Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas Ricks

If there is anyone who still believes that invading Iraq was a good plan then read this book by the senior Washington Post military correspondent. An excellent comprehensive review in the New York Times says:
“Fiasco” is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in understanding how the United States came to go to war in Iraq, how a bungled occupation fed a ballooning insurgency and how these events will affect the future of the American military. Though other books have depicted aspects of the Iraq war in more intimate and harrowing detail, though other books have broken more news about aspects of the war, this volume gives the reader a lucid, tough-minded overview of this tragic enterprise that stands apart from earlier assessments in terms of simple coherence and scope.

It is a shocking book and all the more so because it is written soberly and based on offical documents and the testimonies of serving personnel.For me it shreds any idea that world leaders and military planners have even half a sense of the long-term consequences of their actions, or even care quite frankly.

Read the editorial and hundreds of customer reviews on the amazon.com page.

See a video of a lecture delivered in August 2007 by the author.

Ciao Asmara by Justin Hill

This is a fascinating, gripping account by a volunteer teacher from York, England who worked in a school in the tiny newly-independent African state of Eritrea during the mid-nineties. He tells the stories of the people he meets, especially those who were fighters in the 30 year long war of independence from Ethiopia.There are harrowing accounts of torture, rape and battle in the period of Ehtiopian occupation and the infamous thirteen-year long Battle of Nakfa. Before Ethiopian plunder Eritrea's capital Asmara was one of the most advanced African cities. Now Eritrea remains a desperately poor country. Intensely proud of their success in winning unaided the war of liberation Hill finds many former fighters struggling to sustain hope in the mundane and grindingly hard life of the peace. Hill notes how badly the natural environment has been ravaged because of the war.
I was attracted to this book because of my own experience as a volunteer teacher in Africa, Kenya in the late 1970s. Hill's descriptions of his classroom experiences rang bells with me. But I was staggered by the intenisty of work expected from teachers in Eritrea where there was a critical shortage of school places. Whereas I had 50 in my classes hill has 75.

Thw Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

American writer Joan Didion's husband, also a writer, suffered a massive heart attack as he sat down to dinner with her one evening. He was probably dead before he hit the floor.They had just returned from a visit to hospital where their daughter, their only child, married a few weeks earlier, was unconscious in an intensive care unit. This is a finely written, profoundly moving and perceptive book about grief from first-hand experience. Didion explores the anatomy of bereavement. She recounts how her thinking was altered by her this loss - it became other than rational - hence the title. The desire to have the loved one return again is overpowering. A must read for all bereavement counsellors.

The Threat to Reason: how the Enlightenment was hijacked and how we can reclaim it by Dan Hind

Using a philosophical approach this book shows how urgent it is that informed citizens use their expertise and opportunities to find out what is really going on in the world. Hind wants us to focus attention on the real threats to freedom, from the State and the corporation, which are far more powerfully undermining genuine knowledge than the allegedly irrational religious and mystical or traditional approaches to life which many self-styled modern secularist intellectuals like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris would have us believe are dangerous. The author's own summary of the theme of the book is here

Chasing Francis: a pilgrim's tale by Ian Morgan Cron

In the form of a contemporary novel this book introduces the value of Saint Francis of Assisi for today's world and church. The story revolves around what happens when the successful pastor of a modern middle-American megachurch realises his faith is empty and takes time out in Italy and discovers the life and teachings of Francis.

The Spiral Staircase: a memoir by Karen Armstrong

This is the autobiography of one of the most acute of contemporary interpreters of religion writing in Britain today.It is well described in the cover notes as an exploration of one woman's painful journey to find herself and claim her place in the world.

Triksta: life and death and New Orleans rap by Nik Cohn

What happens when a middle-aged white male music journalist who's obsessed
with New Orleans sets out to make a rap album. This book takes you deep
into the poverty and struggle of the real pre-Katrina New Orleans behind
the tourist facade. Even if you don't care about or for rap this is still a
gripping read about personal journey across cultures. If you do want to
know more about rap Cohn's stories of the rappers he works with help to
explain what gangsta is all about. There is a final chapter added to the
paperback edition after Hurricane Katrina with personal inside stories of
what happened and his own return after the flood. Rap lives on but the New
Orleans he both hated and loved - the old quarters with their rich street
culture and family networks is gone forever. Yet sadly the gangs with the
drugs and the guns are returning because where else will have them.

