Here are 67 books that Surveillance fans have personally recommended if you like
Surveillance.
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I‘ve been thinking about the forces that drive humanity together and pull us apart at the same time since my late teens; back then, I started reading the classical dystopian tales. The (perceived) end of time always speaks to me, because I think it‘s in those moments of existential dread that we learn who we really are. That‘s why I like reading (and reviewing) books, and also why those topics are an undertone in my own writings. I do hope you enjoy these 5 books as much as I have.
Never before—or after—has the apocalypse been as funny and entertaining as in this novel.
What resonated deeply with me was not only the humour and the often deadpan way of delivering it, but that also killed me. I was chuckling or just laughing out loud while reading it. No, I also like the fact that despite all the funny stuff going on, there is a deep underlying warmth in the story.
This story shows me a mirror and tells me my shortcomings as a human being, but it does so in a nice and embracing way.
THE BOOK BEHIND THE AMAZON PRIME/BBC SERIES STARRING DAVID TENNANT, MICHAEL SHEEN, JON HAMM AND BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH
'Ridiculously inventive and gloriously funny' Guardian
What if, for once, the predictions are right, and the Apocalypse really is due to arrive next Saturday, just after tea?
It's a predicament that Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a fast-living demon, now find themselves in. They've been living amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and, truth be told, have grown rather fond of the lifestyle and, in all honesty, are not actually looking forward to the coming Apocalypse.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
As a UK registered lawyer, I have spent most of the past 35 years writing about my work. But what has always excited me, from my childhood, is the science fiction worlds which state a truth which is yet to happen, The worlds of H.G Wells; Huxley; Aldous; Orwell; Bradbury; and Atwell. An individual's struggle against overwhelming odds. Not always somewhere where you would want to go. But from which you will always take something away.
I'd heard about this famous book many years before I actually got around to reading it. What I loved about this book was its originality.
I am always reminded about Orwell's book whenever I hear phrases like ‘ thought police’ or ‘big brother’, which have become part of our everyday language. Probably one of the most influential books ever written. For me, the message of Orwell’s book is that the State will always win.
1984 is the year in which it happens. The world is divided into three superstates. In Oceania, the Party's power is absolute. Every action, word, gesture and thought is monitored under the watchful eye of Big Brother and the Thought Police. In the Ministry of Truth, the Party's department for propaganda, Winston Smith's job is to edit the past. Over time, the impulse to escape the machine and live independently takes hold of him and he embarks on a secret and forbidden love affair. As he writes the words 'DOWN WITH BIG…
I have traveled almost my entire life as a US Navy Sailor and civilian, and I still am. The cities, countries, and locations are composites of places I have visited. I have been a Correctional Counselor and a Criminal Investigator in addition to other positions. My extensive travel and background provide me with a unique view of the world that I try to reflect in my stories.
This isn’t a typical murder story, but it has it all: personal dilemmas, paranormal lines, and killings wrapped around a dystopian world where good and evil are on a collision course. This is, perhaps my favorite book.
It was King’s gold standard for decades. The traveling east to west, the sages met, the people killed. Those turned against their friends. Twists galore. It is a long read, a bit over 1,100 pages. Don’t let that scare you, it is a page turner from start to finish.
Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by virus and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting and eerily plausible as when it was first published.
Soon to be a television series.
'THE STAND is a masterpiece' (Guardian). Set in a virus-decimated US, King's thrilling American fantasy epic, is a Classic.
First come the days of the virus. Then come the dreams.
Dark dreams that warn of the coming of the dark man. The apostate of death, his worn-down boot heels tramping the night roads. The warlord of the charnel house and Prince of…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
It’s Saturday, 5 p.m. If you could peer back in time to the late ’60s, you’d find me plunked in front of our new colour RCA Victor, a Swanson TV dinner steaming before me, and the theme…da-da-DAAA-da-da-da-da-DAAAA, announcing my favourite show: Star Trek. I absorbed the logic of Mr. Spock, the passion of Dr. McCoy, and the fantastical world of Klingons, wormholes, and warp drives. Add to that a degree in history and English, and it set the stage for my passion to read and write in genres of science fiction and magical realism. I hope you find these books as stimulating and thought-provoking as I did.
The Chrysalids – my inaugural dive into science fiction in the late sixties – hooked me from the first paragraph.
