Agree with last poster on " The Shock Doctrine " excellent book !!

Here are a few I have enjoyed of late........

"The Corporation " Joel Bakan ..........the nature and structure of corporations and their effects on people and the world.

" Unpeople " Mark Curtis........... a seldom seen account of human rights abuses commited by successive british governments

" Armed Madhouse " Greg Palasts damning account of corruption in the US elections and other subjects

" Open Veins of Latin America " Eduardo Galleanos classic account of the continuing rape of Latin America remarkable reading and still of value in understanding contemporary Latin American events.

more to come soon............

I would asloagree that the shock doctrine is excellent Klein's other bestseller No Logo is also good, if a little preachey.

Would also reccomend The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zacharia.

As is bound to happen from time to time a question is posed which has already been discussed in the past, you can find more suggested reading here or why not join the book group.

Thanks for the heads-up Opinionated.

a good book is pure cop by connie fletcher griping

I am a lifelong reader of books and literature of all kinds (except porno), and I want to recommend these for the following reasons:-
EXODUS by Leon Uris, a book I'm going to read in the future about Israel's return to the desolation of the wilderness that was her homeland in 1948 and beyond. It sounds good.
READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN by Azar Nafisi about an underground English literature class studying novels forbidden under the regime of Ayatollah Khomenei in Iran. Brilliantly told, and a detailed account of life in Iran especially among young revolutionaries and academics.
TITUS GROAN/GORMENGHAST by Mervyn Peake, a fourth installment called TITUS AWAKES is going to be released soon. I didn't like the third novel TITUS ALONE as much, but his command of prose excels that of any writer I've ever read including Tolkien's LORD OF THE RINGS, and his gift for imagery and description shine through all his works like one of the master poets.
THE HOBBIT by JRR Tolkien, my favourite children's book.
The LEFT BEHIND series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, surprising as it may sound these two authors have got a good grasp of what the political scene might be like in the future, and their technical descriptions of how the world system turns and a commercial flight captain's life is turned upside down by it and the rise of the antichrist-the books archvillain-are graphically realistic. There are 16 books in the series if you include the three prequels, and I have read those prequels and books 1-4 so far of the original series.
All these I would recommend if you've got the time-you won't be bored or disappointed.
Since many of you have been mentioning THE SHOCK DOCTRINE by Naomi Klein I will also mention that I have got that and am going to read it. It must be a popular book among the politically-interested and I'll take your word for it and give it a flip!

try books of Nicholas sparks he's my Favourite

The next book I am going to read is "No such thing as society", by Andy McSmith, which is basically a history of 1980s Britain. I came of age both in years and in terms of political awareness in that decade, being only 14 and still at school when it began, and 24 when it ended. To this day I have strong views on 80s politics and loathe Margaret Thatcher with a passion. And yet, as the archetypal decade of my youth, there is a lot of nostalgia associated with it too.

I am very much looking forward to reading the book.

Open World: The Truth About Globalization and Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, both by Philippe Legrain are reallly worth a read.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive, by Jared Diamond. To quote:

"This book employs the comparative method to understand societal collapses to which environmental problems contribute. My previous book (Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies), had applied the comparative method to the opposite problem: the differing rates of build-up of human societies on different continents over the last 13,000 years. In the present book focusing on collapses rather than build-ups, I compare many past and present societies that differed with respect to environmental fragility, relations with neighbors, political institutions, and other "input" variables postulated to influence a society's stability. The "output" variables that I examine are collapse or survival, and form of the collapse if collapse does occur. By relating output variables to input variables, I aim to tease out the influence of possible input variables on collapses.”

Jared Diamond identifies five factors that contribute to collapse: Climate change, hostile neighbours, collapse of essential trading partners, environmental problems, and failure to adapt to environmental issues. He also lists 12 environmental problems facing mankind today. The first eight have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies: Deforestation and habitat destruction, soil problems (erosion, salinisation, and soil fertility losses), water management problems, over-hunting, over-fishing, effects of introduced species on native species, overpopulation and increased per-capita impact of people.

A fascinating read, and one in which you can quite clearly see the various self-destructive ways in which many of our modern societies are heading - not a pretty picture because of the scale of it.

An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain: or Sixty Years of Making the Same Stupid Mistakes as Always

Brilliant book, very humorous and definitely a good read.

The next book I want to buy is 1000 Years of Annoying the French.. although they don't yet have it in hard cover

Ok here is what I have been reading recently:

The communist manifesto: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. This book outlines Marx and Engel's vision of communism. With its beginings as a republic gradualising right through to a system where there is no state and people simply get on with things within a regulated system. The abolition of property etc.

