Book picks similar to
Dispatches from Pakistan by Madiha R. Tahir
non-fiction
history
essays
political
Having and Being Had
Eula Biss - 2020
The result is a radical interrogation of work, leisure, and capitalism. Described by The New York Times as a writer who "advances from all sides, like a chess player," Biss brings her approach to the lived experience of capitalism. Ranging from IKEA to Beyoncé to Pokemon, across bars and laundromats and universities, she asks, of both herself and her class, "In what have we invested?"
The Deepest State: A Satirical Epic
Oliver Willis - 2018
Donald Trump. Ivanka Trump. Hillary Clinton. Oprah. Barack Obama. Paul Ryan. Joe Biden. John Kerry. And a cast of thousands as the story behind the headlines you can't believe is exposed. Part political thriller, part soap opera, partially insane. The Deepest State was a viral hit - and this edition has the EXCLUSIVE, never before seen short story, "Enter the Bidenverse." Here's what they're saying about The Deepest State: "One of the greatest threads in Twitter history" – Richard Metzger "An amazing read" – A. Whitney Brown "Just keeps getting more amazing" – Jon Cryer "Amazing well written and riveting" – Merrill Markoe "This… is glorious" – Joy Reid "Epic, epic thread" – Jill Lawrence "A Twitter thread for the ages" – Marsha Warfield "Fucking brilliant" – Jeff Jarvis "Fantastic." – Steven Boyer "The most gorgeous thing I have read in a long time" – Penelope Patsuris "Good times" – Eliza Skinner "Comedy gold" – PJ Manney
The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the English
Sarah Lyall - 2008
She’s since returned to the United States, but this distillation of incisive—and irreverent—insights, now updated with a new preface, is just as illuminating today. And perhaps even more so, in the wake of Brexit and the attendant national identity crisis.While there may be no easy answer to the question of how, exactly, to understand the English, The Anglo Files—part anthropological field study, part memoir—helps point the way.
Khomeini's Ghost: The Iranian Revolution and the Rise of Militant Islam
Con Coughlin - 2009
More than thirty years after Khomeini’s return to Tehran and the subsequent rebirth of Iran as an Islamic Republic, Khomeini’s Ghost offers an intimate, richly detailed portrait of the fundamentalist leader and architect of Iran’s adversarial relationship with the West—a man whose legacy has influenced history and policy, and will continue to do so for generations to come.
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America
Beth Macy - 2018
From distressed small communities in Central Appalachia to wealthy suburbs; from disparate cities to once-idyllic farm towns; it's a heartbreaking trajectory that illustrates how this national crisis has persisted for so long and become so firmly entrenched. Beginning with a single dealer who lands in a small Virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics, Macy endeavors to answer a grieving mother's question-why her only son died-and comes away with a harrowing story of greed and need. From the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, Macy parses how America embraced a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm. In some of the same distressed communities featured in her bestselling book Factory Man, the unemployed use painkillers both to numb the pain of joblessness and pay their bills, while privileged teens trade pills in cul-de-sacs, and even high school standouts fall prey to prostitution, jail, and death.Through unsparing, yet deeply human portraits of the families and first responders struggling to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus. In these politically fragmented times, Beth Macy shows, astonishingly, that the only thing that unites Americans across geographic and class lines is opioid drug abuse. But in a country unable to provide basic healthcare for all, Macy still finds reason to hope-and signs of the spirit and tenacity necessary in those facing addiction to build a better future for themselves and their families.
War Stories
Jeremy Bowen - 2006
He had witnessed violence already, both at home & abroad, but it wasn't until he covered his first war that he felt he had arrived. This is his story, examining his desire to become a war reporter & how the nature of the job has changed.
Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why
Sady Doyle - 2016
She’s Britney Spears shaving her head, Whitney Houston saying, “crack is whack,” and Amy Winehouse, dying in front of millions. But the trainwreck is also as old (and as meaningful) as feminism itself. From Mary Wollstonecraft—who, for decades after her death, was more famous for her illegitimate child and suicide attempts than for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman—to Charlotte Brontë, Billie Holiday, Sylvia Plath, and even Hillary Clinton, Sady Doyle’s Trainwreck dissects a centuries-old phenomenon and asks what it means now, in a time when we have unprecedented access to celebrities and civilians alike, and when women are pushing harder than ever against the boundaries of what it means to “behave.” Where did these women come from? What are their crimes? And what does it mean for the rest of us? For an age when any form of self-expression can be the one that ends you, Sady Doyle’s book is as fierce and intelligent as it is funny and compassionate—an essential, timely, feminist anatomy of the female trainwreck.
India Dishonoured: Behind a Nation's War on Women
Sunny Hundal - 2013
A look at the treatment of women in India as well as possible reasons why such treatment occurs.
Patchwork: A Political System for the 21st Century
Mencius Moldbug - 2017
Patchwork's innovative design, which relies on sovereign joint-stock republics with cryptographic governance, brings the promise of clean streets, negligible crime, invincible robot armies, and world peace.
