Month: December 2019

The end of 2019 fines Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office, the Republican Party beholden to its ex-reality star host, with the very real prospect of his re-election in November 2020.

So how, exactly, did we get here?

Tim Alberta’s 680-page tome offers some answers, situating President Trump’s rise within a wider ‘conflict of ideals’ within his own Republican Party. A confrontation that, ironically, has seen the GoP become the party of the populist blue collar worker, while giving generous tax cuts to the rich and cutting welfare to the poor.

Detailed, thought provoking and perceptive, American Carnage is the book you need to read if you wish to understand the deeper ideological forces at play in the forthcoming US primaries and presidential election.

You can read the full HOWL review, which appeared in August, by clicking on this link .

Howl’s No. 2: Fitting that at #2 we have two works of fiction that shone in the Howl reading universe of 2019. Delayed Rays of Light (Au. Koe): A chance encounter, a photograph, three cinematic legends captured forever at a party in the thrilling world of 1920’s Berlin. This is the real-life starting point for this interwoven fictional tale of three of the more enigmatic figures of mid-twentieth century cinema. Two oceans and decades apart If Cats Disappeared from the World? (Au. Kawamuri) starts with an illness and a Faustian bargain, which ultimately takes us to the question posed on the cover of this short wonderful book. 

Writing of Koe’s debut novel Howl trumped: “ . . . a work of overarching genius destined for a permanent place amongst 2019’s ‘best fiction’ lists.” While the International Examiner had this to say of Kawamuri’s million seller: “The story will have readers re-evaluating the possessions they have and what they might gain from losing them…and are sure to come away from the story seeing the world and the people around them a little differently.” 

Toshikazu Kawaguchi

A small shining gem of a book that captured Howl’s eye at the wonderful Eslite store in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay. Translated from Japanese, at the centre of the story is a café where, if you sit in a certain seat and are served coffee from a special silver kettle, you can travel back in time. There are rules though, the foremost being that you must return before the coffee ‘gets cold’. 

Kawaguchi’s book is inhabited by a cast of characters—a gruff proprietor, intriguing customers and playful staff—who ensure that there is an ongoing connection across the four sub-plots contained between its covers, each story offering a unique take on the time travel experience, while leaving us wondering what the next tale may hold. 

From despair to hope, from uncertainty to understanding, each journey leaves you almost as emotionally spent, yet also fulfilled, as those taking the trip to the past.

It is hard to leave these stories without having a tear in your eye – just make sure that its gone before the coffee gets cold 😉 .

Okay, not a book, but still one of the finest sources of writing of and about the greater Mekong region in this or any other year (with the occasional foray into Japan and surrounds).

Cambodia and the region is very fortunate indeed to have the MR which, every three months ensures that fortune shines upon us, with the alighting of a new edition onto the shelves of the more discerning outlets of Siem Reap and Phnom Penh.

Launched in November 2015, at the very first Kampot Writers and Readers Festival (Howl was there 🙂 ), then and in the years since Minh Bui Jones and his team have moved mountains and type-face to get the latest issue to us.

In 2019 its reviews and articles were augmented by some of the best reportage and analysis of the crisis engulfing Hong Kong. Perceptive, detailed and heart-felt, the Mekong Review and its sister website ‘Mekong Teahouse’, reigned supreme as sources of information and clarity on the events occurring to our north.

‘Five demands, not one less / Four editions, not one less’

Thank you Mekong Review

James E. Parker

In late 1971 the People’s Army of Vietnam (NVA) launched Campaign “Z” into northern Laos, escalating the war in this country with the aim of defeating the last Royal Lao Army troops and the Hmong irregulars supported by the CIA. General Giap’s orders included the destruction of the CIA-sponsored Hmong army, under command of the indigenous warlord Vang Pao, and the occupation of his headquarters in the Long Tieng valley of northeast Laos (once known as the ‘most secret place on earth’). To accomplish this the NVA would need to take the strategic Skyline Ridge.

Despite the odds being overwhelmingly in favour of the NVA, the battle did not go to plan, and although it raged for more than 100 days—the longest of any battle in the second Indo-Chinese War—the North Vietnamese failed to take the ridge, the pivotal objective that would have assured them victory. 

Authored by James Parker, who served in Laos with the CIA and who, unfortunately, died three months prior to publication, the book reflects his values and biases, but in bringing the battle to light he succeeds in drawing attention to an engagement, its combatants and history, that would have otherwise remained largely unknown.

 Mindf*ck.
Inside Cambridge Analytica’s Plot to Break the World

Author: Christopher Wylie

The perfect partner to our No. 7 book of the year, Mindf*ck unpacks the story of Cambridge Analytica and its role in the 2016 US-presidential election and the UK Brexit vote. In 250 tight and entertaining pages Wylie, who was at the centre of events, explains how data accessed from facebook was ‘weaponised’ to swing an election and reshape the European Union forever. 

“Mindf*ck demonstrates how digital influence operations, when they converged with the nasty business of politics, managed to hollow out democracies. . . . [Wylie’s] personal story, woven into the book’s narrative, illustrates the confusion of our current political era … [while making] clear how important the virtual world is to personal identity for his generation and those that follow.”—The Washington Post

Author: Shoshana Zuboff

Zuboff’s message is simple – our freedom is at stake – as the lords of Silicon Valley use our personal data to control what we see and do and the position that we are afforded in society. No longer ‘cogs’ in the machine we have been rendered as bytes in algorithms of code, with the future of democratic society under direct threat.  

“Many adjectives could be used to describe Shoshana Zuboff’s latest book: groundbreaking, magisterial, alarming, alarmist, preposterous. One will do: unmissable… As we grope around in the darkness trying to grasp the contours of our digital era, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism shines a searing light on how this latest revolution is transforming our economy, politics, society – and lives.”―John Thornhill, FINANCIAL TIMES 

Author: Timothy Denevi

A new perspective on ‘Raoul Duke’ aka Hunter S. Thompson, the drug-addled, wise guy critic of the American dream re-cast as a crusader, seeking to uphold what he believed American could be—and should not become. Denevi’s book puts Thompson’s antics and writing in a new light: a relentless (and inspiring) effort to confront hypocrisy and injustice with the best weapons that Thompson owned – his writing and humour. 

“Freak Kingdom…sheds new light on Thompson’s politically awakening and reporting — and the toll it took on him and his later work and life. Few books this season will give you a stronger and more chilling sense of déjà vu…The book chronicles, in absorbing day-by-day detail, how Thompson intersected with history more than some may recall.”―Rolling Stone

Author: Dorian Lynskey

What more could the ‘thinking’ bibliophile ask for in 2019! 

A book about a book that was, and remains, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century as well as the perfect harbinger of our ‘post truth’ age.

Dorian Lynskey’s The Ministry of Truth explores the epochal and cultural event that is George Orwell’s 1984, from its roots in the author’s own life and experiences and the utopian and dystopian literature that preceded it, through to the cultural and political fires that the novel ignited upon publication. Lynskey’s work, predictably, raises themes that have taken on new meaning in our ‘alternative facts’ age. 

“A rich and compelling case for the novel as the summation of Orwell’s entire body of work and a master key to understanding the modern world. . . Lynskey’s account of the reach of 1984 is revelatory.”—George Packer, The Atlantic