In review: The CIA Bookclub: The Best Kept Secret of the World War

This book is an astonishing story of one of the most unusual battles of the Cold War. Rather than focusing on spies, weapons, or diplomacy, Charlie English tells the story of books: millions of them, secretly printed, smuggled, and distributed behind the Iron Curtain. At the heart of his narrative lies Poland, where dissidents risked arrest and worse to circulate novels, essays, and poetry that challenged official ideology. With the quiet assistance of the CIA, these banned works—ranging from Orwell’s Animal Farm to the writings of Solzhenitsyn—became lifelines for readers hungry for intellectual freedom..

Despite the fact that this is a richly researched history – which it definitely is – it is narrative history at its most accomplished. Charlie English manages to spin this tale like a thriller. He writes with pace and clarity, turning complex operations into gripping, almost novelistic episodes. He has drawn extensively on archives, eyewitness testimony, and the recollections of those who received and shared these forbidden books. The result is not simply a history of covert publishing, but a powerful reminder of the power of reading and ideas: how literature can feed resistance, sustain communities, and gradually erode authoritarian control.

What makes The CIA Bookclub so compelling is its reminder that freedom of thought is never guaranteed—it has to be defended, sometimes in ways as modest as slipping a book across a border. For readers interested in Cold War history, the struggle for free expression, or the enduring influence of the written word, this is an absorbing, illuminating read.