Match BookThis Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race
Nicole Perlroth
2021 · 528 pages · Narrative nonfiction
How it reads
This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race is narrative nonfiction (cybersecurity 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 several locations, in the present day, told in the first person by a single narrator. Its central concerns are power and politics, survival and justice. 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 528 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
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
- you want something you can finish this weekend
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- narrative nonfiction
- Author gender
- female
- Author experience
- established
- Setting: place
- multiple locations
- Setting: time
- contemporary
- Mood / feeling
- tense
- Pace
- moderate
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- long
- Narrative style
- first person, one narrator
- Publication era
- recent
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Themes
- power and politics, survival, justice
- 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.
- Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily LifeNassim Nicholas TalebShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- Pegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and DemocracyLaurent RichardShares: 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- 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
- Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First CenturyDorothy RobertsShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of AmericaSarah KendziorShares: narrative nonfiction, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, ambiguous ending
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