The Liberal Globe presents the books that read in 2023 and suggest you read them as well. These proposed books belong to different categories in order to correspond to the different tastes of readers. These book categories are Politics-Government and Current Affairs, History, Biography and memoir, Economics, Culture and Ideas, Non-Fiction, Fiction, Science & Technology, Novel.
Politics-Government and Current Affairs
- Deadly Quiet City: True Stories from Wuhan
By Murong Xuecun (Author), Publisher: The New Press
In 2020, at the start of the pandemic, a celebrated Chinese writer interviewed people in Wuhan about their experiences during lockdown. His brave and vital book follows eight people including a doctor at the small hospital an unlicensed driver of a motorcycle taxi and a citizen journalist, whose daring efforts resulted in the prison sentence.
- Fear Is Just a Word
By Azam Ahmed, Publisher: Hachette Audio UK
Since the early 2000s, the number of Mexicans who have disappeared and not yet been found has risen from a handful to more than 100,000. A journalist for the New York Times tracks Miriam, whose youngest daughter is kidnapped and then killed by the Zeta gang. By focusing on one mother’s extraordinary story, the author evokes the cartels painful toll.
- Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea’s Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women’ s Rights Worldwide
By Hawon Jung, Publisher: BenBella Books (March 7, 2023)
A brilliant examination of South Korean feminists’ struggle for equality with global resonance. It describes how many South Koreans still see women only as cooks, cleaners and “baby-making machines” and tells tales of misogyny, from spycams in public toilets to bigots in public office.
- The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory
By Tim Alberta, Publisher: HarperAudio
This Chronicle of the modern evangelical movement in America is a horror story told from the inside. Its author, a staff writer for the Atlantic, is angry and heartbroken as he watches the religious community in which he was brought up being hijacked by power hungry hucksters and right-wing nationalists.
- Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country
By Patricia Evangelista, Publisher: Random House Audio
A rigorious reported look at Rodrigo Duturte’s campaign against illegal drugs from a Filipina journalist. It is also a story of lost Innocence, as she learns that the vast majority of people in the Philippines supported their president’s lawless war on Drugs, in which perhaps 27,000 people were killed extra-judicially.
- Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future
By Ian Johnson, Publisher: Tantor Audio
A Pulitzer prizewinning journalist describes the valiant efforts of China’s “underground historians”, a motley and persistent group of academics, artists, film-makers and journalists attempting to correct the official record and provide truthful accounts of history. An insight into the risks that some Chinese take to illuminate the darkest episodes of Communist Party rule.
Business and Economics
- Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Swindled the World
By Yepoka Yeebo, Publisher: Bloomsbury Circus
Τhis is the story of one of the world’s greatest (but least famous) con artists. Ghana’s John Ackah Blay-Miezah bilked investors on several continents by promising he knew where lost gold was hidden. Exhaustive reporting by the author makes this a welcome addition to the canon on great swindlers.
- Best Things First
By Bjorn Lomborg Publisher: Copenhagen Consensus Center
A forceful argument to replace the sprawling and vague Sustainable Development Goals from the United Nations with 12 cost-effective policies to help the world’s poor. “Some things are difficult to fix, cost a lot and help little,” the author writes. Others are solved “at low cost, with remarkable outcomes”.
- The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level
By John Cochrane Publisher: Princeton University Press
In this book, is presented a new(ish) theory for how government debt, not interest rates, ultimately determines prices. Not for the faint-hearted, this book is provocative to economists and well-timed for an an age of big deficits and high inflation.
- The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset That Drives Extraordinary Results
By Andrew McAfee Publisher: McMillan Business
A technology-and-business guru at MIT explains how the mindset that inspires Silicon Valley could be usefully applied in life and in other fields of business, with a focus on teamwork, producing prototypes quickly and avoiding bureaucracy through individual accountability.
- How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything in Between
By Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner Publisher: Random House Audio
Megaprojects often turn into Megasnafus. This entertaining book, co-written by an academic at Oxford University and a journalist, looks at why ambitious schemes so consistently miss deadlines and budgets and what can be done about it. Project management has never been more fun.
- Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future
By Ed Conway Publisher: Penguin Audio
The economics and data editor of Sky News in Britain travels the world in this study of how six crucial materials-copper, iron, lithium, oil, salt, and sand – have altered human history and underpin the modern economy. As countries seek to decarbonise, a battle is raging to control their supply.
- The Missing Billionaires: A Guide to Better Financial Decisions
By Victor Haghani and James White Publisher: Ascent Audio
A compelling book dealing with an important and neglected question in finance: not what to buy or sell, but how much. Even sophisticated professionals tend to answer this question badly, leading to lost fortunes. But Financial Theory provides the answer. Mathematical but not excessively so, this will appear to anyone with an interest in markets.
- Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building
By Claire Hughes Johnson Publisher: Stripe Press
Good books about the nuts and bolts of management are vanishingly rare. A former executive at Google and Stripe offers a practical guide to everything from giving feedback and delegating to running a meeting and building teams.
- Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy
By James Stewart and Rachel Abrams Publisher: Penguin Audio
A deeply reported and unsparing account of the final years of Sumner Redstone, an American media mogul who died in 2020. Like a lot of reality TV, “Unscripted” is riveting because its cast is so awful. It delves into (sometimes excruciating) detail about his domineering character and extraordinary antics.
Biography and memoir
- Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad: A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival
By Daniel Finkelstein Publisher: William Collins
Both sides of the author’s family were remarkable. His maternal grandfather, Alfred Wiener, was a prominent German Jew who created the most extensive archives documenting the Holocaust; Alfred’s wife and daughters were deported to a concentration camp. The author’s paternal grandmother was transported to a gulag in Siberia. A tale of survival, eloquently told.
- Ian Fleming: The Complete Man
By Nicholas Shakespeare, Publisher: Harper Audio
Almost everyone on Earth has heard of James Bond. But fewer know the details of how exciting and tormented the life of 007’s Creator, Ian Fleming, was. This biography has flaws, but it will still be remembered as definitive, tracing Fleming’s childhood, military service, Espionage, love office and writing career.
- Into the Amazon: The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist
By Larry Rohter, Publisher: Highbridge, a division of Recorded Books
Candido Rondon, an orphan from Brazil’s poor hinterland, rose to become a military officer oversaw monumental engineering works in the Amazon and pioneered a non-violent approach to local indigenous groups. A vivid look at a hero whose humanism was ahead of his time, by a journalist for the New York Times.
- J.L. Austin: Philosopher and D-Day Intelligence Officer
By M.W. Rowe, Publisher: Oxford University Press
Most people are lucky if they enjoy one distinguished career: J.L. Austin had two. He shook up the study of philosophy at Oxford. And, as this scrupulous and engrossing biography shows, he played a crucial role as an intelligence analyst in the Allied invasion of France in 1944.
- King: The Life of Martin Luther King
By Jonathan Eig, Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio UK
This Magnificent biography is an overview attempt to grapple with Martin Luther King in all his complexity. The author, an American journalist, makes the civil-rights leader’s courage and moral vision seem all the more exceptional for having come from a man with so many ordinary human flaws.
- Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative
By Jennifer Burns, Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
The most complete biography of the Economist who did more than any other to inspire free-market reforms around the world in the 1980s. It documents Fried-man’s role in shaping laissez-faire economic policies and libertarian thought and shows his enduring relevance, despite the world’s protectionist turn.
- Monet: The Restless Vision
By Jackie Wullschlager, Publisher: Penguin UK
This is the first account in English of the much-loved artist’s life and work. Monet was a tempestuous man, whose most lasting relationship – in art as in life – was with water.
- Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory
By Jackie Wullschlager, Publisher: Penguin UK
A kind of posthumus memoir in which a New Yorker writer (who died in 2021 and famously compared journalists to conmen) probes memory, childhood and sto
History
- A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
By Nathan Thrall, Publisher: McMillan Audio
An American journalist in Jerusalem examines the events that led up to a bus crash in the West Bank in 2012 that killed six Palestinian children and one of their teachers. Part history, journalism, diatribe and lament, the book builds relentless case that this crash and the ensuring trauma must be remembered.
- The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689
By Jonathan Healey, Publisher: Randome House Audio
A page-turning yet erudite history of the 17th century in revolutionary England. This account of a time of religious and political turmoil, intellectual ferment, scientific innovation and media upheaval is accessible and abounds with contemporary resonances.
- Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient World
By Mary Beard, Publisher: Profile Audio
In this book is presented a chariot -oad of extraordinary characters, examining around 30 Emperors over to 250 years. Readers will enjoy learning about the lives of these blood-splashed, technicolour rulers. Prepare to be shocked and entertained.
- In Her Nature: How Women Break Boundaries in the Great Outdoors
By Rachel Hewitt, Publisher: Vintage Digital
For Hundreds of years, women have had to fight for space to pursue outdoor sport. This inspiring book interwaves the author’s personal story of loss with the hidden history of trailblazing women who became cyclists, hikers, mountaineers and runners.
- Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
By Gary Bass, Publisher: Knopf
A meticulously reserached and authorative account of efforts to prosecute and punish Japanese generals and politicians deemed responsible for soma of the horrors of the second world war.
