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Conspiracy
Conspiracy 2022 edition is revised, expanded and updated, with new cases, material and evidence.
New topics include the UK subpostmasters scandal, Trump and QAnon, Putin and Malaysia Airlines MH17, COVID-19 and the lab-leaks theory, Russiagate and the strange death of Jeffrey Epstein.
New topics include the UK subpostmasters scandal, Trump and QAnon, Putin and Malaysia Airlines MH17, COVID-19 and the lab-leaks theory, Russiagate and the strange death of Jeffrey Epstein.
384 pages, Paperback
Published June 23, 2022
57 people are currently reading
202 people want to read
About the author
Ian Shircore
16 books25 followersIan Shircore's mission is to rescue Clive James's poems from the "poetry ghetto" and bring them to people who would never normally read poetry (and would certainly not pick up a book about poetry).
Clive wrote some real duds - not surprising in the course of a 60-year career and more than 300 poems. But he also hit some wonderful highs. And like every other writer, musician or artist, he deserves to be remembered for his greatest work, rather than some dull, actuarial average. Would you choose to judge The Beatles by Run For Your Life, Octopus's Garden and Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey, or by their finest creations, like Strawberry Fields, Blackbird and Please, Please Me?
Some of Clive's best poems are already well known. The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered is still going strong, 37 years on, and Japanese Maple is loved all over the world. But there are others, like Use of Space, At Ian Hamilton's Funeral and The Falcon Growing Old, that are just as moving. All I want is for more people to discover them and share the joy.
Clive wrote some real duds - not surprising in the course of a 60-year career and more than 300 poems. But he also hit some wonderful highs. And like every other writer, musician or artist, he deserves to be remembered for his greatest work, rather than some dull, actuarial average. Would you choose to judge The Beatles by Run For Your Life, Octopus's Garden and Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey, or by their finest creations, like Strawberry Fields, Blackbird and Please, Please Me?
Some of Clive's best poems are already well known. The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered is still going strong, 37 years on, and Japanese Maple is loved all over the world. But there are others, like Use of Space, At Ian Hamilton's Funeral and The Falcon Growing Old, that are just as moving. All I want is for more people to discover them and share the joy.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
February 14, 2024
When I saw this book on sale, I knew I had to pick up - I thought what crockpot conspiracies am I going to read in this short book. And I was actually surprised.
The book is split into several chapters each chapter focusing on a specific conspiracy - from the death of celebrities (Elvis Presley), influential figures (Martin Luther King, JFK), as well as crimes against people (9/11). Each subject is dealt with an emotional nuance which surprised me. There was a section within the 9/11 chapter, where the conspiracy theorists believe the phone calls to loved ones were faked. And here the author signposts how wrong this was.
Where this book fails however, is that each of the conspiracies are not given much of a deep dive; and are at best, a whistle stop tour of the conspiracy. Whilst much is made about the evidence; what I wanted from a book called conspiracy - is almost a list of the conspiracies associated with each chapter.
For example, the section on Marilyn Monroes death - the amount of drugs found in her system, her behaviours and the behaviours of the witnesses. Why do people think the Mob was involved? etc.
Overall, I understand why so many individuals believe in conspiracy theories even when the facts are so routinely stated and shared. Sometimes the real events are so out of the ordinary that conspiracies however off the wall, almost seem to fit.
Considering a book that was written in the early part of this decade, I am surprised with the advent of fake news, the internet, the miscommunications, the errors etc this is not also discussed in light of some of these conspiracies.
Overall, an interesting read, but not one for a deep dive.
The book is split into several chapters each chapter focusing on a specific conspiracy - from the death of celebrities (Elvis Presley), influential figures (Martin Luther King, JFK), as well as crimes against people (9/11). Each subject is dealt with an emotional nuance which surprised me. There was a section within the 9/11 chapter, where the conspiracy theorists believe the phone calls to loved ones were faked. And here the author signposts how wrong this was.
Where this book fails however, is that each of the conspiracies are not given much of a deep dive; and are at best, a whistle stop tour of the conspiracy. Whilst much is made about the evidence; what I wanted from a book called conspiracy - is almost a list of the conspiracies associated with each chapter.
