I am die hard fan of fast paced action thriller fiction novels. My favorite past time is reading books and it’s something which I peruse passionately. I simply love political action thrillers as it always captures my attention. Books related to political turmoil, internal turmoil, wars, intelligence, special operations, propaganda, conspiracies, assassinations, etc. I have read many books of prominent authors like Tom Clancy, Fredrick Forsyth, Colin Forbes and Noam Chomsky.

The book which forever captured my memory was by Noam Chomsky and the book is called ‘Media Control’. The book throws important revelation as how the media is controlled and manipulated by each and every country. The book also talks about the use of public relations to mislead the general public. Media is often consider as the ‘fourth pillar of democracy’ but if the very media is used to mislead the general public in such a subtle way that we people failed to understand what exactly is going on.

The book throws some interesting examples also. The Tienanmen Square massacre in china is an attempt to re write the history. It is a punishable offense in China to mention about the massacre and so far 120 journalists have been prosecuted. The media is constantly under scrutiny in China.

United States government started a very effective PR campaign during the 70s Vietnam War. The campaign ‘support our troops’ was aimed to gather mass support in the favor of the war as the people of the states was left disillusioned. Recent case of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and fight for the democracy was another effort of the US to justify its action against Iraq which has now left Iraq completely shattered to pieces.

The book mentioned that the 90% of the media industry is located in United States as a result the US government is constantly using the media to its own interest. US always called themselves as the fighter of basic human rights and democracy. The same country is throwing democratic governments of its surrounding countries like Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador on the pretext of fighting narcotics dealers.

The book also talks about how the media is used and manipulated in different ways in various countries and these theories are supported by examples also. This book enlighten your thoughts and is a must read. The book is available in all major libraries in the country. The author of the book, Noam Chomsky is highly renowned.

By: Saurabh Das

I recently read a book by VC Andrews called ‘Flowers in the Attic’ which is a horrific tale of cruelty and forbidden love. After reading this particular book, I didn’t touch another for a week.

It’s a story about a brother and a sister locked in the attic of their grandmother’s mansion along with their two younger siblings (twins) for over three years. With no contact with the outside world except for their coldly beautiful mother and evil grandmother, the elder siblings, as they start maturing, begin developing feelings for each other.

The older siblings take on the role of parents for the younger two and are a strong support system for each other. To make the attic less scary for the twins, they decorate it with paper flowers and constantly find new ways of entertaining them.

Together they deal with the whip lashings dealt by their grandmother; going hungry so that the twins have enough to eat and their mother’s disinterest and eventual abandonment.

The events of the three years slowly change the relationship between the elder brother and sister from a platonic to a physical one.

The ending though, is far from happy. Andrews wrote 3 sequels following ‘flowers in the attic’ which continues the story of the siblings and their quest for a better happier life.

Though many might find it offensive, I liked the book because of the range of emotions the author has so explicitly described and never knew that an impulse buy would lead to such a whirlwind reading experience.
By: Maasoom D.