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There are so many myths and misunderstandings surrounding sex that I was puzzled as to which one warranted a whole book. It turns out that Dr Brooke Magnanti (previously known to most of us as the blogging call girl Belle de Jour) tackles most of them. She accomplishes this heroic task with humour, skill and passion in a book that is as entertaining as it is erudite.

Magnanti exposes the weak, even non-existent, evidence base for periodic moral panics surrounding sex. She dissects the factoid evidence on the new disease of sex addiction, the sexualisation of children, the way pornography humiliates women, the dangers of porn on the internet, the evils of prostitution and trafficking.

Her book should be required reading for all newspaper readers, and for anyone interested in understanding how advocacy research manufactures findings that are selective, tendentious, dishonest, even incompetent.

Today, Dracula remains a defining creation of Gothic fiction, the consummate creature of the night, the king of unnatural beings, as fiendish as he is charismatic. This month, Stoker's original publishers, Constable & Robinson, will mark the centenary of the author's death on 20 April 1912 by publishing a facsimile edition of the novel.

It is, thus, a timely moment to consider the legacy this formidable creature has left. There have been countless Counts depicted on film over the past century, and the Dracula industry continues apace in the 21st: a new film, Dracula 3D, starring Rutger Hauer and directed by Dario Argento (who was behind the cult horror, Suspiria), is scheduled to be released this year; Dacre Stoker, the author's great-grand-nephew, has just co-edited The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker with Elizabeth Miller, based on a notebook discovered in his attic, whose entries offer new insight into the author's mind.

So what has given Dracula his imperishable appeal? Dacre Stoker thinks it is the open-ended nature of its central character that has led to its longevity. Dracula, and the horrors he encapsulates, remain relevant because he -- and the text -- are so malleable.

He [Bram Stoker] left a lot ambiguous. The book is not straightforward. The character of Dracula is mysterious. He is only in 30 percent of the pages of the story; his presence is greater because it is created through the minds of other people and you end up wondering: 'Is he a count?', 'Is he a threat?', 'Is he a vampire?'

...See the full article

Ethical hacker Ankit Fadia's book is shocking, entertaining, educational and inspiring all at the same time! He dedicates it To A Free and Unblocked Internet.

Seriously, even I learned a lot and I've been circumventing government Internet censorship in Thailand and teaching others how to for the past six years.

When I met the author, Ankit Fadia, in Bangkok a few weeks ago, I asked him the only important question: Everything? Surely that's exaggeration. He told me, of course it was, and that his book was mostly intended to help users circumvent school and workplace blocking.

After studying How to Unblock EVERYTHING on the Internet!, I just can't agree with him. Ankit pretty much covers everything I can think of. His Chapter 9 on multiple formats for a webpage's IP address is nothing short of brilliant. Turns out there are far more formats to which that URL can be converted than government could employ people to block (see below). For my work against censorship, this is the most important chapter in How to Unblock EVERYTHING on the Internet!

Update: Unimpressed

8th April 2012. See article from attrition.org. Suggested by FakeAnkitFadia via Twitter

The zombie-esque series of comic books collectively known as Crossed is generally accepted to have taken the prize as the most extreme yet. It's set in the oft-depicted post-apocalyptic America, where a plague has turned all but a few citizens into blood-hungry, un-dead creatures.

The Crossed are not the usual brain-eating, unthinking zombies, these are intelligent and organised. They work together to hunt the uninfected and when they find them they carry out every kind of unimaginable act possible. There actions include (but are certainly not limited to) rape, decapitation, crucifixion, disembowelling, immolation and many other equally brutal but more imaginative forms of torture.

Why the hell are you telling us all this, I hear you say it just sounds horrible. Well, it is. It's also brilliant. The first volume is grimly hilarious, tightly paced, strangely humane and an unexpectedly gripping read.

...Read the full article

...See book details from amazon.co.uk