For example, the section on Marilyn Monroes death - the amount of drugs found in her system, her behaviours and the behaviours of the witnesses. Why do people think the Mob was involved? etc.
Overall, I understand why so many individuals believe in conspiracy theories even when the facts are so routinely stated and shared. Sometimes the real events are so out of the ordinary that conspiracies however off the wall, almost seem to fit.
Considering a book that was written in the early part of this decade, I am surprised with the advent of fake news, the internet, the miscommunications, the errors etc this is not also discussed in light of some of these conspiracies.
Overall, an interesting read, but not one for a deep dive.
October 22, 2022
Uninformed misinformation siding with mainly mainstream narratives.Very disappointing would not buy other books from the author
July 27, 2024
I understand this is damning with faint praise, but I bought this, regretted buying it because I'm not that much of a believer in conspiracies (I'm an evidence based, critical appraisal of information type person), assumed the book would be rubbish, resisted reading it, then decided I'd get it out the way and read it.
I found it OK. Not full of shit as I thought it might be, the author attempts to explain *why* certain conspiracies have gained traction, what questions/inconsistencies remain, and to provide balance. There's a good range of forty or more conspiracies covered, but perhaps some were dealt with in too little detail, and some really shouldn't have been included at all. Had I been 'into' conspiracies, this might stimulate further investigation.. but in the end it was all a less bad than expected, but not that interesting book. Subjective, I know.
I found it OK. Not full of shit as I thought it might be, the author attempts to explain *why* certain conspiracies have gained traction, what questions/inconsistencies remain, and to provide balance. There's a good range of forty or more conspiracies covered, but perhaps some were dealt with in too little detail, and some really shouldn't have been included at all. Had I been 'into' conspiracies, this might stimulate further investigation.. but in the end it was all a less bad than expected, but not that interesting book. Subjective, I know.
August 14, 2025
Very cool, fun and easy read. Most of the conspiracies are really interesting, but a few not so. Gives a balanced account on the most probable outcomes.
September 17, 2022
The Oxford dictionary definition of a conspiracy is “The action of conspiring; combination of persons for an evil or unlawful purpose”.
This book is basically a whistlestop tour of 48 different conspiracies. Some are mostly based on theory. However, many are either explained away through signposted evidence such as open source documents and testimony or have such to at least give colour to what are unsolved mysteries.
I was at first morbidly curious about reading a book such as this one, but was put off by the risk of falling into the cottage industry of craziness that sticks to the topics of conspiracies. However, I felt reassured by the author’s manner which in no way resembled the typical internet troll shouting “DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!” to prove a point. On the contrary, the author puts their cards down on the table seemingly openly. Lurid and exotic conspiracy theories are delved into in detail, but not in such a way that it seemed as though the author was trying to disguise them as plausible. In fact the author seemed to relish shooting holes in the most ridiculous of them. Because of this I would not recommend this book to David Icke, who gets a harsh treatment, although not undeservedly.
This book starts off very cleverly with a recent conspiracy, which is not only proven but also very tragic in it’s victims; the British sub-postmasters conspiracy. By starting with this episode the author cleverly lays out his important point in the brief introduction; yes there are conspiracy theories but it is important to remember there are real conspiracies that have caused great harm. For anyone who doesn’t know much about this scandal I would recommend making efforts to get updated. In a nutshell, a faulty computer system blamed thousands of self-employed British post-masters for stealing from their work. The Post Office, through it’s own prosecution service, accused innocent and hard workers of stealing over investigating other explanations. It is strange, terrifying and mind boggling in how such a crime could be done to so many. But there we have it, genuinely harmful conspiracies exist.
What impressed me about this book is that it seemed to make efforts not to be as American centred as most books about this kind of subject matter would be. In addition to the British Sub-Postmaster conspiracy there are other British chapters too including spy plotting against Harold Wilson and the Sellafield Nuclear disaster and cover up. Having given praise though, I would caution that the book is very Eurocentric. There is certainly still a lot of fodder from Europe and the USA, but it does seem in some ways to be a missed opportunity. In some ways it seems a bit odd too, given that loss of Malaysian Airways MH17 is talked about, but not the even stranger and more inconclusive mystery of the plane which was allegedly lost in the Indian Ocean.
