Why Read. Selected Writings 2001 – 2021

If there is one man to whom I do feel myself inferior, it is a coalminer. In the mid-1930s, George Orwell was given an assignment from his publisher - to write a book about unemployment and social conditions in the economically depressed north of England. Revolutionary for its time, The Road to Wigan Pier documents Orwell's stint in towns likes Barnsley, Sheffield and Wigan in 1936, where he met and observed working-class people living in the bleak industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire. Orwell graphically and emphatically describes the hardships of ordinary people living in cramped slum housing, working in dangerous mines and growing hungry through malnutrition and social injustice. It is an honest, gripping and humane study that also looks at socialism as a solution to the problems facing working-class northerners - something many readers at the time were uncomfortable discussing. The Road to Wigan Pier cemented ideas that would be found in Orwell's later works, and remains a powerful portrait of poverty, injustice and class divisions in Britain to this day.

'This is essential' Margaret Atwood on Twitter `She's one of the most acute and perceptive analysts of the furtive growth of fascism. Everyone should know about this' Philip Pullman 'Vibrates with outrage' The Times `It couldn't happen here' Ece Temelkuran heard reasonable people in Britain say it the night of the Brexit vote. She heard reasonable people in America say it the night Trump's election was soundtracked by chants of `Build that wall.' She heard reasonable people in Turkey say it as Erdogan rigged elections, rebuilt the economy around cronyism, and labelled his opposition as terrorists. How to Lose a Country is an impassioned plea, a warning to the world that populism and nationalism don't march fully-formed into government; they creep. Award winning author and journalist Ece Temelkuran, identifies the early-warning signs of this phenomenon, sprouting up across the world from Eastern Europe to South America, in order to define a global pattern, and arm the reader with the tools to root it out. Proposing alternative, global answers to the pressing - and too often paralysing - poltical questions of our time, Temelkuran explores the insidious idea of `real people', the infantilisation of language and debate, the way laughter can prove a false friend, and the dangers of underestimating one's opponent. She weaves memoir, history and clear-sighted argument into an urgent and eloquent defence of democracy. No longer can the reasonable comfort themselves with `it couldn't happen here.' It is happening. And soon it may be too late.

On the trail of Soviet infiltrator Agent Bleriot, in this bestseller, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a thrilling journey through Stalin's most audacious intelligence operation. On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enrol at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education. Recognising Russia was 100 years behind the encircling capitalist powers, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent Shumovsky on a mission to acquire America's vital secrets to help close the USSR's yawning technology gap. The road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT - Shumovsky's destination soon became the unwitting finishing school for elite Russian spies. The USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to confront and defeat Nazi Germany. Then in an extraordinary feat that astonished the West, in 1947 American ingenuity and innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world. Following his lead, other MIT-trained Soviet spies helped acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. By 1949, Stalin's fleet of TU-4s, now equipped with atomic bombs could devastate the US on his command. Appropriately codenamed BLERIOT, Shumovsky was an aviation spy. Shumovsky's espionage was so successful that the USSR acquired every US aviation secret from his network of agents in factories and at top secret military research institutes. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin's most audacious intelligence operation. She pieces together every aspect of Shumovsky's life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives, exposing how even Shirley Temple and Franklin D. Roosevelt unwittingly advanced his schemes.

The New York Times Bestseller 'Superb, enthralling and necessarily terrifying . . . every step feels spring-loaded with tension... extraordinary.' The New York Times The story of Chernobyl is more complex, more human, and more terrifying than the Soviet myth. Adam Higginbotham has written a harrowing and compelling narrative which brings the 1986 disaster to life through the eyes of the men and women who witnessed it first-hand. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews conducted over the course of more than ten years, as well as letters, unpublished memoirs, and documents from recently-declassified archives, this book makes for a masterful non-fiction thriller. Chernobyl has become lodged in the collective nightmares of the world: shorthand for the spectral horrors of radiation poisoning, for a dangerous technology slipping its leash, for ecological fragility, and for what can happen when a dishonest and careless state endangers not only its own citizens, but all of humanity. It is a story that has long remained in dispute, clouded from the beginning in secrecy, propaganda, and misinformation. Midnight In Chernobyl is an indelible portrait of history's worst nuclear disaster, of human resilience and ingenuity and the lessons learned when mankind seeks to bend the natural world to his will - lessons which, in the face of climate change and other threats - remain not just vital but necessary. Now, Higginbotham brings us closer to the truth behind this colossal tragedy. 'Tells the story of the disaster and its gruesome aftermath with thriller-like flair . . . wonderful and chilling ... written with skill and passion.' The Observer 'An invaluable contribution to history.' Serhii Plokhy, Evening Standard LONGLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE ONDAATJE PRIZE 2020

It has been called the political crime of the century: This book from Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Greg Miller uncovers for the first time the truth behind the Kremlin's attempt to put Trump in the White House, how they did it, when and why. This exclusive book uncovers the truth behind the Kremlin's interference in Donald Trump's win and Trump's steadfast allegiance to Vladimir Putin. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of people in Trump's inner circle, the intelligence communities, foreign officials, and confidential documents. The Apprentice offers exclusive information about: - the hacking of the Democrats by Russian intelligence; - Russian hijacking of Facebook and Twitter; - National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's hidden communications with the Russians; - the attempt by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, to create a secret backchannel to Moscow using Russian diplomatic facilities; - the firing of FBI Director James Comey; - the appointment of Mueller and the investigation that has followed; - and Trump's jaw-dropping behaviour in Helsinki. Deeply reported and masterfully told, The Apprentice is essential reading for anyone trying to understand Vladimir Putin's secret operation, its catastrophic impact, and the nature of betrayal.