This was kind of fun:
Shot last summer, the segment on the Central Park obelisk gave me a chance to talk about one of the more Dan Brown-ish background elements of “The Malice Box” without sounding utterly bonkers, so thanks, Indigo Productions! That doomy silhouette standing and turning in front of the obelisk in the trailer is yours truly, putting to use years of doomy-silhouette training at last. It aired last week, I learned today. Watch out for re-runs!
In “Brazillionaires,” Alex Cuadros explores Latin America’s biggest economy through its wealthiest citizens, whose fortunes he tracked as a reporter. It’s a tale of boom, bust and back-scratching among moguls and politicos that sheds a telling light on the nation’s current woes. Read my review.
“Narconomics” by Tom Wainwright is both an extended black joke and a hard-headed analysis of the drug trade as a business (almost) like any other. A largely persuasive case for legalization, and funny to boot. Read my review.
Financiers like to compare their negotiations to military strategy. Yet the art of the deal matters far more when those talking also kill. Jonathan Powell’s “Terrorists at the Table” is a primer like few others, by a worldly ex-diplomat of stubborn hope. It’s also darkly funny. Here’s my review.
Two Mexicos coexist, one an insular land of hard-to-kill monopolies in politics and business, the other more outward-looking, embracing modernity and even the United States. In “Amarres perros” pundit-politician Jorge Castañeda recalls a life of trying to change the balance. This is my review.
Government and corporate mass surveillance of citizens is an aberration on a par with child labor or environmental pollution, argues security expert Bruce Schneier in “Data and Goliath.” He offers a rousing call for resistance, and hope for change – a few decades hence. Read my review.
The Mad Men are watching you. Here’s my column on privacy and online ads in Mike Smith’s “Targeted.”
Could an outsider best reform the CIA in the wake of torture revelations? In David Ignatius’ novel “The Director,” a pro-privacy tech CEO tries to drag an agency that has lost its way into a new world of tighter rules, leaky secrets and cyberthreats. Good idea, uneven results. Read my review.