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Twenty Tales from the War Zone: The Best of John Simpson
Drawing on John Simpson's acclaimed volumes of autobiography and hitherto unpublished material, "Twenty Tales from the War Zone " brings together some of the highlights of his remarkable journalistic career. Whether dodging guerrillas at a cocaine market in Colombia, narrowly escaping a murderous Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, interviewing a flatulent Colonel Gadaffi, crossing the border into Afghanistan dressed in a fetching bright blue burka or being kidnapped at gunpoint - or was it a finger in a pocket - in the backstreets of Belfast at the height of the troubles, Simpson paints a vivid picture of what being a journalist on the front line is all about, from low comedy to high drama. It's a rollercoaster ride that is sure to thrill anyone who dares to join it.
- GenresNonfictionWarJournalism
Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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58 people want to read
About the author
John Cody Fidler-Simpson
23 books54 followersJohn Cody Fidler-Simpson CBE is an English foreign correspondent. He is world affairs editor of BBC News, the world's biggest broadcast news service. One of the most travelled reporters ever, he has spent all his working life at the corporation. He has reported from more than 120 countries, including thirty war zones, and has interviewed numerous world leaders.
Simpson was born in Cleveleys, Lancashire; his family later moved to Dunwich, Suffolk. His great grandfather was Samuel Franklin Cowdery (later known as Samuel Franklin Cody), an American showman in the style of Buffalo Bill Cody, who became a British citizen and was an early pioneer of manned flight in the UK. Simpson reveals in his autobiography that his father was an anarchist. That didn't prevent him from getting a top-notch education: he was sent to Dulwich College Preparatory School and St Paul's, and read English at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was editor of Granta magazine. In 1965 he was a member of the Magdalene University Challenge team. A year later Simpson started as a trainee sub-editor at BBC radio news.
Simpson became a BBC reporter in 1970. He describes in his autobiography how on his very first day the then prime minister Harold Wilson, angered by the sudden and impudent, as he saw it, appearance of the novice's microphone, punched him in the stomach.
Simpson was the BBC's political editor from 1980 till 1981. He presented the Nine O'Clock News from 1981 till 1982 and became diplomatic editor in 1982. He had also served as a correspondent in South Africa, Brussels and Dublin. He became BBC world affairs editor in 1988.
Simpson was born in Cleveleys, Lancashire; his family later moved to Dunwich, Suffolk. His great grandfather was Samuel Franklin Cowdery (later known as Samuel Franklin Cody), an American showman in the style of Buffalo Bill Cody, who became a British citizen and was an early pioneer of manned flight in the UK. Simpson reveals in his autobiography that his father was an anarchist. That didn't prevent him from getting a top-notch education: he was sent to Dulwich College Preparatory School and St Paul's, and read English at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was editor of Granta magazine. In 1965 he was a member of the Magdalene University Challenge team. A year later Simpson started as a trainee sub-editor at BBC radio news.
Simpson became a BBC reporter in 1970. He describes in his autobiography how on his very first day the then prime minister Harold Wilson, angered by the sudden and impudent, as he saw it, appearance of the novice's microphone, punched him in the stomach.
Simpson was the BBC's political editor from 1980 till 1981. He presented the Nine O'Clock News from 1981 till 1982 and became diplomatic editor in 1982. He had also served as a correspondent in South Africa, Brussels and Dublin. He became BBC world affairs editor in 1988.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 29, 2009
As much as I admire him I have never forgiven John Simpson for being born 14 months before me. Had I been that much older and the world had welcomed me, instead of he, it might have been me standing in front of a camera explaining the nuances of a war, only pausing to glance over the shoulder at a Cruise missile passing just yards behind me. It doesn’t come cooler than that.
His reports from the trouble spots of the world are crafted with great skill, delivered as they are with just the right blend of gravitas to illustrate the serious points mixed with the enthusiasm of a train spotter seeing a loco in some foreign field that was manufactured in Doncaster a hundred years ago.
