The problem that I find with some books, especially these non-fiction books, is that there is so much in them that it can be difficult to remember all of the points that the author has made without having to write copious notes. The other problem is that since I am incredibly time poor I really have little time to craft a brilliant and concise review based upon these notes, so in the end I generally just read through the book and hope for the best when I come to writing the review (usually the day that I have finished it because if I end up leaving it too long I'll end up having a huge backlog of reviews that I'll never get through).

I have to say that it was been quite a while since I have read a good non-fiction book, though I have to say that this particular one did drag on a bit, especially when he was describing in minutae conversations that occurred between editors, journalists, and their leaks. He also went into great detail of the stress and the decisions on whether to publish and when, which once again I found that it cause the book not only to drag on a bit, but to also make it sound like some form of soap opera. However, we must remember that these decisions weren't taken lightly because the media, even the left leaning newspapers such as the Guardian and the Fairfax newspapers, are still very much under the heal of what are becoming quite tyrannical governments. However, there are a few things that I wish to discuss that I got out of this book.

The Conservative Right to Rule

A couple of chapters of this book talks about how the media went to war against a couple of left wing governments in the past (and even in the present). For instance the government of Howard Wilson in England and the government of Gough Whitlam in Australia, found themselves in the wrong side of an angry media. This I suspect is what has caused the labour party to shift dangerously to the right, which has in turn pushed conservative parties further to the right. This is not surprising because the conservative governments have always represented the wealthy elite (well, not always, but generally). The thing with conservative governments is that they like the status quo – which is why they are conservative – and the status quo generally means that the rich can continue to make money, no matter what the consequences. The problem is that if the voting public actually knew what the conservative governments were about then nobody would vote for them, which is why they resort to getting elected through deceit, propaganda, and the use of the media.

The thing with the media is that they are, in all cases, controlled by the wealthy elite. Even the journalists who write for them tend to inhabit the upper crust of society. I have read a number of articles in various newspapers (including the left leaning Fairfax) where the journalists are bragging about how they are in the highest income tax bracket and how they fly business class everywhere while us plebs have to put up being squeezed like sardines into economy class (not that I could actually justify paying the exorbitant fees that business class charges). As such there is generally a bias in favour of governments that support the status quo.

However, it is not the wealthy that also support the status quo – the unions do as well. There was an interesting point Fowler made when he spoke about how Rupert Murdoch was attempting to transform his London newspapers into a more technologically efficient production by creating a sophisticated computer network that would eliminate the need for a typing pool and and printers. This angered the unions because it meant that a lot of their workforce would be made redundant. Now, I'm no big fan of Murdoch, and I do support the unions in some cases, but in this instance what we are seeing is that the working class is actually working against innovation (which I believe is a good thing).

However, that doesn't let the conservatives off the hook because we have other areas where they are acting against innovation because of the effect that it will have on their profits. Take Murdoch once again. In Australia he has a joint monopoly over the pay TV network Foxtel (in Australia you have only one pay TV network). In 2007 the Labor government was elected on a platform of installing superfast internet connections straight to the home, which meant that Murdoch would suddenly find himself in competition with online streaming services such as Netflix (Foxtel also offers an online service as well). Seeing his monopolistic position under threat he then turned against the Labor government, and when the Coalition was re-elected in 2013 they ended up scrapping Labor's internet plan to put in place a much more limited, and in turn much more costly, alternative.

Leaking Taps

It goes without saying that government's don't like leaks – it embarrasses them and exposes their criminal acts. Poor Tony Abbott, in the weeks before he was knifed in the back, didn't just have to deal with leaks, but with a gushing torrent that flowed out of the cabinet room and into the nation's media. However his problem was only embarrassment and provided ever more evidence of his incompetency as a prime minister. The leaks go much deeper when we are talking about illegal acts being committed by a government during wartime. It is interesting that the Nazi's were able to keep their final solution quiet for so long while atrocities such as the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam and the scandal at Abu Graib were released for the world to see (though it may have something to do with them having a much tighter control over the media than does the modern democracy).

