some more book reviews
Jul. 26th, 2014 02:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerGoliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel by Max Blumenthal (14): This needs an entry of its own, as my reading of it and my reactions to it are tied up in a whole lot of other things. Suffice to say that it demonstrates in detail how Israel has transformed itself into the sort of despotic, racist, hate-filled state that Jews were trying to escape when they fled to Palestine.
The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole Who Infiltrated the CIA by Joby Warrick (15): A bit Time magazine in its breathless prose, but an interesting (and sad) account of the recruitment of a Jordanian, arrested for acting as a jihadi propagandist, as a spy inside al-Qa'ida. As the title indicates, I'm not giving the game away by revealing that the recruitment doesn't exactly go as planned, and the spy turns out never to have been turned.
Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future by Stephen Kinzer (16): A rather fascinating book, part history, part policy proposal. The author (who wrote an excellent book, All the Shah's Men, on the US overthrow of the last democratic Iranian government, which I reviewed in 2009) proposes that the US needs to rebuild its relationships with Turkey and Iran and distance itself from its toxic connections to Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs (17): A fun kids' book that JMR had on the shelf. A tale of the classic unpopular grade school boy and his funky female best friend, perhaps not so classically endowed with a wizard uncle and *his* powerful witch lady friend who lives next door. Our hero finds an old charm that may or may not be magical, and adventures ensue. I liked this a great deal, partly because I *was* that chubby kid in school who was too smart, too sensitive, didn't do sports, and liked building model ships. I also like it because the story is detailed and more complex than a lot of stories of its type, with richer characters, lots of backstory, and real connections between the characters and the adventure, instead of
In progress:
Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory by MG Julian Thompson
Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran by Michael Axworthy
Boer Commando by Denneys Reitz
The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole Who Infiltrated the CIA by Joby Warrick (15): A bit Time magazine in its breathless prose, but an interesting (and sad) account of the recruitment of a Jordanian, arrested for acting as a jihadi propagandist, as a spy inside al-Qa'ida. As the title indicates, I'm not giving the game away by revealing that the recruitment doesn't exactly go as planned, and the spy turns out never to have been turned.
Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future by Stephen Kinzer (16): A rather fascinating book, part history, part policy proposal. The author (who wrote an excellent book, All the Shah's Men, on the US overthrow of the last democratic Iranian government, which I reviewed in 2009) proposes that the US needs to rebuild its relationships with Turkey and Iran and distance itself from its toxic connections to Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs (17): A fun kids' book that JMR had on the shelf. A tale of the classic unpopular grade school boy and his funky female best friend, perhaps not so classically endowed with a wizard uncle and *his* powerful witch lady friend who lives next door. Our hero finds an old charm that may or may not be magical, and adventures ensue. I liked this a great deal, partly because I *was* that chubby kid in school who was too smart, too sensitive, didn't do sports, and liked building model ships. I also like it because the story is detailed and more complex than a lot of stories of its type, with richer characters, lots of backstory, and real connections between the characters and the adventure, instead of
In progress:
Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory by MG Julian Thompson
Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran by Michael Axworthy
Boer Commando by Denneys Reitz