The Cruise missile event is just one enduring image that would be familiar to half the worlds TV audience. Others, the American air strike on a UN convey in which he was travelling, his triumphant entry into Kabul, which he would have us believe he personally liberated, and his reports as the only journalist to stay on in Belgrade during the NATO bombing are all remembered as minor masterpieces of television journalism. He has taken us to all the Gulf wars, was present at the return of the Ayatollah and described to us, first hand, the demonstration at Tiananmen Square. Not many, if any, journalists could boast such a portfolio.
It’s all too easy to become complacent about the snapshot images we see on the evening news. A few more African children on the edge, massed graves in the Balkans. Information, by necessity, becomes compressed into a ninety second series of sound bites, an impossible time frame in which to tell the story. John Simpsons books fill in the detail: the minutia of life lived over a long period in a war zone by a journalist and the inhabitants of the beleaguered city or country that he is reporting from.
These stories are retold in this sampler book, a bargain at less that £3.00. Including among others, chapters from Strange Places, Questionable People, and News From No Mans Land it can be enjoyed in it’s own right or as a gateway to several other interesting and informative books he has written during his 40 years since he joined the BBC as foreign correspondent, through his rise to be World Affairs Editor and one of the most respected television journalists around today.
This is a genre of books that I particularly enjoy reading so whilst on the subject may I encourage you to read others. John Simpson is but one of many that have committed their experiences to print. Highly recommended is Michael Buerke’s, A Road Taken. Nowadays he is mainly known as a news reader but he was once the BBC Africa correspondent who made it a personal crusade to bring the Ethiopian famines to our collective consciousness. Who can forget the horrific images of the Ethiopian famine that he and his camera man Mohammed Amin brought to our TV screens, images that galvanised the world to take action leading to millions being raised by events such as Live Aid through to Red Nose Day. This part of Africa has since been overtaken by other catastrophes but is a mark of the man that he didn’t just try to do a job, for a time he actually made a difference. Worth reading.
His reports from the trouble spots of the world are crafted with great skill, delivered as they are with just the right blend of gravitas to illustrate the serious points mixed with the enthusiasm of a train spotter seeing a loco in some foreign field that was manufactured in Doncaster a hundred years ago.
The Cruise missile event is just one enduring image that would be familiar to half the worlds TV audience. Others, the American air strike on a UN convey in which he was travelling, his triumphant entry into Kabul, which he would have us believe he personally liberated, and his reports as the only journalist to stay on in Belgrade during the NATO bombing are all remembered as minor masterpieces of television journalism. He has taken us to all the Gulf wars, was present at the return of the Ayatollah and described to us, first hand, the demonstration at Tiananmen Square. Not many, if any, journalists could boast such a portfolio.
It’s all too easy to become complacent about the snapshot images we see on the evening news. A few more African children on the edge, massed graves in the Balkans. Information, by necessity, becomes compressed into a ninety second series of sound bites, an impossible time frame in which to tell the story. John Simpsons books fill in the detail: the minutia of life lived over a long period in a war zone by a journalist and the inhabitants of the beleaguered city or country that he is reporting from.
These stories are retold in this sampler book, a bargain at less that £3.00. Including among others, chapters from Strange Places, Questionable People, and News From No Mans Land it can be enjoyed in it’s own right or as a gateway to several other interesting and informative books he has written during his 40 years since he joined the BBC as foreign correspondent, through his rise to be World Affairs Editor and one of the most respected television journalists around today.
This is a genre of books that I particularly enjoy reading so whilst on the subject may I encourage you to read others. John Simpson is but one of many that have committed their experiences to print. Highly recommended is Michael Buerke’s, A Road Taken. Nowadays he is mainly known as a news reader but he was once the BBC Africa correspondent who made it a personal crusade to bring the Ethiopian famines to our collective consciousness. Who can forget the horrific images of the Ethiopian famine that he and his camera man Mohammed Amin brought to our TV screens, images that galvanised the world to take action leading to millions being raised by events such as Live Aid through to Red Nose Day. This part of Africa has since been overtaken by other catastrophes but is a mark of the man that he didn’t just try to do a job, for a time he actually made a difference. Worth reading.
