SubScribe: Last chance saloon: the reading list Google+

Tuesday 24 December 2013

Last chance saloon: the reading list

If you're still on the hunt for books for Christmas (or New Year) here's the straight-down-the-line SubScribe biography reading list:


Listening for a Midnight Tram, John Junor.

Ghastly man, but insightful read.
Did 120-mile round trip for features job interview with him - he asked me if I was in town to do some shopping!

The Insider, Piers Morgan

The Mirror was 'never involved' in phone hacking - but he tells us how to do it.

Diary of a Fleet Street Fox, Fleet Street Fox

From marital disaster to national treasure via a night in the cells, a lot of laughs, too many biscuits and too much wine.

Hack, Graham Johnson
More secrets of life in the redtop world

The Girl Least Likely to, Liz Jones

Maddest woman in Fleet Street tells us what makes her tick. Her name is Liz and she comes from Essex. So is mine and so do I - but there the similarities end.

Editor: An Inside Story of Newspapers, Max Hastings

Just as the Falklands got Maggie re-elected, so it ignited the career of Mr H. Here's his story of ten years at the helm of the Telegraph. (Witherow of the Times was also despatched to the South Atlantic - the defence editor Henry Stanhope was too important to be spared.)

PS: On a Life in Newspapers, Peter Stephens

He edited the Newcastle Journal and the News of the World. He survived Wapping and a fall-out with Murdoch.

Accidental Editor, Richard Harris

You won't see many of these - the memoir of a daily newspaper editor who admits he wasn't up to the job. Now he's back on the ground, in every sense, in a pastoral world of ducks, chickens and agency reporting.

Headlines all My Life, Arthur Christiansen

What was it like to edit the Daily Express with Lord Beaverbrook breathing down your neck? Scary.

Beaverbrook, AJP Taylor
Beaverbrook, A Study in Power and Frustration, Tom Driberg
Beaverbrook, A Life, Anne Chisholm and Michael Davie

And here are three interpretations of the man who did that breathing. Scary.

Maxwell, Tom Bower
Maxwell, The Final Verdict, Tom Bower
Maxwell, Israel's Superspy, Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon
The Assasssination of Robert Maxwell, Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon

Nothing like taking two bites of this particular cherry...what you need to know is that he was a big bad man who stole people's pensions. He was also a Labour MP. But then again, you could say that of Gordon Brown.

Murdoch, Jerome Tuccille
Murdoch: Creator of a WorldWide Media Empire, Jerome Tuccille
Murdoch, William Shawcross
Murdoch, the Last of the Old Media Empires, David Folkenflik
Rupert Murdoch, Master Mogul of Fleet Street, Vanity Fair
The Man Who Owns the News, Michael Wolff
Dial M for Murdoch, Tom Watson and Martin Hickman
Fall of the House of Murdoch, Peter Jukes
Rupert Murdoch, the Untold Story by Neil Chenoweth
Murdoch's Politics, David McKnight
The Sun King, George Beahm
Outfoxed, Alexandra Kitty

When you're as old as the Dirty Digger and have upset as many people as he has, there are plenty out there to settle old scores. My favourite insight is probably still Harry Evans's Good Times Bad Times.

Magical Memories, Arthur Edwards

Sweetness and light from the man who took that picture of Di's legs showing through her skirt. He was also rather stupidly - given his physical likeness to the gunman - sent to Dunblane, scaring the children (probably including one Andrew Murray).


Happy reading




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