Shooting War by Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman

Visually and narratively this is a treat. In a future in which McCain won the United States Presidential elections Jimmy Burns is a normal big boy playing with his new toy, a handheld video camera that streams live to the net, filming his Brooklyn neighbourhood for his left wing blog when the local Starbucks explodes in a suicide bombing. On the back of his ensuing fame Jimmy is employed by Global News to go out to Bagdad and report on the Iraq War. There he finds himself caught in a lethal war of words, public opinion and guns between the secretive Sword of Islam, the American military and UN forces and the US media.

I love the graphic art used in this story, on the one hand there are standard circular white balloons with black writing which contrast with internal dialogue in black boxes with white writing, but this is complemented by great little touches such as battery indicators and buffering speeds on the web streaming footage and the scrolling headlines running across the bottom of the news footage. The artwork itself is in the style of video games with drawn characters over photographic backgrounds.

The graphics and narrative work together as a brilliant indictment of the insularity of American culture and its media coverage, my favourite sequence is the reportage of the nuking of Bangalore by Global News where the concern is not humanitarian but rather the National Emergency McCain calls because of the widespread crippling of 24 hour customer services hotlines which have been farmed out overseas because of the low cost of labour.

A terrifyingly accurate and funny satire, it never understates the horror of war and the effect it has on Iraquis, rather, it reminds us of these horrors by presenting them through the lenses of blog footage, mass media news footage and the military engines of war and graphically demonstrating how each of these are deeply dehumanising and are as a screen we can place between ourselves and the reality of living through such a nightmare.

A Planet for the President by Alistair Beaton

Absolutely hilarious, I think this is the best satire I have ever read, AZ: "It is the near future and things are not going well for the President of the United States. He wants Americans to be adored by everyone but half the planet seems to be in a permanent state of insurrection against US power. What's more, there's a growing environmental crisis that even he can't ignore. It's one thing when there are floods in Bangladesh, quite another when almost 2,000 Americans die in flooding in Texas. His advisers warn him he could be remembered as the President who wrecked the planet. The President is persuaded of one simple fact: there are too many people in the world. Only radical action can deal with the problem. His advisors come up with a solution more ruthless than anything ever contemplated before. Appalled, the president refuses to go along with their plan. But it isn't long before he is committed to thinking the unthinkable ..."

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett AUDIO

I would never have read Bennett without this being a book group read and I would have missed out on a softly witty, very funny treat.

Au: "It was the corgis' fault. When they strayed through the grounds of Buckingham Palace, the Queen discovered the City of Westminster travelling library. The Queen has never had much time for reading - pleasure's always come second place to duty - "though now that one is here I suppose one ought to borrow a book". She is about to discover the joys of literature, albeit late in life. One book leads to another and the Queen is soon engrossed in the delights of reading.

However, this uncommon reader creates an uncommon problem. The royal household dislikes the Queen's new interest; it makes them uneasy. Books are devices that ignite the imagination. And devices like that are likely to explode."