Book Project: No Place to Hide

Choosing a Book about the Information Society

         I found it surprisingly difficult to find interesting books regarding our topic that were published within the last two years.  I began by searching keywords like “information society”, “technology”, “social media”, “Internet”, and many more on Amazon.  I mostly just found textbooks with very focused topics.  So then, I moved to GoodReads.com which provided me lists of books that related to those topics.  I was able to find two books written in the last two years that I felt related.  The first book I found was Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising.  Although it sounds boring, I found very positive reviews that called it a “must-read!”.  It is a book written by the businessman guru that built American Apparel, and he talks about the new types of marketing tactics (using Twitter, Facebook…) that are necessary for a successful business to use in our modern day society.  Then, I found The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, a book following multiple characters on the last night of the world.  It emphasizes how technology awakens the most primal instincts.  After finding these books, I was having a lot of trouble finding a third book to consider, so I decided to move to the iBooks store and see what was popular in the technology and internet section of the online store.  After a few minutes of browsing, I found No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State a true story about the man responsible for WikiLeaks.  The book delves further into the effects of media and the government’s relationship with the private lives of citizens.  This book received very enthusiastic reviews that raved about how interesting it was to hear the full story.  This book had almost twice the amount of reviews than the other two books on GoogleBooks.  On LibraryThing.com, the book Illustrated Man had far more reviews, followed by No Place to Hide, and then Growth Hacker Marketing.  However, I didn't feel it connected to our class as well as the other options.  After reading the descriptions and reviews of all three books, I decided to choose No Place to Hide.  I think it is the most relevant book to the types of issues discussed in class, and I am excited to learn more about the story of WikiLeaks. 
           I could not find any reviews for the book on Project Muse, but I found multiple reviews of the book on ProQuest. Below are two citations for very in-depth reviews of the book that I will probably use for my report.
 

Dyer, Geoff. "'no Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State', by Glenn Greenwald." FT.com(2014)ProQuest. Web. 9 Oct. 2014.

"Peering into the Darkness; the Snowden Leaks." The Economist May 17 2014: 79. ProQuest. Web. 9 Oct. 2014 .