- The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination
By Stuart Reid, Publisher: Random House Audio
This book recounts the rise and demise of Patrice Lumumba, who was prime minister of post-Independence Congo for less than three months in 1960 before he was assassinated, establishing the playbook for future CIA interventions. A shameful story, recounted with verve and thoughtfulness.
- Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World 1848-1849
By Christopher Clark, Publisher: Penguin Audio
This book traces the events leading up to and following the year 1848 – when revolutions spread to almost every country in Europe. “Hierarchies beat networks. Power prevailed over ideas and arguments.” he writes. This book features a compelling cast of idealists, thinkers, propagandists and cynics and argues that their sacrifices were not wholly in vain.
- On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe
By Caroline Dodds Pennock, Publisher: Knopf
An absorbing account of indigenous peoples in 16th-century Europe. using archival documents and oral histories, the study shatters the Eurocentric assumption that, half a millenium ago, people and ideas flowed in only one direction, from the old world to the “new”.
- The Wager
By David Grann, Dion Graham, Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio UK
A thrilling account of a shipwreck off the coast of Patagonia in 1741 from the author of “Killers of the Flower Moon”. It revolves around three complex figures. Those who love yarns involving cannon fire, sea-chests and mainmasts will find this book both worth plugging into, as will those less intrigued by the age of sail.
Fiction
- The Bee Sting
By Paul Murray, Publisher: Penguin Audio
A story of one unhappy family told from multiple perspectives. The book convincingly evolves a teenage girl’s rage, a boy’s fear, a father’s secrets and a mother’s disappointments and grief.
- The Fraud
By Zadie Smith, Publisher: Penguin Audio
This historical novel centres on a butcher’s claim to be the heir of an English aristocrat. It focuses on an ex-slave who backs his story and on a woman who, fascinated by the case, becomes a writer. Slavery, populism and women’s roles are serious theams in an often funny book.
- Kairos
By Jenny Erpenbeck, Publisher: New Directions
A tale of an affair going sour between a middle-aged male academic and a young female student in East Berlin in the dying days of the German Democratic Republic. It brilliantly weaves the personal with politics and history and does a fine job of unsettling the reader.
- North Woods: A Novel
By Daniel Mason, Publisher: Random House Audio
Set in a single home in the forests of Massachusetts, the interconnecting stories of this enthralling novel span four centuries. It offers a timely musing on what and who are lost to history.
- Prophet Song
By Paul Lynch, Publisher: Bolinda Audio
It is a cautionary tale of war, parenthood and loss. Tender and terrifying at once, it follows a mother of four trying to keep her family together in any imaginary dystopian Ireland, where the government has succumbed to authoritarianism and is trampling on civil liberties.
Culture and Ideas
- Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future
By Gloria Dickie, Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Wonder, fear and friction characterize the relationship between bears and people. The author, travelers the world in search of eight surviving species of bruin, including grizzlies and pandas, bringing readers on a unique sort of bear hunt.
- High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest in Russia’s Haunted Hinterland
By Gloria Dickie, Publisher: Headline
This gripping travelogue recounts the author’s hike across the Caucasus mountains from Russia’s Black Sea coast to the Caspian. A meditation on the role of memory in a fascinating place with a tumultuous, tragic past, it is liable to instill an unexpected urge to visit Pakistan.
- Sailing Alone: A Surprising History of Isolation and Survival at Sea
By Richard J. King, Publisher: Viking
This book was set to the question what possesses an ever-growing number of people to get into a small boat and sail on their own across the world’s seas. Both wimps and thrill-seekers will delight in this literary voyage.
- A Thread of Violence: A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder
By Mark O’Connell, Publisher: Random House Audio
In this crime inquiry the author tries to understand the darkness and violence that run beneath the surface of so many lives. He subject is Malcolm Macarthur, who committed an infamous double murder in Ireland in 1982.
Science and Technology
- The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
By Jeff Goodell, Publisher: Little Brown & Company
A thorough, sometimes frightening examination of the many ways that rising temperatures threaten environments and societies. The author, a climate journalist, tells his story through interpid reporting and memorable characters. It is one of the rare books on climate change that anyone can pick up and understand.
- Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity
By Peter Attia, Publisher: Random House Audio
A longevity expert shows just how behind the times much of modern medicine is, partly because it so often seeks to cure rather than prevent chronic disease. There are simple things people can do to live longer and more healthily.
- The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma
By Mustafa Suleyman, Michael Bhaskar, Publisher: Random House Audio
A cogent look at the potential of artificial intelligence to transform the economy and Society along with the risk of misuse and surveillance.