Fowler talks about a number of important leaks, beginning with the Pentagon Papers up to the revelations released by Edward Snowden. Elsberg actually got off really lightly, namely because the government's case against him was thrown out due to illegal wire taps. This is not the case these days as Chelsea Manning is now serving a 30 year prison sentence, Julian Assange is holed up in the Equadorian embassy, and Edward Snowden is living on borrowed time in Russia. The government has learned from its mistakes with Elsberg and are getting ever more serious in threatening would be whistle blowers and attempting to make examples of those who have taken the courage to stand up, produce evidence, and say to the world 'this is wrong'.

Fowler refers to protections in the United States and Europe, such as the 4th Amendment and the European Charter of Human Rights, that seeks to protect such whistle blowers, though governments nethertheless resort to Espionage Acts and claim that such revelations work to aid the enemy. Thus it is not surprising that Bush created an endless war on terror since this not only creates an enemy, but also provides an excuse to punish the release of such sensitive information. Further, it also puts pressure on newspapers to be very circumspect in what they print, because if the government deems that a publication is going to hurt it's war efforts then they can have the paper shut down. Fowler even tells a story of how British Intelligence entered the offices of the Guardian and destroyed all of the harddrives that contained the information provided to them by Snowdon.

Australia has gone one step further. The only freedom of speech that we have is the freedom of political speech which is implied in the constitution. This has enabled the government to enact laws that not only punishes whistle blowers, but also punishes journalists for publishing the information that they have released.

The Changing Landscape

The internet has changed the world in an incredible way and has hit many traditional businesses incredibly hard – no more so than the newspapers, and the print media has struggled ever since to attempt to remain relevant in its onslaught. The thing about the internet is that it has made access to information not just easy, but cheap. As such people have turned away from the print media and onto the internet in droves, and many of the traditional newspapers have struggled to make a profit. It is even suggested that some papers in the Murdoch Empire have to be supported by other papers because they are operating at a loss.

A number of newspapers have succeeded in creating paywalls, such as the Wall Street Journal and the Australian Financial Review. However these newspapers generally target a niche market, which means that when it went online their niche market followed them (and having an interest in the stock market, I have to say that the free publications tend to be of pretty poor quality). However, this didn't work with the traditional papers because people simply weren't interested in paying for the content. Sure, paying $1.00 for some saucy tales in the local rag was okay a decade ago, but these days there are so many websites that offer the same sordid offerings for free, nobody sees the need to fork out that $1.00 anymore (let alone pay for access).

These papers used to stay afloat through advertising however the internet changed all that. People don't buy newspapers anymore to peruse the classifieds, they go to the internet. If you want to buy a car, a house, second hand goods, or even look for a job, this is now all on the internet. When we bought our house we found it by perusing the internet. I don't buy the paper to look for jobs anymore because, once again, they are all on the internet. In fact if I want some second hand goods, once again I go to the internet. The newspapers no longer have a monopoly on ads, and this has hurt them substantially. In fact the ads that they gain on the internet does not make them anywhere as much money as they did before. Furthermore, some paywalls are actually very easy to defeat (especially the ones that give you a limited number of free articles) – just clear your cookies every so often.

The Security State

The thing about the War on Terrorism is that the government has actually done a very good job in convincing us that terrorists could strike any place and at any time. The catch is that not all that many people have actually died of a terrorist attack in a western nation. However they have convinced us that not only do we need to be vigilant, but that they need greater powers to fight this threat. The problem is that they have already had those powers, it's just that they weren't used all that well. Take for instance the Sydney siege – the nutter that was responsible had been on the watch list for years, but they then decided to take him off. If they had kept watching him they might have stopped him before he killed two innocent victims.

Then there is the mandatory collection of data (not just metadata, but the data that the NSA has been collecting). Once again it is actually very easy to circumvent it. Fowler speaks of how a couple of journalists (and Manning) were caught through their slack use of the internet, and that is something that we need to be aware of. Okay, I'm not writing this anomalously, and really have no desire to start becoming invisible on the net (particularly since I would prefer people to know that I am the author).

The concerning thing is the suggestion that the NSA actually has the power to activate and hijack our smartphones, even if they are turned off. This is all done through the SIM card. The thing with smartphones is that you need to register to get a SIM card. Once again there are ways around this, even if it involves only using WiFi hotspots (though a number of them require you to pre-register, and pay by credit card, beforehand, which means that they are able to track you, though once again there are ways around this). Mind you, even back in the days of the old clunky phones that could only send texts and make phone calls, I knew that the government could track you, however with modern technology they can be much more precise.

