. It's this badly thought through intermeshing of popular culture references and pseudo science that are at the root of the flaws of this book. He also recommends if we have any concerns about our emotional well being that we consider going into therapy with a colleague he recommends - a snip at just under £2,000 per treatment.

James does make some valid comments about being overly driven by money, about trying to live up to the dream life shown by pictures in magazines, that only a tiny fraction of the population could possibly attain. He argues correctly, that we should try and value emotional and social interaction, that the pursuit of profit above all else is harmful and that we should try and be happy with what we have.

But it is grating style, his mawkish sentiments and the awful way he expresses himself that failed to endear him to me.

Is That It

Bob Geldof's authobiography is a searingly honest account of his early life, the recklessness and gaucheness of his teenage years and his determination to further himself. He makes much of his the poverty that was so trapping people in Ireland when he was a teenager - poverty of ambition as much as anything else. His first sexual encounter as a schoolboy with a woman from his street, and his first job as a labourer in a slaughter house are described in graphic detail.

But then another side of him emerges as he decides he wants to get on. He travels to Canada, and carves a niche for himself as a music journalist, before coming back to Ireland. He charts the succeses and lows of a pop career with real honesty, and makes clear his own views on how facile pop music is.

The success of Live Aid has made him almost a saintly figure in the media. Critics such as John Pilger rightly point out that money raised in the concert is equivalent to only a days dent repayment by Third World to First world nations. And yet, for a small group of individuals, of which Geldof was a key part, to have achieved all they did was astonishing. It was the first ever live global event on this scale.

This is a gripping account not least because of its ability not to shy away from the rough edges that exist in the world: the blandness of poverty in Ireland, the temporal nature of fame, the daily grind of poverty in Africa.

Fictions

Jorges Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires in 1899 and educated in Europe. One of the most widely acclaimed writers of our time, he published many collections of poems, essays and short stories, before his death in Geneva in June 1986. He was showered with awards throughout his lifetime, and is highly regarded by critics.

And yet.. again I wasn't grabbed by the narrative. Collections of some short stories, such as Graham Greene's manage to a produce some of the depth of characterisation one would expect in a full novel, in each story.

Unspeak

by Stephen Poole

After a so-so start, where he claims that phrases such as 'Friends of the Earth' are not so much misleading as much as verging on thought crimes, he gets going and really lays in to his real villan - the misuse of words as political weapons.

Overall original, concise and insightful.

The Leaf Storm

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

To be honest it washed over me without making a huge impact. Marquez of course won the Nobel prize for literature and is internationally acclaimed writer, but I am going to stick my neck out and say that the narrative failed to grab me.

Mandela: The Authorised Portrait

I always worry a bit with books about Mandela that they puff up an already highly regarded man. This book is no exception, but it also manages to get across how badly he was treated as well as showing a little of the history of both sides of the violence in the 80s. Was Mandela right to agree to use force against the apartheid regime? This book presents the arguments in depth.

There are a few interesting points such as hen Richard Branson mentions how he tried to enlist Mandela to try and stop war in Iraq, but Mbeki didnt get his approval back in time.
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Extras

by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant

I dont want to lavish too much praise on the already much lauded Gervais. But I do think his skills as a writer and director are greater than those of him as an actor / comedian. It is the writing that excells, and this script book is well worth reading. His and Merchants devastating portrayl of Les Dennis as a suicidal self-obsessed fading comedian is just pure gold.

"What about those empty seats?" he asks a half empty theatre in the middle of a panto "They're not laughing much. Whose leaving at half time? It'll be even more embarssing for those that stay" [long pause].

Dark, dark stuff that hits home because you feel the characters that most of the "stars" are playing really are a version of themselves.
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Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone

Not a literary classic but a great page turner, detailing the Stanley expedition to find Livingstone. Stanley despite appearances actually grew up in a small town in Wales. Epic story.

Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness

by Jon ronson

His first two books, "Them" and "The men who stare at goats" were both critically aclaimed critiques of extremism, blind faith and American foreign policy. This book is about the crazyness of everyday life. About how sometimes ordinary people in ordinary situations adopt the manners and influencing behaviour of people like cult leaders.

Overall its reasonably diverting, at times amusing, but at no time does it reach the dizzying heights of his first two.

Watching the English

by Kate Fox


Overlong mediocre depiction of English behaviour by a social anthropologist.

Geldof in Africa

Occasionally self-agrandizing but nonetheless insightful portrait of a people. It gained great reviews from the UK press, and it is in places brilliant. Slightly self congratulatory though. Monbiot wrote an excellent article here where he quoted:

“Right from the beginning,” says Kofi Mawuli Klu of the Forum of African Human Rights Defenders, “he has acted in his own selfish interests. It was all about self-promotion, about usurping the place of Africans. His message was “shut up and watch me”. Without even understanding the root causes of the problems, he used his role to drown the voices of the African people and replace them with his own. There are many knowledgeable people – African and non-African – who could have advised him, but he has been on his own, ego-tripping.

Nonetheless, Geldof clearly is both knowledgeable and pasionate about Africa and this comes across in his writing.

The Shadow of the Sun

by Ryszard Kapuscinski

One of the best books I've read on Africa. Written by a European with a unique perspective - a Polish journalist who is an outsider both to Africans and to rich western europeans. He is therfore able to empathise with both the social alienation felt by the poorer blacks, and the feeling of otherness whites feel. He has spent decades travelling and reporting on the country. Highly recommended.

The Call of the Weird

by Louis Theroux

I've always thought of Theroux as a compotent film maker, but his writing style is pretty pedestrian. Wheras Jon Ronson manages to make situations come alive on the page, Theroux is only able to desribe what happens methodically rather than comically

The Full Cupboard of Life

Fifth installment of McCall-Smith's series based in Botswana. Again reasonably enjoyable but overly saccahrine with lifeless, not fully fleshed out characters.

Morality for Beautiful Girls

by Alexander McCall Smith

Saccharine description of life in a rose tinted Botswana. Occassionally funny and readable. Literary equivalent of watching an episode of Friends - light, airy and inconsequential.

Tears of the Giraffe

This was probably the most interesting of the three I've read. He makes a few points about Africa being neither like the famine stricken hell hole depicted in the news nor the picture postcard view shown in safari brochures and wildlife documentaries, but instead a lively, slow paced rural continent with local people full of life. In this respect he is accurate and I suppose he deserves credit for presenting another facet of life in Africa to a mass audience.