Ghosting

There is a lengthy article on the Site of the London Book Review by Andrew O'Hagan, the would be ghost writer of Julian Assange's autobiography that never was.

Here's a short excerpt:

He’s not a details guy. None of them is. What they love is the big picture and the general fight. They love the noise and the glamour, the history, the spectacle, but not the fine print. That is why they released so many cables so quickly: for impact. And there’s a good argument to support that. But, even today, three years later, the cables have never had the dedicated attention they deserve. They made a splash and then were left languishing. I always hoped someone would do a serious editing job, ordering them country by country, contextualising each one, providing a proper introduction, detailing each injustice and each breach, but Julian wanted the next splash and, even more, he wanted to scrap with each critic he found on the internet. As for the book, he kept putting it off.

This article confirms every prejudice I have towards the guy. As I have always maintained, Assange is not the messiah and, sadly, it has become less about what WikiLeaks did and has achieved and more about the celebrity that is Julian Assange.

Archangel

by Robert Harris

Robert Harris writes the kind of books that Dan Brown wishes he could write.

Both authors have the same basic outlines, often centering around a man in some scientific/researching capacity that gets drawn into an adventure beyond his wildest imagination. All this embedded in settings or events of historic significance.

Here, the hero is 'Fluke' Kelso, historian and writer. The setting is Russia and the historic anchor to the adventure Kelso gets thrown into is Comrade Stalin. Or rather, a notebook of his that has been hidden after his death. Our hero is the one that gets the crucial information and help along the way to recover the notebook and all that that involves.

If that alone weren't exciting enough (and it is!), there is a nice twist at the end when he learns that not only him locating the book but everything that led up to it - his being in Russia in the first place for example - and everything that comes from it - media frenzy - has been orchestrated.

Of the books by Robert Harris that I have read (in total three) this is not my favorite (which is Pompeii) but it is definitely on par with The Ghost.

Next time, instead of reading another mediocre Dan Brown book, pick up Robert Harris. Trust me.

7/10