Have I mentioned how handsome my cat is?

Top Ten:

Homeland by Cory Doctorow

Sequel to Little Brother. Whistleblowing, kidnapping by government agents, peaceful protests aided by technology, nerdy activism, the “War on Terror,” and Burning Man. This book is perfect. Very brief review here.

Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzler

You don’t see a lot of YA memoir. This one is really terrific. About a boy growing up in a strict fundamentalist Christian family. Turns out, he’s gay. That sounds a bit ho-hum, but Hartzler tells his story in a really nuanced, compassionate, and funny way.

Proxy by Alex London

In my review, I said, “Think M.T. Anderson's Feed meets Lloyd Alexander's The Black Cauldron, with some queer content thrown in.” In a world just like ours (only more so), a few are super-rich and everyone else is in debt they can never pay off. When the rich break the rules, their proxies are punished for them. What happens when a Patron and Proxy meet? I realize that this summary makes it seem kind of porn-y, but it’s not.

This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales (Author’s original title: “Last of the Famous International Party Girls,” then “My Suicide Playlist.”)

Elise has been bullied at school forever and is getting quietly desperate. Then she stumbles upon a secret nighttime warehouse dance party and meets dreamy Char (short for “DJ This Charming Man”), who teaches her to be a DJ. Elise’s life is completely transformed by music and meeting people who. . . it’s not that they don’t care about being cool, they just have a wildly different sense of what being cool means.   

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

I kept reading reviews of this book, and the synopsis always made me say, “Feh.” But after encountering so many rave reviews, I decided to try it, and I loved it. Let’s see if this synopsis makes you say “Feh.”

It’s 1986, in Omaha, and the story is told in alternating viewpoints. Eleanor’s life is awful because her abusive stepfather won’t allow her to have things like toiletries and new clothes. Because of the above and the fact that she’s fat and has a kooky sense of style, everyone at school thinks she’s a freak. Park, who sits next to her on the bus, thinks so too, but over time he lets her read his comics over his shoulder. Then he notices she has Smiths song titles written on her notebook, but it turns out that she’s never actually heard the Smiths because of course she has no cassettes. This is the most depressing thing Park has ever heard, so he makes her a tape. True love blossoms.

This book kind of has everything because it’s nerdy, it’s sexy, it’s sad and it’s uplifting. Also mostly it seems like stark realism but there’s one pivotal thing that the abusive stepfather does that in the context of the novel is creepy, but when you compare it to real life, it’s like, wow, if only real abusive adults would leave it at that and not do the actual stuff they do. So it’s kind of a mix of realism and wish fulfillment. The writing is so strong that it actually made me question one of the core elements of my being: the fact that I hate the Joy Division song “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Eleanor and Park describe this song so lovingly and make it sound so awesome that I thought, “Hmm, I must be wrong.” But no, I still don’t like it.

Also, there’s a the lack of diversity in YA and it’s very rare to have an Asian/biracial protagonist (Park is Korean and white) especially in a love story, so that was cool.

Darius & Twig by Walter Dean Myers

Two friends, a writer and a runner, have big ambitions, but it’s hard to get by in Harlem where they live. Walter Dean Myers is a national treasure—no, he’s a treasure for the whole planet.

More Than This by Patrick Ness

This is no ordinary book. The really cool cover that has a tiny door in it led me to hope that might be the case, and then my dreams came true. As the book opens, the main character Seth drowns. Then he wakes up, in what seems to be his childhood home in England, but the whole neighborhood is deserted. Or is it? You can’t take anything at face value in this book. If you look back at my review (in Best of 2013: Fiction) of The Arrivals by Melissa Marr that has a somewhat similar plot, you’ll see that I questioned whether whether true conceptual originality is even possible. Well, this novel shows that it is, perversely because it plays with the tropes that we’re all so accustomed to. Is any of the stuff that happens to Seth even really happening? If that sounds annoying, well, it is. When I finished the book, I felt frustrated, because even though the story was delivering the true nature of reality (as follows: you have no idea what’s real), I expect a book to have a certain novelistic sense of closure and explanation because it’s not real life, it’s a book. But then I kept on thinking about this book for a long time so I decided that it was a very profound reading experience where a little bit of frustration was okay. Similar to the experience I had with The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann except that this book is quick and fun and easy to read and has a lot of action and also queer content.

Stealing Second: Sam’s Story by Barbara Clanton

Full disclosure: Barbara Clanton is a writer friend. I have read almost all of her books and enjoyed them all. This book is in a series about lesbian high school baseball players, and this is my new favorite in the series. Each book in the series is told from a different POV. This one is about Sam, a poor little rich girl who doesn’t have much of a relationship with her parents, but luckily she has a close friendship with her childhood nanny, who has stayed on as a sort of family retainer. Sam has a girlfriend Lisa who she’s very happy with but Sam doesn’t feel ready to come out yet. There is a big plot twist that took me by surprise. Brief review here.

Another 365 Days by KE Payne

Sequel to 365 Days. Basically a lesbian Diary of Adrian Mole. Fluffy and fun. I love the main character Clemmie’s daft ways and the fun British slang like “fit as the butcher’s dog.”

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

It’s not the plot that makes this book great. This is standard dystopian fare—teens living under evil regime must compete in a contest where only some will come out alive, &c. It’s just really tight and well-written and fun. A total page turner.

What else?

Fan Girl by Rainbow Rowell

A girl’s first year in college seems doomed because all she wants to do is write slash fanfiction and her identical twin sister wants to individuate herself from her, but then there’s a dreamy boy.

Unthinkable by Nancy Werlin

Companion novel/sequel to Impossible. A girl who has been trapped in a fairy realm is told she can leave, if she destroys her family.

The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer

Victorian orphan and child FBI agent must foil evil time travel plot.

Thorn Abbey by Nancy Ohlin

A retelling of Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca, set in a boarding school (just like in New Girl, one of the 2012 retellings.) Has a cool supernatural element and twisty ending. 

The Culling by Steven Dos Santos

It’s that rarest of creatures, a gay dystopian YA novel! Teens living under evil regime must compete in a contest where only some will come out alive, plus queer content.

Shadows by Robin McKinley

Maggie lives in a world where magic is possible but forbidden. She doesn’t like her new stepfather because he has strange shadows that follow him around.

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

I admire this book because it is the first YA novel that has two boys kissing on the cover. I think it was clever of Levithan to base the book on the true story of two guys breaking the world record for longest kiss. I esteem Levithan for promoting diversity in YA even further by having one of his seven gay male teen main characters in the book be Korean-American and another be transgender. And in theory I appreciate the idea of having the book narrated by a Greek chorus of gay men who have died of AIDS. Everything about this book gave me the warm fuzzies, except for the reading it part. To be completely candid, I was incredibly bored every single second I was reading this book and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. It’s fair to say that I encountered this book at the absolute lowest point in my life (so far), and that may have something to do with my inability to jump on the love train for Two Boys Kissing.

In The After by Demitria Lunetta

Zombielike creatures have taken over the world but Amy has managed to survive for several years with a toddler in her fortress-like apartment. A chain of events leads her to a compound that’s safe from the creatures, but will this protected colony turn out to be a dystopia?

The Loop by Shandy Lawson

Ben and Maggie are forced to repeat the same two days that end in their deaths, over and over.

Moxie and the Art of Rule-Breaking by Erin Dionne

A girl gets involved in an art heist and treasure hunt in Boston. This book is actually Middle Grade (for pre-adolescents), not YA.

You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle

Along with four other kids, Justine is the subject of a series of documentaries (like the 7 Up series.) That was all very well and good when she was little, but now it’s ruining her life.

All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

A girl must travel back in time to kill someone. You won’t be surprised by anything that happens, but hey, time travel is always fun.

Tides by Betsy Cornwell

It’s about selkies! Also featuring eating disorders, transracial adoption, and queer content. Why do paranormal stories always involve a romance with a really creepy age gap?

The Shade of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer

The final (?) book in this series about what happens when the moon is knocked out of orbit, unleashing cosmic destruction on the earth.

The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry

Thriller about a girl who wakes up with amnesia and someone is trying to kill her.

Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black

Girl discovers sinister happenings at prestigious New York City ballet school. Full review here.

Next up: 2013 Non-fiction/Memoir

This is taking longer than I thought, so it might be a few days.