One of the book's most gratifying elements is the method by which Matthiessen balances his outrage at the treatment of Peltier and his people with the cold, cool tone of the investigative reporter. He lets everyone have their say

By the time I had turned the final page, I felt angry enough... to want to shout from the rooftops, 'Wake up America, before it's too late'

Peter Matthiessen presents a convincing case not only for a retrial of Leonard Peltier, but also for a re-examination of the real cost of the American Dream - in human lives, in the mockery of justice, in a squandered earth

A brilliant book, full of little revelations-my personal favourite is that Britain's leading eugenicist also invented the dog whistle. Bread for All anchors the creation of the welfare state deep within 19th-century science... It is written with real agility in an accessible style, and is bound to figure in "books of the year" lists-it will in mine.

Thought I was reading a Carl Hiaasen novel. Then I realized it was NON-fiction. Hotel Scarface is to Miami what 'Narcos' is to Colombia.

Miami in the 1980's. It's one of the most exciting and dangerous stories in modern American history. Yet so little is known of this time and place other than a handful of oft-repeated legends. Enter Roben Farzad, whose Hotel Scarface will now and forever serve as the definitive record. You won't be able to put this book down!

Farzad captures the excess, decadence, and debauchery of the Mutiny in its heyday... a crucial piece to Miami's history as the era's cocaine epicenter. A gripping account of how the Mutiny's role in Miami's cocaine business changed not only the city, but America.

'Scarface' was inspired by this lavish, coke-fuelled hotel. The de-facto headquarters for Miami’s cocaine trade was a dangerous, opulent place where the underworld mixed it up with celebrities.

I can all but guarantee that this will be the most enjoyable and entertaining non-fiction book you’ll read this year.

Exhaustively researched... clean and precise. It’s an easy read; its implications, however, are profound. Tales of opportunistic, cutthroat men who made fast money at the expense of other people’s lives.

Sensational. Farzad seems to have penetrated the minds, while discovering the habits, of cocaine traffickers and users.

McGregor's brilliant book is packed with insights on the complex Sino-Japanese relationship, the gist of that being that past history should be our teacher rather than master. Will a more powerful China learn magnanimity, one wonders.

For journalists taking up new posts in China, the first book I always suggest is Richard McGregor's The Party. I will now add McGregor's new book, Asia's Reckoning, to my list for those headed to the Far East.

In Asia's Reckoning, Richard McGregor provides a cogent and superbly researched guide to the deep forces that undergird China's geopolitical strategy and the attempts of two other great powers in the region, the United States and Japan, to deal with it.

McGregor's fascinating narrative of the three countries' relations over 50 years is filled with fresh anecdotes drawn from interviews and newly released archival documents. McGregor has a sharp eye for personalities and policy factions, as well as a firm grasp of geopolitics.

Richard McGregor has followed up his masterful 2010 book on The Party by focusing on the collisions and the less frequent collusions between the three Pacific powers: China, Japan and the US. Most regional strategic writing is focused on one of the three countries, but McGregor has done immense research in each of them and sets up the story beautifully.

McGregor offers a masterful account of the complex fifty-year dance between China, Japan and the United States.

McGregor has written a magisterial book that combines old-fashioned shoe leather reporting and extensive archival research to hart seven decades of history between the three countries.