The radical history of Britian: Edward Vallance. Vallance covers the history of British radicalism from the peasants revolt to the anti-war coalition and boldly sets out the importance of radicalism to the mainstream freedoms we have today, he even goes into the fact that these freedoms are beginning to slip from our grasp.

Mein Kampf: Adolf Hitler. Jokin

Rising 44: Norman Davies. Read this book it puts everything into context. It is about poland and the bloody Warsaw Rising. There are no love stories in this book, just pain, torment and loss.

The Two of us, My life with John Thaw: Shelia Hancock. I have always liked the sweeney and morse, so it seemed natural to read this book. Sheila Hancock has a writing style second to none. She details her life with "John" seamlessly, at one point I was actually in tears. The last time I was in tears was when I thought my dog was dying three years ago, the dog didn't die then and as yet shows no sign of dying.

Harlequin: Bernard Cornwell. Read anything by bernard Cornwell.

Northern Protestants an unsettled people: Susan Mckay. If you want to read a book by a self important judas who hates her own people and compares them to nazis, probibly for the applause of some IRA man mascarading as a liberal then read this. Well researched, good interviews but traitorous conclusions. I will be first to denounce loyalist violence but I am willing to give sensible reasons why it happened.

If anyone is seriously interested in reading about life in Britain under Clement Attlee`s postwar Labour government, I would seriously recommend "Austerity Britain" by David Kynaston. It interweaves historical events with interviews with Britsh people from across the class, social, and political spectrums. I believe that this book would be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in this political era in Britain, regardless of political allegiance.

As a matter of interest, if anyone has got an Amazon Kindle (or Kindle for PC installed), there are thousands of free - legally free - classics available for download, including most of the famous novels and a great many older political, historic and scientific books, including ones like the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf that AMGINGLES mentioned, as well as titles like Darwin's Theory of Evolution, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Homer's Iliad, the complete works of Shakespeare...... The complete list is available here, and there are many thousands more for both the Kindle and several more book readers or mobile devices available from Project Gutenberg.

Search for an author named stephen donaldson, a series of trilogy called: Thomas Covenant: umbeliever white gold wielder.

EPIC!

A few more good books I've read recently, the first four at the recommendation of Ops, who seems to have a nose for a good book!

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. A long book, over 930 pages, loosely based on the autobiography of an escaped convict, a bank robber and heroin addict, who fled Australia to live in the slums of Mumbai where he both worked for the local Mafia and helped the poor and needy of the slums, where he set up a free health clinic. Part fact and part fiction, it's a wonderfully descriptive book covering several years of the author's life, loves and work in Mumbai, including a spell in one of India's most notorious prisons and more latterly helping fight with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. The first of two sequels is being released later this year.

The Millennium Trilogy - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; The Girl Who Played with Fire & The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest by Stieg Larsson. All are based in and around Stockholm and feature the exploits of an investigative journalist and his rather unconventional and dysfunctional occasional female assistant. Although each book can be read on it's own, and in turn deal with an investigation into a 40 year old murder within a powerful Swedish industrial family, a triple murder involving sex trafficking of Eastern European girls where one of the main characters is a suspect, and an exposé of an out of control branch of the Swedish secret police, there is a common theme running through them, so best read them all in sequence.

Saturday by Ian McEwan. An exceedingly descriptive book featuring just one day in the life of a top London surgeon, when a chain of seemingly unconnected events start to collapse his previously safe and comfortable world around him.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Read for about the 5th time, another long book, over 1,000 pages of small typeface, and certainly not for everyone, is set in a dystopian USA sometime in the future from when the book was written in 1957, where the leading innovators, ranging from industrialists to artists, refuse to be exploited by a society which has become exceedingly left wing, and slowly start to disappear in order to "stop the motor of the world" and demonstrate that civilisation can't exist where men are slaves to society and to government and that the destruction of the profit motive leads to the total collapse of society. To quote, a book about "the murder – and rebirth – of man's spirit".

I'd also recommend any of Wilbur Smith's books, the majority of which are set either in Egypt during the early dynastic period following the exploits of a fictional Pharaoh and her head slave, or in southern Africa, generally from the early/mid-1800s through to the mid 1900s. All fiction but very well researched and largely accurate as to the facts contained in all the books, with some real characters like Cecil Rhodes and Paul Kruger woven into the books set in South Africa and what was Rhodesia.

