Tell Me No Lies

Anju requested a while back that I blog about the books I am reading. Frankly, when she asked, I was reading the sort of books I have become addicted to - good crime fiction and I didn't think they merited a mention. Those books are a bit like junk food - you know they are full of crap but somehow incredibly satisfying. Sometimes, you find the literary version of a US$50 burger, which is a great surprise - see Dennis Lehane (author of "Mystic River" which was a Clint Eastwood movie) and George Pelecanos for examples.

But, anyway, I am reading a book at the moment which I am forced to foist on you all: Tell Me No Lies is an anthology of the best investgative journalism over the past 80 years or so - it is edited by John Pilger, an Australian journalist who made his name covering the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. Starting with the reports of the first journalist to enter Hiroshima (a few days) after the bomb was dropped and finishing with, what else some reports about Iraq and the invasion it is an amazing collection and I challenge anyone with a soul not to burst out crying when reading some of the reports - in particular, the reports on Cambodia; the My Lai massacre; Robert Fisk's report on the massacre of innocents in the refugee camps in Beirut (overseen by Sharon) and the report on the siege of Gaza after the 1994 Oslo peace accord are incredibly moving and powerful.

Essential reading.