She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement
Jodi Kantor - 2019
For months Kantor and Twohey had been having confidential discussions with top actresses, former Weinstein employees and other sources, learning of disturbing long-buried allegations, some of which had been covered up by onerous legal settlements. The journalists meticulously picked their way through a web of decades-old secret payouts and nondisclosure agreements, pressed some of the most famous women in the world--and some unknown ones--to risk going on the record, and faced down Weinstein, his team of high-priced defenders, and even his private investigators. But nothing could have prepared them for what followed the publication of their Weinstein story. Within days, a veritable Pandora's Box of sexual harassment and abuse was opened, and women who had suffered in silence for generations began coming forward, trusting that the world would understand their stories. Over the next twelve months, hundreds of men from every walk of life and industry would be outed for mistreating their colleagues. But did too much change--or not enough? Those questions plunged the two journalists into a new phase of reporting and some of their most startling findings yet. With superlative detail, insight, and journalistic expertise, Kantor and Twohey take us for the first time into the very heart of this social shift, reliving in real-time what it took to get the story and giving an up-close portrait of the forces that hindered and spurred change. They describe the surprising journeys of those who spoke up--for the sake of other women, for future generations, and for themselves--and so changed us all.
Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution
Laurie Penny - 2014
Unspeakable Things is a book that is eye-opening not only in the critique it provides, but also in the revolutionary alternatives it imagines.
The Braindead Megaphone
George Saunders - 2007
George Saunders's first foray into nonfiction is composed of essays on literature, travel, and politics. At the core of this unique collection are Saunders's travel essays based on his trips to seek out the mysteries of the "Buddha Boy" of Nepal; to attempt to indulge in the extravagant pleasures of Dubai; and to join the exploits of the minutemen at the Mexican border. Saunders expertly navigates the works of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and Esther Forbes, and leads the reader across the rocky political landscape of modern America. Emblazoned with his trademark wit and singular vision, Saunders's endeavor into the art of the essay is testament to his exceptional range and ability as a writer and thinker.
Into the Mirror: The Life of Master Spy, Robert P. Hanssen
Lawrence Schiller - 2002
Into the Mirror is the story of FBI Special Agent Robert P. Hanssen, the master spy who singlehandedly created the greatest breach of security in the country's history. Written in novelistic prose, Schiller creates a gripping portrait of Hanssen, who for 22 years was a loving husband, devoted father of six, devout Catholic & member of Opus Dei, passionate anticommunist, dedicated FBI agent & a traitor. On 2/18/01, the FBI arrested Hanssen & charged him with selling to the Russians--over a period of more than 20 years--top-secret, classified information. Nothing reported to date about this ordinary-looking but tormented man has revealed the facts that Schiller & Norman Mailer--collaborators on the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Executioner's Song & Oswald's Tale--uncovered during their 9-month investigation into the life of this man. Seeking to solve this mystery, they spent hundreds of hours interviewing members of his family as well as his closest friends, colleagues & fellow church members. They traveled to Moscow to interview a key member of the KGB who had handled the spy they knew only as "Ramon Garcia." Into the Mirror gets inside the mind of a devious & dangerously brilliant man & creates a portrait of someone so caught up in the struggle with his own personal demons that he would betray everything he held sacred: his wife, family, religion & country.
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Barbara Demick - 2009
Taking us into a landscape most of us have never before seen, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today—an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, in which radio and television dials are welded to the one government station, and where displays of affection are punished; a police state where informants are rewarded and where an offhand remark can send a person to the gulag for life. Demick takes us deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors. Through meticulous and sensitive reporting, we see her six subjects—average North Korean citizens—fall in love, raise families, nurture ambitions, and struggle for survival. One by one, we experience the moments when they realize that their government has betrayed them. Nothing to Envy is a groundbreaking addition to the literature of totalitarianism and an eye-opening look at a closed world that is of increasing global importance.
Blossom: What Scotland Needs to Flourish
Lesley Riddoch - 2013
A term given to flowers of stone fruit trees and some other plants that flower profusely in Spring. Blossoms provide pollen to bees, and initiate cross-pollination necessary for trees to reproduce by producing fruit. 2. A peak period or stage of development. Covering topics including housing, health, language and culture, Riddoch looks at the way in which Scots identify themselves and how this needs to change in order for the country to blossom u as an independent nation or a strongly devolved one. Arguing that limited access to security and wealth has left Scots feeling like outsiders in their own country, this book tackles fundamental and personal issues of identity that matter to ordinary Scots. Designed to incite discussion and debate, this book will appeal to those who believe larger issues of self esteem and power lurk beneath the complexities of the independence debate and want to delve deeperBACK COVERWhat will it take for Scotland to blossom? "Imagine Scotland as a beautifully-knitted, warmth-providing sweater caught on a snag. Its wearer tries to move forward u but cannot. A pause is needed to lift the garment clear. Scotland is thus snagged. And no amount of tugging will free it from the stubborn, progress-inhibiting three-headed hook of inequality, distant control and top-down governance." Weeding out vital components of Scottish identity from decades of political and social tangle is no mean task, but itOCOs one journalist Lesley Riddoch has undertaken. Dispensing with the tired, yo-yoing jousts over fiscal commissions, Devo Something and EU in-or-out, "Blossom" pinpoints both the buds of growth and the blight thatOCOs holding Scotland back. Drawing from its people, history, and the authorOCOs own passionate and outspoken perspective this is a plain-speaking but incisive call to restore control to local communities and let Scotland flourish.