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You Can't Read This Book: Censorship In An Age Of Freedom (2012)

by Nick Cohen(Favorite Author)

4.18 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0007308906 (ISBN13: 9780007308903)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Fourth Estate

review 1: Persevere with this book! I like his newspaper columns and I tend to find myself siding with Nick Cohen when he’s having any kind of debate, so I thought I’d enjoy this read. Unfortunately I had to force myself to read this book for about the first third of it – a lot of things about it annoyed me. It had the feel of extended newspaper columns strung together, it felt unstructured, he spends the first three chapters talking about Salman Rushdie (who has his place in religious history, but I’m sure his position has been raked over many times before this book), he sometimes misses quite obvious points and his text is quite often example led rather than argument led, so that I didn’t really know what his point was whilst reading.However, it does ask some difficult q... moreuestions and brings up many points I hadn’t heard before regarding libel law, Internet rights, blasphemy law and the hierarchy of businesses. For example, the very important role that libel law played in the financial crisis in Iceland. It’s not the most neatly put together book, but it told a lot of harsh truths.
review 2: I read the Kindle edition of this book.This book is a bit cynical, but realistic. It is not even trying to be unbiased. 'This is what I think of censorship and who practices it and why' is the theme of the book. It gives lots of great examples of how it is used and by whom, but by the end of it you've heard it all before, just in slight variations. People in power want to stay in power and they use censorship to achieve that goal. True, certainly, but hardly news. The insight into how it is done is worth reading it for, but there aren't too many startling revelations, that's for sure. less

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