Wyndham creates a dystopian world of post-nuclear destruction where genetic mutations abound, and if discovered, culled from a civilization steeped in a stark biblical ideology. The Chrysalids track protagonist David Strorm as he safeguards his six-toed friend, Sophie, and ultimately connects with a band of telepaths offering new world hope.
I loved this book because of its adolescent hero and his defiance against a society that was morally corrupt.
In the community of Waknut it is believed mutants are the products of the Devil and must be stamped out. When David befriends a girl with a slight abnormality, he begins to understand the nature of fear and oppression. When he develops his own deviation, he must learn to conceal his secret.
I have always been suspicious of government and corporate power, but it was only when my officemate in graduate school started teaching me about digital technologies that I really focused on the power relations involved in institutionalized surveillance. Eventually, I discovered the cypherpunk movement, which opposes surveillance. I wanted to know what they knew, so I started to read everything I could about surveillance. I found that few journalists and almost no academics attended to the powerful message of the cypherpunks, so I decided that I would write the first academic book about the movement, hoping that I could do my part to raise awareness about this crucial issue.
Westin’s book completely blew me away the first time I read it. I felt like I had discovered a long-lost time capsule containing everything I needed to know about the technological and social changes that created the foundations for surveillance in the United States today.
Since Edward Snowden, I tended to think about surveillance in terms of the internet and the National Security Agency. But Westin showed me that surveillance is much broader—socially and historically—than the NSA’s surveillance of the internet. Westin provided me with a template for analyzing surveillance.
Westin distinguishes physical surveillance from data surveillance, and he examines the difference between corporate and government surveillance. Most importantly, I found his recommendations for protecting privacy in the face of increased surveillance powers incredibly relevant even today.
"He was the most important scholar of privacy since Louis Brandeis."—Jeffrey Rosen
In defining privacy as “the claim of individuals…to determine for themselves when, how and to what extent information about them is communicated,” Alan Westin’s 1967 classic Privacy and Freedom laid the philosophical groundwork for the current debates about technology and personal freedom, and is considered a foundational text in the field of privacy law.
By arguing that citizens retained control over how their personal data was used, Westin redefined privacy as an individual freedom, taking Justice Louis Brandeis’ 19th century definition of privacy as a legal right and…
She really gets at the heart of how Brown and Black bodies are seen, and what is fascinating to me is the approach through current “technical art” and a good discussion of architecture. I had a class focus on her discussion—lengthy—about surveillance and race. It’s extremely poignant, and something whites especially just don’t think about. I will never again go through an airport without thinking about her book.
In Dark Matters Simone Browne locates the conditions of blackness as a key site through which surveillance is practiced, narrated, and resisted. She shows how contemporary surveillance technologies and practices are informed by the long history of racial formation and by the methods of policing black life under slavery, such as branding, runaway slave notices, and lantern laws. Placing surveillance studies into conversation with the archive of transatlantic slavery and its afterlife, Browne draws from black feminist theory, sociology, and cultural studies to analyze texts as diverse as the methods of surveilling blackness she discusses: from the design of the…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I am a political scientist, a professor emeritus at Webster University, with scholarly publications about Latin American and U.S. politics. My interest in conspiracy theories was piqued by a reviewer who dismissed my book on the “democratic façade” of U.S. politics as a “conspiracy theory.” I took umbrage and denied being a “conspiracy theorist.” Years later, conversing with a colleague about Oliver Stone’s JFK, I dismissed his doubts about the lone gunman theory as a conspiracy theory. He asked whether I would similarly dismiss questions about official stories regarding assassinations in South Asia or Latin America. This all set me on the path to studying the role of conspiracies.
A positive NY Times review “in brief” of this “journey through the Deep State” caught my attention and mind immediately.
Most political scientists and top-tier journalists, like Ms. Howley, want no part of any association with the “deep state,” yet here was Hawley straying from the usual tone of dismissal, disdain, or stigma about the idea.
As I started reading about Reality Winner’s harrowing experience, I first thought I had mistakenly taken it for non-fiction. In fact, Winner’s name and her experiences are all too real. If there is any paranoia in Winner’s encounter with the deep state, it is to be found in the darker world of the national security state, not Hawley or her subject.
