Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

Writing for Their Lives: Death Row USA
edited by Marie Mulvey Roberts
University of Illinois Press, $19.95

IF I had nothing more to do each day than consider matters of life and death and all that happened in between from the confines of an 8ft x 8ft cell then I’d probably be a much better writer. I’d probably also go insane and hope to die before someone else killed me. The madness of Death Row in the USA is described in graphic detail in this collection of testimonies, short stories and poems. In addition to contributions from prisoners, included are accounts from people employed in the business of killing: defence lawyers, psychiatrists, spiritual advisers, abolitionists and executioners.

FINGER-WAGGING predictions that television property programmes would shrivel up and die of shame in the wake of the credit crunch were wildly optimistic. Not only have these shows not dropped from our schedules like swatted bluebottles, they are still buzzing about in there, as irritating as ever before. What’s more, they now have the brass nerve to claim they are needed more than ever, to “guide” us through the pitfalls of buying or selling in the housing slump they helped to create.

MUCH has been written about Harold Pinter since he lost his battle with cancer on Christmas Eve. Not all of it has been glowing praise and he has been heavily censured for his support of Slobodan Milosevic. Despite his flaws, the Pinter I knew during my time at PEN remains, for me, a staunch defender of writers’ freedoms and an eloquent critic of some of the world’s harshest regimes.

Warsaw 1920: Lenin’s Failed Conquest of Europe by Adam Zamoyski
Harper Press, £14.99

IN 1920 a battle took place the outcome of which had a profound impact on European politics in the inter-war years. The Battle of Warsaw is also one of the biggest “what ifs” for students of 20th century European history.

Breaking News by Martin Fletcher
St Martins Press, $24.95

MARTIN FLETCHER is a phenomenon. He has remained one of the star reporters on NBC News for the past 30 years, despite all the cutbacks at the organisation, despite (or maybe because of) his unmistakable English accent but, in reality, because he is not just any old reporter but one who, as this book demonstrates, has all the traditional gung ho attributes of the foreign correspondent combined with a reflexiveness that is, at times, painful to read.

WHY do we have to endure lists of people’s favourite books? The end of every year brings a simpering litany of sycophants slapping backs so hard it feels like a tuberculosis convention. What about books we hate?

Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life
1990-2005
National Portrait Gallery, London

WHEN the American photographer Annie Leibovitz hit the headlines recently, it was not for her thoughtful and carefully composed images, but because of the casual way she approached photographing the Queen, when protocol demanded slightly more negotiation. The session, filmed for a television documentary, was subsequently given a melodramatic but inaccurate slant by the BBC and the episode became a cause celebre, producing profuse apologies all round.

The Subprime Solution: How Today’s Global Financial Crisis Happened and What to Do About it by Robert J Shiller
Princeton University Press, £9.95

ROBERT SHILLER’S book is an analysis of the origins of the current international financial crisis coupled with a programme of reforms to tackle the problem and ensure that it does not happen again. He takes a deep look at the events that triggered the crisis, namely the sudden collapse in the sub-prime mortgage market in the United States, a system of loans targeted at borrowers who would not otherwise be able to gain access to credit for the purposes of purchasing property.