LibGuides: EvCC Reads!: Power, Politics & Protest

Ten Novels that Shaped Our World

With thoughts of Presidential primaries and upcoming elections, this seems like an appropriate time to explore power, politics and protest. The BBC chose ten works of fiction, as part of their 100 Novels that Shaped Our World, with those themes in mind. Learn more about each title by clicking here and connecting to the BBC website. In this month's edition of EvCC Reads you will find articles, lists and profiles to help you get acquainted with three authors, explore essential non-fiction, and then escape into a recommended political thriller. Read on!

Real World Politics - Non-Fiction Picks

Where should you start to be better informed? Here are two lists to get you going and a couple of highlights.

Read Smarter
Business Insider magazine promises that there choice of 11 books "will help you sharpen your political know-how, no matter which side of the political spectrum you fall on."
Insiders and Issues
Town & Country magazine has "rounded up the best 14 books to get keep you informed, from candidate memoirs and insider accounts of the Trump administration, to deep dives on issues like immigration, race, and gender."

Good & Mad by Rebecca Traister
Traisler explores the power of female anger and its ability to transcend into a political movement. Vanity Fair calls it “a hopeful, maddening compendium of ... the good it can do when wielded efficiently—and collectively”
The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
"The Nine not only provides a vivid narrative history of the Court's recent history, but also gives the reader an intimate look at individual justices, showing how personality, judicial philosophy and personal alliances can inform decisions that have huge consequences." [NY Times]
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
Haidt shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. He shows why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and why each side is actually right.

Three from the BBC

Kamila Shamsie has written seven novels, including Broken Verses and Burnt Shadows. She has been a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize and has been named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. She was raised in Karachi and lives in London.

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
This re-telling of Antigone is set against political tensions in London. Kirkus Reviews called it "a haunting and arrestingly current portrait of two families forever caught in the insurmountable gap between love & country, loyalty & desire.

Malorie Blackman is a British writer who held the position of Children's Laureate from 2013 to 2015. She primarily writes literature and television drama for children and young adults and uses science fiction to explore social and ethical issues. [Wikipedia]

Naughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
Sephy is a Cross – a member of the dark-skinned ruling class. Callum is a nought – a ‘colourless’ member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses. This is book one in a dystopian series for young adults.

If you aren't a reader of graphic novels, Alan Moore may be totally unknown to you (although you may be familiar with the film adaptations of such stories as Watchman or V for Vendetta). This author is as colorful as the book illustrations.

V for Vendetta by Alan Moor
ISBN: 9781401208417

Set in a futurist totalitarian England, a country without freedom or faith, a mysterious man in a white porcelain mask strikes back against the oppressive overlords on behalf of the voiceless.

Political Thrillers

Need to escape from the news, polls and debates? AbeBooks has put together a pretty great list of "unabashed page-turners featuring spies, explosions and big finales to award-winning high-end literary fiction set in political circles where the drama comes from intricate details and metaphorical back-stabbing." Here are some selections from AbeBooks and others; click here to check out all their choices!

The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
The Jackal. A killer at the top of his profession. A man unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the President of France.
House of Cards by Michael Dobbs
Francis Urquhart is about as nasty a politician as you will ever meet. As chief whip in the British Parliament, his scheme is to become the leader of the governing party and, then, prime minister. The BBC adapted this for tv long before Netflix. Check that version out as well.
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Political intrigue is nothing new, as the Tudors show us. Chief minister to Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell is the archetypal fixer, sorting out the king's problems while knowing the executioner's block is never far away.
Advise & Consent by Allen Drury
This Pulitzer prize winner penetrates "the world’s stormiest political battleground—the smoke-filled committee rooms of the United States Senate—to reveal the bitter conflicts set in motion when the President calls upon the Senate to confirm his controversial choice for Secretary of State." [Amazon]
The Lions of Lucerne by Brad Thor
The President of the United States has been kidnapped and his Secret Service detail massacred. Ex-Navy SEAL Scot Harvath is the only survivor. He doesn’t buy tthat Middle Eastern terrorists are behind the attack and begins his own campaign to find the truth and exact revenge.