Match BookPegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy
Laurent Richard
2023 · 336 pages · Narrative nonfiction
How it reads
Pegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy is narrative nonfiction (technology and surveillance investigative nonfiction, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.
It's set in an international setting, in the present day, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are power and politics, justice and identity. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is left open, for you to argue about. At 336 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's moderately known: read by plenty of people, but not a household name.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something tense
- you want something to chew on
- you want a complete story in one book
Maybe not if…
- you need something cosy or heartwarming
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- narrative nonfiction
- Author gender
- multiple or unknown
- Author experience
- established
- Setting: place
- international
- Setting: time
- contemporary
- Mood / feeling
- tense
- Pace
- moderate
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- medium
- Narrative style
- third person, several viewpoints
- Publication era
- recent
- Popularity
- moderately known
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Themes
- power and politics, justice, identity
- Ending style
- ambiguous
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
- Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical RightJane MayerShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a NationKristin Kobes Du MezShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political WivesAnne MichaudShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms RaceNicole PerlrothShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily LifeNassim Nicholas TalebShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
The Mueller ReportRobert S. Mueller IIIShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
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