Writing a UN-set thriller means every faction is technically on the same side and that is the tension. Cooperation is the cover, not the story. What is the best book or show you have seen set inside an international institution?

New political thriller this week: Delusional, by Patterson and Born. The title does the real work. Whoever calls the antagonist delusional is telling you whose side the book is on. One word, and the bias is baked in. The smartest thrillers let the reader catch that early.

North Carolina now lets any resident challenge a book in their district; one board decision binds the whole county. A single form with district-wide reach. That's the exact geometry of a political thriller: a small act feeding a large machine, and one person who sees the blast radius early.

A best-of list is really a genre argument wearing a ranking costume. Fifty slots forces the question nobody wants to answer: what actually makes a thriller a thriller? Tension is the floor. The ceiling is what it costs the people inside. Which book on the NYT list made you rethink the label?

In 1830s France, rival newspapers agreed on one thing: serialized fiction corrupted serious journalism. Within a generation those serials gave us the political novel as a weapon. Moral panics about storytelling forms rarely survive good writers. What will this century's serials become?

The best political thrillers don't need a body in chapter one. The quietest threats are the ones that keep you reading at 2am: a withheld phone call, a meeting that gets rescheduled, a colleague who knows your name before you've been introduced.

The best political thrillers don't announce the tension. They let it build in the margins of ordinary life. The dread lands harder when the coffee still gets poured and the phone still rings.

"The UN Secretary-General selection is a farce." Fact 1: The P5 countries hold veto power over who becomes Secretary-General. The "democratic" process of selecting the world's top diplomat is really a backroom deal between 5 powerful nations.

Palantir is a massive threat as well as any alternatives. The bigger question people should ask - why are you accepting totalitarian surveillance infrastructure that erodes foundational civil liberties and human rights? How can you ever challenge power structures again once this is in place?

Mike Galsworthy@mikegalsworthy.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🔥 Europe is starting to push Palantir out. Things are looking rough for Palantir in Europe… …as they are increasingly seen as a danger to sovereignty with a high risk of structural lock-in and major ethical concerns. Please share.

🚨 ACTION ALERT Cook County Commissioners are considering a proposal to use the AI video surveillance system BriefCam to monitor people in jail. This tech has raised serious civil rights concerns. Contact your Cook County Commissioner to vote NO on BriefCam here: actionnetwork.org/letters/cook...

Cook County Does Not Need an AI surveillance Experiment in the Jail

The Cook County Board of Commissioners Technology Committee soon will consider a proposal from the Sheriff’s Office to obtain AI video surveillance software known as Briefcam for monitoring people…

actionnetwork.org

The Alberta government’s recent book ban suggests that a moral panic is well underway in Canada, as bigoted groups prey on the natural concerns of parents to erase minority voices from the cultural discourse. Read more about this in my latest piece for @thetyee.ca

A Banned Book Club Blooms in Alberta | The Tyee

The club sends members titles that have been pulled from public library shelves. It joins a widespread fight against censorship across North America.

thetyee.ca

Get to know the National Book Rating Index, BookLens, RatedBooks, and more tools being used to ban books across US schools and libraries. Y'all, pay attention to these–and pay close attention to the latest project from Take Back the Classroom. bookriot.com/tools-used-b...

The Tools Book Banners Are Using to Target Books in 2026: Book Censorship News, July 24, 2026

Get to know the National Book Rating Index, BookLens, RatedBooks, and more tools being used to ban books across US schools and libraries.

bookriot.com

The most absurd about this clickbait article is that the lifestyles of Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, etc. are almost universally repulsive to the average person, let alone the average critic of plutocracy. Who'd want to be like them when they all look miserable? www.christianitytoday.com/2026/07/love...

Love Thy Trillionaires - Christianity Today

If you spend your whole life despising the rich, the greatest tax will be on your soul.

christianitytoday.com

"Today’s digital tracking is remote, largely invisible and never stops. In many countries it follows activists, civil society actors, journalists and human rights defenders into their homes using a long range of tools, including smartphone spyware." advox.globalvoices.org/2026/06/23/d...

Digital surveillance is breaking activist mental health

Digital surveillance does much more than steal data. It inflicts deep human wounds; it stops people from safely developing and expressing their identities, breeds trauma that can last for generations,...

advox.globalvoices.org

The Kill Switch by Robert Peston | #bookreview #thriller | @peston @Tr4cyF3nt0n @ZaffreBooks I'm handing over to my occasional guest reviewer today. Mr Portobello Book Blog is a big fan of political thrillers and enjoyed Robert Peston's previous novels in this series and was keen to read The Kill…

The Kill Switch by Robert Peston | #bookreview #thriller | @peston @Tr4cyF3nt0n @ZaffreBooks

I'm handing over to my occasional guest reviewer today. Mr Portobello Book Blog is a big fan of political thrillers and enjoyed Robert Peston's previous novels in this series and was keen to read The Kill Switch. My thanks to Tracy at Compulsive Readers for the opportunity to take part in the book tour and to the publisher Zaffre for providing a review copy of the book.

portobellobookblog.com

☺️ bookriot.com/best-science...

