Behind the News, News Meeting — December 13, 2011 12:44 PM

Winter Reading Club

What are some books that journalists should read this winter?

By The Editors

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I heartily, sincerely and without reservation recommend Roger's Profanisaurus, quite possibly the most exquisite collection of highly imaginative profanity ever assembled in English or any other language. This may well be a book James Murdoch is turning to after a tough day of testifying, as the Roger in question is none other than Roger Mellie, the Man on the Telly, who epitomizes all things tabloid and has been gracing the pages of that beacon of British literature, Viz Magazine, for lo a fortnight plus many years. After the Profanisaurus, I recommend the Roger Mellie cartoons voiced by Peter Cook. They're on youtube and other fine outlets near you.

#1 Posted by Aaron Elstein, CJR on Tue 13 Dec 2011 at 02:53 PM

I highly recommend The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone, host of NPR's On The Media. It's a terrificly entertaining and provocative graphic essay.
http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=20559

#2 Posted by Julie Drizin, CJR on Tue 13 Dec 2011 at 03:52 PM

I would like to recommend my latest book, Shift & Reset (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0470942673) - which talks about how we need to rethink our approach to serious issues, including a lot about the role of media in the digital age.

#3 Posted by Brian Reich, CJR on Tue 13 Dec 2011 at 07:39 PM

Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce, by Stanley Weintraub. Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt.

#4 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Wed 14 Dec 2011 at 07:55 AM

I've just discovered Laura Lippman, who writes noir crime novels set in Baltimore, and who spent years learning the city as a reporter for The Sun. By chance I just read her first book, "Baltimore Blues," from 1997, and her most recent, "I'd Know You Anywhere," published last summer. The former is fun, and introduces a recurring character, Tess Monaghan, a laid-off reporter turned PI. The latter is masterful, a taut cat-and-mouse tale about a manipulative killer on death row and the one victim he didn't murder. The characters are fully realized and you can't can't put the thing down.

#5 Posted by Mike Hoyt, CJR on Wed 14 Dec 2011 at 08:48 AM

I'm reading DEADLINE ARTISTS (Overlook Press, 2011), a new collection of a century's worth of columns.

#6 Posted by Delia, CJR on Wed 14 Dec 2011 at 11:18 AM

I'd like to recommend Constitution 3.0: Freedom, Technological Change and the Law (Disclaimer: Currently work at Brookings). It's a pretty interesting read on long and shorter term legal challenges presented by emerging technologies. Here's an interesting video with some of the book's authors: http://is.gd/sQCybn

#7 Posted by Leandro Oliva, CJR on Wed 14 Dec 2011 at 11:22 AM

It's a good time for journalists to revisit Paul Fussell, particularly Class: A Guide Through the American Status System. Bonus points for his essay collection Thank God for the Atom Bomb.

#8 Posted by Michael Meyer, CJR on Wed 14 Dec 2011 at 01:23 PM

Field Notes on Science & Nature, edited by Harvard University biologist Michael Canfield. The book, published by Harvard University Press, comprises chapters from fourteen scientists who shared their research scribblings and sketchings in an effort to convey the lingering importance of ink, pencil, and paper in a digital world. The sketches—from fields as diverse as ornithology, entomology, ecology, paleontology, anthropology, and botany—are incredible.

#9 Posted by Curtis Brainard, CJR on Wed 14 Dec 2011 at 02:14 PM

I finally got around to reading "The Island at the End of the World" by Russell Shorto, published some seven years ago, about the early Dutch history of Manhattan. It is exquisitely researched and masterfully and wittily told.

#10 Posted by Bridget O'Brian, CJR on Wed 14 Dec 2011 at 02:27 PM

I was so absorbed in this novel that I missed Penn Station and ended up in Stamford, Conn.: "The Rules of Civility" by Amor Towles. A brilliant debut novel set in 1938 Manhattan.

#11 Posted by Irena Choi Stern, CJR on Wed 14 Dec 2011 at 03:49 PM

I highly recommend Darkness in the City of Light, a real-life detective story about a horrendous serial killer in Paris during the Nazi occupation. Author David King has done a great research job and tells the story in a way that makes it impossible to stop reading. The horrifying surprises keep coming, along with a picture of life in Paris during that terrible period.

#12 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Wed 14 Dec 2011 at 08:10 PM

"Finding Fernanda" by Erin Siegal is a piece of masterful reporting on the issue of black market international adoptions. Siegal tells the story through two women--one in Guatemala whose infant is stolen via C-section while she was unconscious and a conscientious U.S. mother seeking to adopt an infant from Guatemala. Their hells are documented, as well as the role played by high-level and low-level crooks, public officials and international law. An except will be posted Sunday on http://www.womensenews.org.

Or you can get it straight from Amazon if you prefer: http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Fernanda-Mothers-Cross-Border-Search/dp/0983884501/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Rita Henley Jensen

#13 Posted by Rita Henley Jensen, CJR on Fri 16 Dec 2011 at 04:45 PM

"Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture," by Mark Feldstein. I knew Nixon was corrupt but finding out how corrupt Jack Anderson and his mentor, Drew Pearson, were, was an unpleasant revelation. Felstein does a fantastic job of comparing and contrasting Nixon and Anderson, who in many ways were mirror images of each other. And finding out Nixon's men planned to assassinate Anderson put Nixon's infamous enemies list in a whole new light. It's not only important history but well written, highly important, and entertaining.

#14 Posted by Ken Martin, CJR on Mon 19 Dec 2011 at 11:43 AM

Any journalists who would presume to understand the online world (that should be all of them, not simply tech journos) need to read three seminal books-- the consumption of which should reduce some of the ridiculous or absurd statements that bleed into ordinary reporting:

Tim Wu's The Master Switch -- You need to understand how technology shapes the choke points of power, at the deep interface level, not just with power-brokers in smoke-filled rooms.

Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble -- We all need to have a better understanding of how supposedly "clean" data sets or search results are being overtly corrupted by supposed "improvements" or search personalization features. It's enough to send one back to Lexis-Nexus (the horror).

Jonathan Zittrain's The Future of the Internet -- and How to Stop It -- Journalists really need to lose their naive blinders about how deep structure interfaces and infrastructure design decisions has immense power to SHAPE OUR CULTURE. Decisions are being made right now that will severely limit broad social options in the future. But journalists generally are clueless about how to make their audiences understand the ramifications of this.

#15 Posted by Chris Boese, CJR on Tue 20 Dec 2011 at 11:48 AM

'Calcio's histories', by Enric González, correspondent for 'El País', the main newspaper of Spain. The book is about Italy and its football and its dark context: politics, economy, sociology, corruption...

#16 Posted by Rubén Escudero Ariza, CJR on Tue 20 Dec 2011 at 11:51 AM

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