If anyone is at all interested in historical epic novels, I would strongly recommend the works of Edward Rutherfurd. He has written 7 novels so far - New York (his latest), Sarum, Russka, London, The Forest, Dublin, and Ireland Awakening (sequal to Dublin).

His novels follow the family trees of several fictional families in a certain location, from the distant past up to close to the present day. The adventures, large and small, that his fictional historical characters experience take place against the backdrop of real historical events and dramas,with real historical characters of importance often woven into the plot. The historical background and dramas portrayed are extremely well researched for the purposes of authenticity: even though the books are fiction, one can learn a lot about real history by reading them. And the author`s storytelling ability is superb.

These novels would I am certain be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in history, but I reckon the general reader would enjoy them too. They are written in such a way that one could enjoy the various adventures without necessarily knowing any of the history beforehand (my own knowledge of the earlier medieval period is patchy, for example, but it never mattered when reading these books).

I would strongly recommend the novels of Edward Rutherfurd to anyone.

No one told me about Ireland awakening, I thought they were still living under the rule of the corrupt Irish roundtable.

Originally Posted by Midas

As a matter of interest, if anyone has got an Amazon Kindle (or Kindle for PC installed), there are thousands of free - legally free - classics available for download, including most of the famous novels and a great many older political, historic and scientific books, including ones like the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf that AMGINGLES mentioned, as well as titles like Darwin's Theory of Evolution, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Homer's Iliad, the complete works of Shakespeare...... The complete list is available here, and there are many thousands more for both the Kindle and several more book readers or mobile devices available from Project Gutenberg.

Excellent recommendation Midas. My iPad is loaded up with books from PG. Also will work with the Apple Reader,Nook, and others. Just about anything out of copyright is available on PG.

Terry Goodkind's sword of truth series, 10 books in total, i'd give an arm and a leg to see these made into films of Lord of the Ring's calibre....of course a films adaptation is NEVER as good as the book, but would be awesome none the less

Call me a philistine, but i just cannot bring myself to the idea of e-books...an old dusty 40 year old book will do me any day!

Originally Posted by marc5

Call me a philistine, but i just cannot bring myself to the idea of e-books...an old dusty 40 year old book will do me any day!

Personally, I love books, that said, there is much to be said for the utility of being able to carry around a complete library with you, especially if you, like me and some others, are in the process of reading several books at once.

Originally Posted by Don

Personally, I love books, that said, there is much to be said for the utility of being able to carry around a complete library with you, especially if you, like me and some others, are in the process of reading several books at once.

I do understand where your coming from, its convenient and useful

I could only concentrate on 1 book at a time, as im usually totally engrossed with said book, maybe il come round to colour tv 1 day :p

Jennifer Fallon's 'Tide Lords' series.

She got me into fantasy. Absolutely brilliant books, those.

Originally Posted by marc5

Call me a philistine, but i just cannot bring myself to the idea of e-books...an old dusty 40 year old book will do me any day!

I thought that up to fairly recently, especially after having been disappointed with the first generation of e-book readers, but with the introduction of e-ink screens such as on the Kindle there's been a huge improvement in the 'look' of the printed page. The big drawback so far is it's still only black and white (or rather, grey scale), but as long as you're not expecting to use it to read books with loads of colour illustrations - which I'm sure will come - it's enough of an improvement to make me change my mind. Maybe not for reading at home, but certainly when travelling.

What I am waiting to see 'in the flesh' though is the Notion Ink Adam, which by all accounts out-performs the iPad in almost every respect, and when switched to what's termed Transflective Display Mode, the screen is as good as the Kindle's for reading e-books, even in bright sunlight, but larger.

Originally Posted by Midas

A few more good books I've read recently, the first four at the recommendation of Ops, who seems to have a nose for a good book!

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. A long book, over 930 pages, loosely based on the autobiography of an escaped convict, a bank robber and heroin addict, who fled Australia to live in the slums of Mumbai where he both worked for the local Mafia and helped the poor and needy of the slums, where he set up a free health clinic. Part fact and part fiction, it's a wonderfully descriptive book covering several years of the author's life, loves and work in Mumbai, including a spell in one of India's most notorious prisons and more latterly helping fight with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. The first of two sequels is being released later this year.

The Millennium Trilogy - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; The Girl Who Played with Fire & The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest by Stieg Larsson. All are based in and around Stockholm and feature the exploits of an investigative journalist and his rather unconventional and dysfunctional occasional female assistant. Although each book can be read on it's own, and in turn deal with an investigation into a 40 year old murder within a powerful Swedish industrial family, a triple murder involving sex trafficking of Eastern European girls where one of the main characters is a suspect, and an exposé of an out of control branch of the Swedish secret police, there is a common theme running through them, so best read them all in sequence.