January 8, 2023
Simpson's honest depictions of his near-death experiences whilst working for the BBC are brilliantly told. Although he didn't mention the time I kept trying to light his blazer on fire at my second cousins wedding. Was hoping to make it into the book but hey, that's journalism. Throw out the real news in place of violence and war. 7.5/10
November 3, 2024
It’s a good quick read but I think from a journalist like John Simpson, I expected a bit more depth and analysis.
Irrespective, it’s good synopsis of his travels around the world and an interesting read.
Irrespective, it’s good synopsis of his travels around the world and an interesting read.
November 3, 2018
Excellent Read
John writes of experiences that few can even imagine. These essays are easy reading and thought provoking. I'm now inspired to investigate further books by him.
John writes of experiences that few can even imagine. These essays are easy reading and thought provoking. I'm now inspired to investigate further books by him.
June 24, 2021
Tres interesting and blimey, he is one lucky person! Close shaves.
August 26, 2021
A simple read but a very interesting snapshot of 20 key stories from John Simpson's fascinating career, giving the lowdown on political upheavals and the reality of war zones.
March 19, 2017
You won’t find anything profoundly life changing in John Simpson’s TWENTY TALES FROM THE WAR ZONE, but as a “Quick Reads” from Pan Books, it is, indeed, a quick first-person summary on Simpson’s career as a noted BBC correspondent.
November 14, 2009
Worth reading, and it won't take long.
This was an interesting read, and I'd still like to read his full memoirs, but I didn't find it that engaging. This might be because, as part of the Quick Reads series, it is targeted at those with reading comprehension difficulties. That fact seems to have led to a fair amount of condescension in the narrative (e.g. explaining where Tel Aviv is, and what Apartheid was), and a lack of analytical depth in the stories.
On the other hand, these shortcomings (as I see them, at least) may just stem from the fact that Mr Simpson is a journalist, whose job is to inform and report, not to analyse or comment.
The stories themselves are focused and informative, as well as being interesting, but the shortness of the book results in a lack of cohesion. In that respect, it is rather like a news broadcast, in that you get a taste of several different stories and countries in a very short time.
This was an interesting read, and I'd still like to read his full memoirs, but I didn't find it that engaging. This might be because, as part of the Quick Reads series, it is targeted at those with reading comprehension difficulties. That fact seems to have led to a fair amount of condescension in the narrative (e.g. explaining where Tel Aviv is, and what Apartheid was), and a lack of analytical depth in the stories.
On the other hand, these shortcomings (as I see them, at least) may just stem from the fact that Mr Simpson is a journalist, whose job is to inform and report, not to analyse or comment.
The stories themselves are focused and informative, as well as being interesting, but the shortness of the book results in a lack of cohesion. In that respect, it is rather like a news broadcast, in that you get a taste of several different stories and countries in a very short time.
August 19, 2009
It was my first audio-book and I feel myself still quite strange after listening it. I didn't find the text particularly interesting, and I was expecting a bit more of analysis and deepness by John Simpson. But, at the same time, listening his wonderful and seductive voice talking about silly events as a flight from Milan to Rome or the first time when he met Princess Diana it's a very worthy and pleasant experience.
October 9, 2009
From the heart of it
Twenty recent historic events are brought to life by John Simpson in this book as he tells each story from its very core. These tales make easy reading and they cannot fail to stir deep emotions in every reader. The pace is fast and the stories are short and punchy.
Twenty recent historic events are brought to life by John Simpson in this book as he tells each story from its very core. These tales make easy reading and they cannot fail to stir deep emotions in every reader. The pace is fast and the stories are short and punchy.
June 18, 2013
Good and easy read. Very interesting narration of incidents from various places around. Ending of the book is really worth noting, with a hope and optimism.
January 7, 2014
A brief, but interesting diversion. Simpson manages to straddle the line between engaging and boastful.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews