Book and Film Recommendations

Gaurav Shukla, Netflix
2025

In this Netflix espionage drama set in 1970s India, a resilient New Delhi spy must defeat his counterpart across the border in a battle of wits and tradecraft to sabotage their nuclear program. Premieres 13 August 2025.

Charlie English
Random House, 01 Jul 25

For nearly five decades after the Second World War, the Iron Curtain divided Europe, forming the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. No physical combat would take place along this frontier: the risk of nuclear annihilation was too high for that. Instead, the war was fought psychologically. It was a battle for hearts, minds, and intellects. Few understood this more clearly than George Minden, head of a covert intelligence operation known as the “CIA book program,” which aimed to undermine Soviet censorship and inspire revolt by offering different visions of thought and culture.

From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden’s “book club” secretly sent ten million banned titles into the East. Volumes were smuggled aboard trucks and yachts, dropped from balloons, hidden aboard trains, and stowed in travelers’ luggage. Nowhere were the books welcomed more warmly than in Poland, where they would circulate covertly among circles of like-minded readers, quietly making the case against Soviet communism. Such was the demand for Minden’s texts that dissidents began to reproduce them in the underground. By the late 1980s, illicit literature was so pervasive in Poland that censorship broke down: the Iron Curtain soon followed.

Charlie English narrates this tale of Cold War spycraft, smuggling, and secret printing operations for the first time, highlighting the work of a handful of extraordinary people who fought for intellectual freedom—people like Mirosław Chojecki, who suffered beatings, imprisonment, and exile in pursuit of his clandestine mission. The CIA Book Club is a story about the power of the printed word as a means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free.  

Jessika Aro
Ig Publishing, 05 July 2022

A chilling account of Russian information warfare, Putin's Trolls exposes the individuals and organizations behind the Kremlin’s coordinated, military-style social media operations against the West.

In this courageous and unflinching book, award-winning journalist Jessikka Aro interweaves her own dramatic story as a target of Russian social media propaganda with accounts from many internationally known critics of the Kremlin, who share their own stories of being targeted by Russia’s multifaceted cyber warfare campaigns. As Jessikka began to investigate the impact of the Kremlin’s troll operations outside of Russia, she learned that private citizens in many other countries were being victimized by Kremlin-designed information campaigns. These actions were frequently conducted through an organized “troll factory” led by Russia’s security and intelligence apparatus, using unregulated social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Many of the disinformation campaigns were centered around the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent occupation of the Crimean Peninsula.

Group Captain Frederick William Winterbotham CBE
Frontline Books, 02 July 2025 (Reprint of 1978 original)

The Nazi Connection details Frederick William Winterbotham's work as Chief of the Air Intelligence Department in the British Secret Intelligence Service before World War II. Tasked with gathering intelligence on military aviation in potential adversary nations, Winterbotham focused on Germany, visiting the country multiple times as a civilian Air Ministry official. His apparent sympathy for Nazi ideology allowed him to gather vital information on Germany’s rearmament plans, while building relationships with high-ranking Nazis. 

Winterbotham was welcomed by top Nazi officials, including Alfred Rosenberg, and even met Hitler, Hess, and Göring. During his visits, Winterbotham learned about Hitler’s plans to invade the Soviet Union and gained insights into Germany's military preparations, including the emerging concept of blitzkrieg. Despite this critical intelligence, convincing British leaders to heed these warnings proved difficult. Winterbotham’s predictions were dismissed until Germany’s military aggression became undeniable.

The Nazi Connection explores the complex web of espionage and deception surrounding Winterbotham’s mission. It questions how different the course of history might have been if Britain had acted on Winterbotham's intelligence about Nazi Germany’s intentions. This story of missed opportunities and high-stakes intelligence offers a fascinating look into the prelude to World War II.