Sunday, 29 May 2011

The Man who owns the News

The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch


The definitive, exclusive-access account of the life and career of Rupert Murdoch - one of the most powerful, unusual, controversial, menacing, and captivating figures of our age.
In a career spanning four decades Rupert Murdoch has built News International into a $70 billion corporation. Through a series of breathtaking gambles he expanded from his base in the Australian newspaper business to achieve a preeminent position in the UK's media, and to control a huge slice of Hollywood. Increasingly his company has built a presence in online and digital media, most recently through its acquisition of MySpace, and he is steadily expanding into Southeast Asia.

But Murdoch is more than a predatory and merciless deal-maker. His company does not only generate dizzying profits and growth rates. His company generates the information that forms our understanding of the world. He presides over what we read, what we watch, what we come to believe about ourselves, to an extent that is without serious parallel anywhere on earth. In the words of Michael Wolff, Murdoch 'held more power over more time than any other contemporary figure'.

Working with unrivalled access to Murdoch himself, his family, and his inner circle of advisors, Wolff shows how Murdoch came to wield this power and the uses he has made of it. Murdoch has become almost invisible behind the strong emotions he provokes. Now Wolff's account reveals the qualities that took Murdoch to the top of the world and have kept him there. In doing so he tells a business story that is also the story of a man’s life, and the story of our times.

Sunday, 22 May 2011

Broken Republic: Three Essays By Arundhati Roy

http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/category/Non_Fiction/Broken_Republic_9780670085699.aspx



Mr Chidambaram’s War
‘The low, flat-topped hills of south Orissa have been home to the Dongria Kondh long before there was a country called India or a state called Orissa...’

Walking with the Comrades
‘The terse, typewritten note slipped under my door in a sealed envelope confirmed my appointment with “India’s single biggest internal security challenge”. I’d been waiting for months to hear from them...’

Trickledown Revolution
‘In the early morning hours of 2 July 2010, in the remote forests of Adilabad, the Andhra Pradesh State Police fired a bullet into the chest of a man called Cherukuri Rajkumar, known to his comrades as Azad...’

War has spread from the borders of India to the forests in the very heart of the country. Combining brilliant analysis and reportage by one of India’s iconic writers, Broken Republic examines the nature of progress and development in the emerging global superpower, and asks fundamental questions about modern civilization itself. 
Published : 18-May-2011
Imprint :Hamish Hamilton
ISBN :9780670085699
Format :5.5" X 7.5"
Extent :232pp with 4 Colour Pics
Rights :Indian Subcontinent Excluding Pakistan