The author did visit the ‘classic’ conspiracies such as the JFK assassination and Roswell. On the whole they were informative and frank with the facts, although there were some odd exceptions where some open goals were mixed. In the Russiagate chapter the author followed the course of the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia but seemed to report some testimonies, but ignore some crucial ones such as Peter Strzok whose informative and outstanding book points to further unsolved mysteries on the case. The JFK chapter talks about the Oliver Stone film but not the glaringly problematic methods and behaviour in real life of William Garrison. This seems pretty oddly inconsistent since in most of the chapters the author seems to have done more thorough jobs.
Overall, I found this book surprising, enjoyable, engaging although a bit flawed. A part of me was left wandering on the irony of reading a book about conspiracies with mysterious dead ends and glaring holes in various pictures and narratives. But then I guess a reader is then threatened with falling into the trap of presuming the author owes you something that you will never get. As it is I enjoyed the ride for what it was.
This book is basically a whistlestop tour of 48 different conspiracies. Some are mostly based on theory. However, many are either explained away through signposted evidence such as open source documents and testimony or have such to at least give colour to what are unsolved mysteries.
I was at first morbidly curious about reading a book such as this one, but was put off by the risk of falling into the cottage industry of craziness that sticks to the topics of conspiracies. However, I felt reassured by the author’s manner which in no way resembled the typical internet troll shouting “DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!” to prove a point. On the contrary, the author puts their cards down on the table seemingly openly. Lurid and exotic conspiracy theories are delved into in detail, but not in such a way that it seemed as though the author was trying to disguise them as plausible. In fact the author seemed to relish shooting holes in the most ridiculous of them. Because of this I would not recommend this book to David Icke, who gets a harsh treatment, although not undeservedly.
This book starts off very cleverly with a recent conspiracy, which is not only proven but also very tragic in it’s victims; the British sub-postmasters conspiracy. By starting with this episode the author cleverly lays out his important point in the brief introduction; yes there are conspiracy theories but it is important to remember there are real conspiracies that have caused great harm. For anyone who doesn’t know much about this scandal I would recommend making efforts to get updated. In a nutshell, a faulty computer system blamed thousands of self-employed British post-masters for stealing from their work. The Post Office, through it’s own prosecution service, accused innocent and hard workers of stealing over investigating other explanations. It is strange, terrifying and mind boggling in how such a crime could be done to so many. But there we have it, genuinely harmful conspiracies exist.
What impressed me about this book is that it seemed to make efforts not to be as American centred as most books about this kind of subject matter would be. In addition to the British Sub-Postmaster conspiracy there are other British chapters too including spy plotting against Harold Wilson and the Sellafield Nuclear disaster and cover up. Having given praise though, I would caution that the book is very Eurocentric. There is certainly still a lot of fodder from Europe and the USA, but it does seem in some ways to be a missed opportunity. In some ways it seems a bit odd too, given that loss of Malaysian Airways MH17 is talked about, but not the even stranger and more inconclusive mystery of the plane which was allegedly lost in the Indian Ocean.
The author did visit the ‘classic’ conspiracies such as the JFK assassination and Roswell. On the whole they were informative and frank with the facts, although there were some odd exceptions where some open goals were mixed. In the Russiagate chapter the author followed the course of the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia but seemed to report some testimonies, but ignore some crucial ones such as Peter Strzok whose informative and outstanding book points to further unsolved mysteries on the case. The JFK chapter talks about the Oliver Stone film but not the glaringly problematic methods and behaviour in real life of William Garrison. This seems pretty oddly inconsistent since in most of the chapters the author seems to have done more thorough jobs.
Overall, I found this book surprising, enjoyable, engaging although a bit flawed. A part of me was left wandering on the irony of reading a book about conspiracies with mysterious dead ends and glaring holes in various pictures and narratives. But then I guess a reader is then threatened with falling into the trap of presuming the author owes you something that you will never get. As it is I enjoyed the ride for what it was.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 1, 2022
I love a Conspiracy theory the dumber or more plausible the better and although what we have here is a collection of some of the most well known theories we also have a problem. Ian Shircore is too normie to really go full bug eyed, brainwrong on the subject. He covers realistically the only news story which should be covered every day which is the Jeffrey Epstein case in under 12 pages. The biggest and most plausible and shocking story in decades and it gets 12 whereas other get dozens of pages. There's also a fairly neoliberal defence of capitalism and the status quo as "the best system we have" (no it isn't Ian read a book) but credit where credit is due he did turn me on to the fascinating cover up by the UK post office and the book is very digest and an easy read. The issue is he has such a fascinating topic and just gives general explanations rather than deep dives. Deep dives whether investigative or unhinged are what give conspiracies their appeal and this sadly does not have it.