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR A VANITY FAIR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
“Riveting and darkly funny and in all sense of the word, unclassifiable.”–The New York Times
A wild, humane, and hilarious meditation on post-privacy America—from the acclaimed author of Thrown
Who are you? You are data about data. You are a map of connections—a culmination of everything you have ever posted, searched, emailed, liked, and followed. In this groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction, Kerry Howley investigates the curious implications of living in the age of the indelible. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs…
I have always been suspicious of government and corporate power, but it was only when my officemate in graduate school started teaching me about digital technologies that I really focused on the power relations involved in institutionalized surveillance. Eventually, I discovered the cypherpunk movement, which opposes surveillance. I wanted to know what they knew, so I started to read everything I could about surveillance. I found that few journalists and almost no academics attended to the powerful message of the cypherpunks, so I decided that I would write the first academic book about the movement, hoping that I could do my part to raise awareness about this crucial issue.
This may be the first book about surveillance that I ever read, and it left a lasting impression on me. I was shocked by the details in Greenwald’s analysis of the NSA documents provided to him by Edward Snowden. I was convinced that something had to be done about mass surveillance.
It was really the later chapters of the book that hooked me. I appreciated Greenwald’s description of the scale of NSA surveillance and the social harms that result from mass surveillance practices. I was also awakened to some of the problems in mainstream journalism when Greenwald recounted his experiences publishing on the Snowden documents. Though some journalists, like Bamford and Burnham, have been willing to challenge the government on surveillance, Greenwald taught me that such journalists are quite rare.
A groundbreaking look at the NSA surveillance scandal, from the reporter who broke the story, Glenn Greenwald, star of Citizenfour, the Academy Award-winning documentary on Edward Snowden
In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency's widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a…
My inspiration is my life experience as a high-tech entrepreneur. Real-life events are the source of my stories. I love to explore how the corporate environment shapes businesspeople and to push the boundaries of traditional mystery. I find exploring the themes of ambition, betrayal, loyalty, and integrity important.
I really enjoyed how the writer of this book vividly describes a futuristic society changed by technology and explores important ethical issues. He shows how surveillance, corporate power, and personal freedom intersect in a world where advanced technology is everywhere.
The exciting story and tense mood made me think about how our world is changing because of technology.
"Cumulus is your new favorite surveillance-fueled dystopian novel. It's a future we can all recognize--and one that we should all be genuinely afraid of." -Ars Technica
In the not-so-distant future, economic inequality and persistent surveillance push Oakland to the brink of civil war.
Lilly Miyamoto is a passionate analog photographer striving to pursue an ever more distant dream. Huian Li is preeminent among the Silicon Valley elite as the founder and CEO of the pervasive tech giant Cumulus. Graham Chandler is a frustrated intelligence agent forging a new path through the halls of techno-utopian royalty. But when Huian rescues Lilly…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I was living in Xinjiang on 9/11 and got to witness the swiftness with which the state imposed strict regulations that harmed the Uyghur community. For me, this was an indelible lesson in the abuses of power and authority on people who just wanted to work, raise families, and enjoy their lives. Since then I’ve tried to raise awareness, first in my memoir, The Tree That Bleeds, then in my journalism. I hope my work helps people think about how to respond as both politically engaged citizens and consumersto one of the worst human rights violations of the 21st century.
Byler’s concise book is a vital read because it foregrounds the experiences of people detained in the camps, stories that overlap and cohere into a raw portrait of systematic brutality and dehumanising routines. Into these are woven an account of the digital surveillance technologies that underpin the network of detention, many of which are not unique to China, the difference between its use of them and many Western countries’ being only a matter of scale. The book also offers an important section on the increasing role of forced labour in Xinjiang, emphasising the need for greater scrutiny and accountability of supply chains that potentially rely on goods and labour from the region.
How China used a network of surveillance to intern over a million people and produce a system of control previously unknown in human history
Novel forms of state violence and colonization have been unfolding for years in China's vast northwestern region, where more than a million and a half Uyghurs and others have vanished into internment camps and associated factories. Based on hours of interviews with camp survivors and workers, thousands of government documents, and over a decade of research, Darren Byler, one of the leading experts on Uyghur society and Chinese surveillance systems, uncovers how a vast network of…
