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Former US counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke’s incendiary inside account of what really happened in George W. Bush’s war on terror tops the list of most popular books bought by our readers this month.The popularity of Against All Enemies owes to its timeliness- Clarke has fiercely criticized the president and his advisors only now, at the very beginning of Bush’s re-election drive, and most devastatingly in front of the 9/11 investigative commission tasked with finding out why the government failed to stop the terrorist attacks. Read all about Clarke’s charges and the significance of them here.

Other books purchased by our readers reflected their prevailing interest in Balkan topics. Here, perennial favorites such as Inat and Diary of an Uncivil War, by acclaimed war reporter Scott Taylor, were picked up by readers curious to know the inside story of what really happened in the Kosovo and Macedonia conflicts.

Also read with interest were Balkan chestnuts such as Misha Glenny’s The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1899 and Noel Malcolm’s Kosovo: a Short History, both of which explore the imperial influence on the Balkans.

Readers also bought the biography of legendary Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, as well as Chalmers Johnson’s The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic.

As usual, there were also some oddball sales- such as the soundtrack to Mel Gibson’s The Passion, a purchase perhaps sparked by our recent article on the controversial film. There was also Maximizing your ERP System: a Practical Guide for Managers, which purchase cannot be logically explained at all.

Here we’d like to give a big thanks our readers for continuing to support Balkanalysis.com by patronizing our advertisers, all of whom offer a wide range of goods specifically selected for their interest to fans of the Balkans. Any reader suggestions for additional items you’d like to see here can be sent to us at contact@balkanalysis.com.

Important info on the above-cited books and other interesting ones follows below.

Richard Clarke’s Against All Enemies is complimented by another recent book that backs up Clarke’s assertions- and thus was also attacked by the Bushies: Ron Suskind’s The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill.

Scott Taylor’s Inat and Diary of an Uncivil War have now been followed up by the author’s riveting tales of danger and intrigue in the sands of Arabia, Spinning on the Axis of Evil: America’s War Against Iraq. Read our reviews of the latter two here and here.

A book which deliciously complements Andrew Mango’s Ataturk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey is Classical Turkish Cooking: Traditional Turkish Food for the American Kitchen.

The epic tome of Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia provides vigorous counterbalance to the views of Misha Glenny’s The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1899 and Noel Malcolm’s Kosovo: a Short History.

The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic, was written by Chalmers Johnson, the historian famous for his work on the disasters of US foreign intervention, Blowback.