Fateless by Imre Kertesz trans from Hungarian by Tim Wilkinson

An astonishing book. The story of a fourteen year old Hungarian Jew
imprisoned in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Narrated as seen through the eyes
of this teenager it brings a deeply realistic perspective of one who
genuinely lived through the experience, made all the more chilling by the
innocence of the childl's way of thinking.

Authenticity by Deidre Madden

This is a very accomplished novel abour artists, about relationships, about
life generally, but perhaps most of all an examination of the dynamics of
both loss and redemption, what may be redeemed and what may not be.
Roderic, a middle-aged abstract painter successful in his work but at the
cost of his family life and his personal equilibrium meets Julia a
struggling young artist twenty years his junior, who also becomes
strangely attached to a wealthhy businessman in need of her help. The
story ranges across the lives of these three intermeshed characters for all
of whom art and the artistic passion is central and family relationships
are complex.

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

I have come to this bestseller rather later than most people. I picked it
up for a few pence at a school fete a few weeks ago and decided it might be
a good read for the plane on the way to Greece this summer. I read finished
it a couple of days into the holiday. What I hadn't realised from earlier
reviews was that this is a book about the arts as well as about travel.
Botton looks at how a variety of artists and writers have treated travel
and the sense of place in their works. He covers amongst others Baudelaire,
Edward Hopper, Flaubert, Wordsworth, the Book of Job, Vinccent van Gogh,
and John Ruskin. It is a meditation on the lure of travel, what we hope for
from it, and the nature of paying attention which links the artistic
endeavour and travel. I found it a very thought- provoking and satisfying
read.

Mission-Shaped Spirituality:the transforming power of mission

Sue Hope writes out of her experiences and those of others about moving church life and ministry from the "come" to the "go" mode. The Church of England has been used to being a settled church but now it needs to go out in mission to its own community. This sounds daunting but in fact has the potential to transform the lives of churches, communities, and Christians. She uses stories from her own ministry and other stories too to testify to this.

A History of Modern Britain

Andrew Marr's A History of Modern Britain ( Macmillan 2007) has a memorable opening chapter - Prologue - which I believe will in itself become one of the key quoted texts of future historians writing about how early 21st Britons understood the momentous transition the country had undergone at the end of its Empire. It is a wonderfully written essay. I look forward to the rest of the book.

Al-Qaeda: The true story of radical Islam

Al-Qaeda: The true story of radical Islam by Jason Burke (revised edition Penguin Books 2004)
An extremely detailed account of the rise of modern Islamic jihadism and analysis of the role of Osama bin Laden and a whole host of other militant activists.Burke describes the changes and developments in Islamic militancy over the last 25 years including the build-up to 9/11 and its aftermath. He puts bin Laden in context showing both his influence and the limits of his influence. The book is not an easy read because of the sheer volume of detail. I find Arabic names difficult to hold in memory during reading. Also the narrative is not linear but moves backwards and forwards over the period. Nonetheless it is a tour de force by a superior journalist who was there when many of these events happened and who has interviewed some of the key characters. This book shows that simplistic analysis of Islamic jihadism is not enough; that there is an increasingly widespead global hostility towards "the West" amongst alienated Muslims in many parts of the world which cannot be ignored; but that the way for the West to counter this threat ultimately is not to further alienate the Islamic world through the use of the military option but rather to tackle the social and economic poverty of the Middle East in particular and to build common cause with the vast majority of Muslims who eschew violence.

Beyond Terror

Beyond Terror: the truth about the real threats to our world
by Chris Abbot, Paul Rogers, John Sloboda (Oxford Research Group) published by Rider 2007 [isbn 978-1-84-604070-2]

This book shows clearly that international terrorism is not the single greatest threat to world security.

However many Western governments assume it is. In response their dangerous policies attempt to mantain control and keep the status quo by using overwhelming military force. This book shows why this approach has been such a failure and how it distracts us from other, much greater, threats: climate change, competition over resources, marginilisation of the majority of the world, global militarisation.

Based on work done by the Oxford Research Group published 2006 as Global Responses to Global Threats:Sustainable Security for the 21st Century.

Oxford Research Group website