Yes I would recommend those, Shantaram being in my all time top ten and the Millenium trilogy were my favourite of 2010 (so much so I can't bring myself to watch the film for fear it's had the Hollywood treatment) - to be fair I insisted Midas read them only so he could explain some of the finer details of the financial mystery woven into the first story (so I am glad he enjoyed them too). If your looking for a more female read I very much enjoyed both Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and The Help by Katherine Stockett, which has so far been popular with three generations of Opinionated females. Very rare thing to find a novel which appeals to the chick lit part of my brain without being total drivel!

I'd recommend any of David Mitchell's (not the comedian, the author) books. Probably start with Ghostwritten, as it introduces the format employed in Cloud Atlas, then Number9Dream but his best book is his most recent The Thousand Autimns of Jacob De Zoet, which I loved and can't believe didn't get shortlisted for the Booker prize. Instead they went with drivel like C and The Slap.

Recently I've been reading China Mieville, self described author of "weird fiction". Perdido Street Station is is a remarkable exercise in world-building and The City and The City is an apt critique of modern urban life with a metaphysical twist. Proof that fantasy need not be all goblins and Tolkien-esque piffle, he's also a member of SWP so I thought I'd give him a mention to counter-balance the Ayn Rand recommendation.

I'm currently re-reading the Ray Monk biography of Wittgenstein The Duty of Genius. In a way it's hard going for the simple reason that Wittgenstein himself was pretty hard going. I'm currently at the point where he "discovers" Nietszche....I suspect that Wittgenstein might have been the only person who could have read N with a view to "lightening up" a bit. The discussion of his fractured relationships with his Cambridge mentors is particularly exhausting. His treatment of GE Moore in particular (a luminously good man if ever there were one) was shabby and it says much about Moore's character that he berated himself so fiercely when they became estranged. I'm re-reading it because I've always thought that his "picture theory of meaning" was pretty much a statement of the bleeding obvious and from time to time I need to be reassured that that's not just me being thick.

Originally Posted by Opinionated

As is bound to happen from time to time a question is posed which has already been discussed in the past, you can find more suggested reading here or why not join the book group.

Hi,

is it me or do the links not lead to .....?

regards,
Greg_L-W.

Originally Posted by Greg Lance-Watkins

Hi,

is it me or do the links not lead to .....?

regards,
Greg_L-W.

Oops sorry peeps, they did in September 2009 but of course we've had lots of "upgrades" and general tinkering since then!

Originally Posted by Opinionated

Oops sorry peeps, they did in September 2009 but of course we've had lots of "upgrades" and general tinkering since then!

If anyone would like the lost Book Group to be reformed can you say so either here or to either Op or me by PM?

And the 'missing' link to more reading is here - http://www.politic.co.uk/13378-student-resources.html.

I heartily recommend 'See Spot run', great book, fab storyline, nice bright illustrations, I couldn't put it down

Three Musketeers, by Dumas, funny exciting a joy to read.
Don Quixote, by Cervantes, for the same reasons though second book is better than the first.
The wealth of nations, by Adam Smith, not an easy book but must for full understanding of economic realities.
Senor Vivo and the Coco lords, much better than the one set in Greece with the huge soldier who's gay, the toilet choir and the sea mine. Name escapes me.
The Godfather Mario Puzio, even better than both the films.
Samuel Pepys' Diary, brilliant, funny, rude, candid full of jealousy, lust, double dealing sickness and war.
The looming tower L. Wright, outstanding, not least because it is written by an American about the build up to 11/9 and he is rational calm and tells the truth.

It's captian corellies mandolin.

From whatever political perspective you are from, I highly recommend Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman.

The Jesus Papers by Michael Baigent, auther of Holy Blood, Holy Grail.
Baigent presents a very convincing argument that Jesus was alive and well long after his supposed execution, backed up with some very compelling historical evidence.

Tracey Beaker's Adventures.

LIfe on Air by David Attenborough, his autobiography.

Fascinating insight not only into his experiences in remote places in the 50's and 60's before it was more common to find people with real bones through their noses than holding a mobile phone, but also a close and personal insight into the develoment of BBc and especially BBC2 from before colour to the present day, but administratively and technically.
Endless interesting and varies stuff all beautifuly told by one of my great icons of the Best of Britain.