“Unsurprising because this is the coherent progression of surveillance capitalism: private companies collect, repackage and resell our private, personal info to national security agencies for $10M+ with a devastating effect on civil liberties, human rights and even the protection of human life.”

Is he just going to being spewing #Flockaganda unchecked on his own or is this going to be an actual debate with legal and civil rights experts? Why does Garrett, the CEO of a multi-billion dollar private surveillance technology company, get to say where the line should be drawn?

TechCrunch@techcrunch.com · last mo.

Flock Safety sits right at the center of the debate over where the line should be drawn between privacy and public safety. That’s why we’re bringing Flock’s founder and CEO Garrett Langley to the stage to speak about those very issues.

Just finished @jesselonergan.bsky.social's Arca - fabulous art working hand in hand with great writing to tell a gripping and relevant story. Recommended!

There’s a very good documentary about librarians standing against the current book banning in America and I’d hugely recommend it. Actually it’s probably essential. Available on iPlayer in the UK.

People should not be living in a surveillance state. The government decided this without public consent and we are paying for it with our tax dollars. AI systems and cameras everywhere are about monitoring and control. This is a violation of basic existence.

"'This contract is not being renewed because of serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues, particularly around privacy and the data that is being collected from these cameras,' LAPD’s chief information officer Dean Gialamas was quoted as saying."

LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire, citing 'serious concerns' over civil liberties and privacy | TechCrunch

The LAPD, one of Flock's biggest government customers, is ending its contract with the company citing civil liberties concerns.

techcrunch.com

Pretti was not in a vehicle. Nor was this man www.ibtimes.co.uk/surveillance.... Training and equipment won’t address the danger of conflating civil immigration enforcement with criminal law enforcement by an administration that expressly echoes fascist rhetoric and disdain for individual rights.

DHS Claims Migrant 'Beat Agent With A Shovel' — New Footage Shows No Attack Before ICE Agent Fired Through Closed Door

A newly released surveillance video casts doubt on the government's account of a January ICE shooting in Minneapolis, leading to dropped charges and potential perjury investigations.

ibtimes.co.uk

@bluevirginia.bsky.social This is BAD! A Senate companion bill to H.R. 7661, the federal book censorship/education threatening bill sitting in the House This new bill, S. 4925, was sent to the HELP committee So it's time to call our reps to say NO @kaine.senate.gov bookriot.com/senate-bill-...

Republican Senators Introduce Nationwide Book Ban Companion Bill, S. 4925

Republican Senators have introduced a nationwide book ban bill in the Senate, S. 4925 and it's a warning of their summer plans.

bookriot.com

More Americans have signed the petition against book bans than attended the Great American State Fair.

PETITION: Don't Ban Books in the United States

Proposed censorship measures in several states could deny your right to read some books in our Nation's libraries and lead to librarians facing criminal charges for the books on the shelves.

bookbanpetition.us

The State of Library Cuts in 2026 So Far. The word of the year for US libraries, whether public, school, or academic, is rough. Do note the good news–cuts were off the table in numerous places because people showed up and spoke up. buttondown.com/wellsourced/...

The State of Library Cuts in 2026 So Far

The word of the year for US libraries, whether public, school, or academic, is rough.

buttondown.com

I've been horrified (albeit not completely surprised) by the backlash PEN America has received since publishing an article last week. *And* I believe that the article itself had some significant problems. This piece by Meg Keene begins to elucidate them. www.wsj.com/opinion/pen-...

Opinion | PEN America Equivocates on Boycotting Israel

And its president resigns, claiming it’s ‘unethical’ even to criticize BDS as discriminatory.

wsj.com

Attacks on the Strait of Hormuz have stranded 6,000 seafarers and cut daily transits from 130 to 30, yet diplomacy is stalling as Trump declares the ceasefire MOU "over." UN calls for restraint go unheeded while global supply chains and energy markets absorb the cost. #Hormuz #UN #Supply

Renewed Attacks on Strait of Hormuz Deepen Global Supply Chain Concerns

UNITED NATIONS, July 10 (IPS) - Renewed attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz have intensified concerns over global energy markets along with supply chain disruptions, as the United Nations calls for an end to escalating hostilities within the Persian Gulf.

globalissues.org

PEN America's president resigned over a report on Israeli and Jewish writers. Mengestu argues the report feeds anti-BDS legislation. The tension between defending all writers and taking sides in a conflict is the kind of dilemma that makes political fiction necessary.

Two Kinds of Stranger by Steve Cavanagh is out now. New legal thriller from the author of the Eddie Flynn series. The premise of a con artist witness and a killer on the run sounds like classic Cavanagh. Anyone read it yet?