Gathered these two reviews in one post.
JPod by Douglas Coupland
This is an updated Microserfs and it really reads like Coupland is just coasting. He tries to darken the white-bread ambience of the earlier book with drugs and people-smuggling but it’s basically the same book with a version bump.
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner
The CIA’s reputation is already the worse for wear, but this book basically tears any remaining mystique to threads. In hindsight the CIA made many mistakes and the “successes” (Iran in the 50s, Afghanistan in the 80s) came back to haunt them.
What’s lacking from the book is a wider discussion of just why so many covert actions to influence or suborn governments were undertaken, not just by a rogue CIA but by successive presidents. In hindsight going head-to-head with the Soviet Union was rather unnecessary, but few knew that at the time. In part this was due to the CIA being incompetent, but I think it would have added to an understanding of the Cold War.