Cam’s Book Recommendations
As you know, I’m a voracious reader and have been all of my life. I firmly believe ‘you are what you read’. But I’m not talking about newspapers and magazines – they are okay but are also the tool of The Man who wants to brainwash you into being placid consumerist sheep, eating and shopping your way into oblivion. I’m talking about BOOKS – the old fashioned kind of (hopefully recycled) paper and the new-fangled type that are bits inside a Kindle or an iPhone.
Here are a selection of books I recommend everyone reads as soon as possible. Click on the cover image to go through to BookDepository in the UK who provide free shipping worldwide.
The Great War For Civilisation is a detailed account of how America, Britain, Russia and the European powers have tried to control the Middle East for the last hundred years and why. Robert Fisk is a respected British journalist who has spent most of his life reporting from the Middle East.
Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist Tim Weiner reveals the horrors of the CIA in intimate detail, every source on the record, including former Presidents, CIA directors and operatives. This books puts an end forever to anyone criticizing the CIA being called a conspiracy theorist and justifies the paranoia of a Castro or a Chavez.
Ayn Rand’s first novel, first published in 1943, depicts her ‘ideal man’, architect Howard Roark, a man who lives and works for himself alone. I’ve read this book more times than I can count. It is a constant inspiration for anyone who wants to live a life of work, purpose and logic in a world of mediocrity.
Ayn Rand’s second and final novel, her masterpiece, published in 1957, examines the role of the individual thinker and person of action in society. Another book I have read countless times since I was in my early 20s.
With all respect to my friend J. David Markham, Vincent Cronin’s general biography is perhaps the perfect place to start in getting an understanding of what a brilliant and complicated man Napoleon Bonaparte was. I’m probably biased as it was the first book I read about Napoleon 20-something years ago and it started me on my Napoleon journey. Markham’s books should be read at the same time. 
Ignacio Ramonet, Editor in Chief of Le Monde, spent a couple of years from about 2003 – 2005 doing more than 100 hours of interviews with Castro to produce this amazing overview of his life and career. The final text was edited and approved by Castro himself before publication but Ramonet has made careful notes of each of Castro’s edits to the original manuscript. I dare even Castro’s wildest critics to read this book and then tell me he’s a crazed madman. If he is a brutal dictator, he’s also the world’s best method actor, because the man in this book comes across as someone who is brutally honest and introspective about his own failures as well as his successes, and passionate about social justice across the world.
Excerpts from Guevara’s diaries. Again, I dare anyone to read this and then tell me why you think he was a crazed mad man. Which of his principles do you disagree with and why? Or was he a man obsessed with social justice, prepared to not just write and make speeches but to fight an armed struggle to free the oppressed people of South America?
As good a starting point on Chomsky as any because it explains the way that the corporate-owned media in the West has been used as a propaganda tool over the last 150 years to keep the public uninformed and mislead about the true agenda of their Governments, corporations and wealthy elite.
Robert Hughes’ brilliant telling of the brutal Christian invasion of Terra Australis, their aggression and arrogant dismissal of the native population and the conditions of their Gulag penal colony.
Howard Zinn’s evocative version of US history from the point of view of the people who were not wealthy industrialists or landed gentry. Not just for American readers either, as it demonstrates how the version of history that is popularized by the education system, media and governments in Western democracies is a highly filtered perspective of events.
Jon Lee Anderson’s 1997 biography on Che, a man despised by imperialists around the world but who spent his life talking about (and gave his life for) social justice for all people. As I said above about Che’s diaries, I dare anyone to read about this man’s life and come away from it saying he was a bloodthirsty dictator. It just doesn’t add up.
My friend Dr Peter Ellyard’s brilliant observations about the opportunities for us to engineer the world we want by 2050. The first book published by TPN TXT!
Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy’s secret gospel of Jesus. In this gospel, Jesus explains why he doesn’t exist and how his followers got it all wrong. One part an explanation of the creation of the Jesus myth, one part an introduction to non-dualism (aka advaita), this is a very funny and enlightening book.