A good book can not only help pass the time during a long flight, a day on the beach or a rainy Sunday afternoon. It's also a great way to escape and travel to exotic places filled with action and adventure. If you like something that will make you think a little more, you may want to throw politics into the mix with some gripping terrorism fiction.
Terrorism is very hard to define. It usually involves using violence to create fear, in order to bring about political or ideological changes. The group or person acts independently from governmental entities like the national military. However, who is labeled a terrorist often depends on your point of view. Some people argue that many terrorist groups are in fact liberation armies.
'The Sum of all Fears' is the title of a famous novel dealing with terrorism. It's one in the Jack Ryan series created by spy novelist Tom Clancy. Jack Ryan, who is also the hero of novels like 'Patriot Games', is an American secret agent whose work, like that of real secret agents, often involves trying to stop acts of terror and bringing the perpetrators to justice.
Terrorists aren't necessarily all male. Women have been involved in acts of terror since the beginning and someone like Leila Khaled, who hijacked planes for the Palestinian cause, became a cult heroine. John le Carre wrote 'The Little Drummer Girl' about an actress who becomes involved in the Palestinian liberation struggle initially to infiltrate a terrorist group but then because she comes to believe in the cause.
Palestinian liberation has often been a motive for acts of terror, as was the situation in Northern Ireland. The most well-known organization in Ireland to be accused of terrorism was the Irish Republican Army. Their violent acts have inspired many writers too, including Jack Higgins, author of 'A Prayer Before Dying'.
A very gripping book about terrorism is 'An Act of Terror'. Translated from the Afrikaans, it's South African writer Andre Brink's account of the life of a young Afrikaans-speaking photographer who is involved in a botched attempt at a terrorist action and has to flee across the country. It is set in apartheid South Africa, when liberation movements were banned and usually called terrorists.
Europe in the Seventies was a breeding ground for small leftist groups who committed acts of terror. The most famous were probably West Germany's Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, and Italy's Red Brigades. In the United States the Symbionese Liberation Army gained widespread notoriety when they kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst, who then later joined the organization. Nobel Prize laureate Doris Lessing illustrated in 'The Good Terrorist' how naive and stupid some of these idealists could be.
The ongoing War on Terror provides an almost endless source of inspiration for new works of terrorism fiction. You can find these books online, in your local library or at a good bookstore. Be sure to make enough time to read them, though, since you won't be able to put them down until the last page.
Terrorism is very hard to define. It usually involves using violence to create fear, in order to bring about political or ideological changes. The group or person acts independently from governmental entities like the national military. However, who is labeled a terrorist often depends on your point of view. Some people argue that many terrorist groups are in fact liberation armies.
'The Sum of all Fears' is the title of a famous novel dealing with terrorism. It's one in the Jack Ryan series created by spy novelist Tom Clancy. Jack Ryan, who is also the hero of novels like 'Patriot Games', is an American secret agent whose work, like that of real secret agents, often involves trying to stop acts of terror and bringing the perpetrators to justice.
Terrorists aren't necessarily all male. Women have been involved in acts of terror since the beginning and someone like Leila Khaled, who hijacked planes for the Palestinian cause, became a cult heroine. John le Carre wrote 'The Little Drummer Girl' about an actress who becomes involved in the Palestinian liberation struggle initially to infiltrate a terrorist group but then because she comes to believe in the cause.
Palestinian liberation has often been a motive for acts of terror, as was the situation in Northern Ireland. The most well-known organization in Ireland to be accused of terrorism was the Irish Republican Army. Their violent acts have inspired many writers too, including Jack Higgins, author of 'A Prayer Before Dying'.
A very gripping book about terrorism is 'An Act of Terror'. Translated from the Afrikaans, it's South African writer Andre Brink's account of the life of a young Afrikaans-speaking photographer who is involved in a botched attempt at a terrorist action and has to flee across the country. It is set in apartheid South Africa, when liberation movements were banned and usually called terrorists.
Europe in the Seventies was a breeding ground for small leftist groups who committed acts of terror. The most famous were probably West Germany's Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, and Italy's Red Brigades. In the United States the Symbionese Liberation Army gained widespread notoriety when they kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst, who then later joined the organization. Nobel Prize laureate Doris Lessing illustrated in 'The Good Terrorist' how naive and stupid some of these idealists could be.
The ongoing War on Terror provides an almost endless source of inspiration for new works of terrorism fiction. You can find these books online, in your local library or at a good bookstore. Be sure to make enough time to read them, though, since you won't be able to put them down until the last page.
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