August 11, 2023
Good fun and interesting, with a very broad range of materials nicely packaged into short summaries of conspiracy theories. However, there are no sources for any of the facts stated, (there is no reference list of sources), so the authors' account is often plausible, but can't be verified. Which, now I think about it, is how conspiracies start.
Times move quickly and some of this is dated already (see the enjoyable section on "Russiagate" and Bill Durham, who failed to convict anyone and now seems to be a fabulist himself).
So, enjoy but with caution as you'll have to do a lot of your own research to verify the author's versions of events.
Times move quickly and some of this is dated already (see the enjoyable section on "Russiagate" and Bill Durham, who failed to convict anyone and now seems to be a fabulist himself).
So, enjoy but with caution as you'll have to do a lot of your own research to verify the author's versions of events.
July 1, 2025
Although there is a mixture of conspiracy mysteries in this book, covering a wide range of topics, including the deaths of Elvis Presley, Princess Diana and John Lennon, as well as conspiracy theories about COVID 19, Britain’s Sub-Postmasters, 9/11 and New Coke etc, some topics I found were more interesting than others. I was surprised and pleased however, that there was obviously a lot of research gone into this book. Overall, I think some chapters could have been excluded, as they were quite dull in comparison to other topics and perhaps some bullet points, more interesting layout and links to more information may have added to this book.
October 5, 2025
Going in as someone who does like the odd conspiracy, this really narrowed down things to facts and unconfirmed suspicions and every chapter left you with 1 or 2 bits of knowledge that you found valuable. I found it very samey by the mid point and although every chapter was a different conspiracy, it was delivered in a very similar way and dragged
July 22, 2022
overall, insightful would be my word of choice to describe this book. i skipped a couple chapters that i found uninteresting but i generally liked the conspiracies that the writer chose to focus on.
August 24, 2022
A great book which remains unbiased on conspiracy theories which separates the nonsense from the plausible. Each chapter represents one conspiracy making if an easy bed time read
September 19, 2022
Enjoyable, gave great specifics and left you questioning events
October 8, 2022
Read whilst in Coppenhagen
December 26, 2022
Hidden Truths and lies which continue to rain a cloud over people, countries and communities.
December 30, 2022
Some very interesting and informative theories
February 1, 2023
Learnt a lot. Very interesting book. Chapters are just long enough to pick up and read in 1 go.
May 18, 2023
A good top-level summary of all popular conspiracies which raises more questions than answers.
March 20, 2024
Interesting. A good general overview of the main conspiracies.
May 20, 2024
It's a good book but you'll find most of the content in previous books.It took me longer than expected to read this book because I originally got it as a book to read on holiday.
August 23, 2024
some of the conspiracies were more interesting than others
November 13, 2024
Short sharp chapters on a topic, not overly ludacris, and an informative read.
April 7, 2025
i don’t know what i was expecting this book to be like but it’s not what it is
May 21, 2025
Great bit of fun reading about some mental ideas
June 13, 2025
well, some of that was interesting !!!!
September 18, 2025
Interesting read. Felt abit of information overload
April 13, 2025
I do like a good conspiracy theory! This book seemed interesting and it was full of facts about each conspiracy. I hadn't heard of some of them some of them I didn't count as conspiracy (I get the moon landings, JFK, 9/11, but I don't know whether I would see Covid as a conspiracy) and the rest seemed a bit far-fetched. There were over 40 conspiracies, so plenty to keep you going, but whilst some were interesting, others for me were a bit too factual and seemed like all the information was gathered from the internet! It was an okay read but not necessarily something I'd read again.
May 19, 2025
Not really any new conspiracy theories but interesting nonetheless.
December 13, 2023
There’s only maybe 5 interesting/ possible ones out of 48 chapters each covering a conspiracy theory. Mostly bs theories but the book only cost me £3 so can’t complain
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews