Concrete Playground's Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2015 Reading List

Cybershaming and cybersexism, drug addiction and neurology, the 'extreme centre' of politics, climate change and capitalism, robots and unemployment, and sugar. They're all on the programme for the seventh incarnation of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas.

Coming to the Sydney Opera House over September 5–6, this year's event will be bringing us a stack of Damn the Man activists, provocative authors and controversial intellectuals from all over the world, including Jon Ronson, Naomi Klein, Peter Greste, Tariq Ali, Dr Marc Lewis, Gabriella Coleman, Sarai Walker and AC Grayling. And that's just a smattering.

September's a while away, you still have plenty of time to arm yourself with knowledge. Many of FODI's 2015 guests have launched some pretty brave, important and confrontational books during the past few years. Get through these between now and the end of August and you'll be racing to the mic with your questions.

SO YOU'VE BEEN PUBLICLY SHAMED BY JON RONSON

Another day, another weird or ill-informed or not-clearly-ironic-enough or plain-stupid tweet, another social media frenzy, another sacking, another life in tatters. Welsh journo, author, filmmaker and radio presenter Jon Ronson has delved into the phenomenon of cybershaming and come up with the insightful, honest, hilarious yet frightening book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed. He travels around the world, interviewing high-profile shamees, and exploring the dangers of the democratisation of judgement and justice.

FODI TALK: Jon Ronson's 'Shame Culture' is on September 5 at 3.30pm. 

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: CAPITALISM VERSUS THE CLIMATE BY NAOMI KLEIN

Reckon you've heard everything there is to know about climate change? Let's face it, it's not until Naomi Klein has put her pen to a topic that we can really say it's had a thorough going-over. In 1999, she gave globalisation a serious shake-up with No Logo, and in 2007, challenged the so-called success of the 'free market' with The Shock Doctrine. In This Changes Everything, Klein argues that climate change isn't so much about carbon as it is about capitalism. If we're planning on the market saving us, we'd better make new plans quicksmart.

FODI TALK: Naomi Klein's 'Capitalism and the Climate' is on September 5 at 11.30am. 

THE EXTREME CENTRE: A WARNING BY TARIQ ALI

If the similarity of major political parties has been disillusioning your faith in the political system, Tariq Ali's your man. In his latest book, The Extreme Centre: A Warning, Ali argues that, in way too many countries, politics have been same-same since 1989; with world leaders continually promoting the market's needs at the cost of all else. He examines corruption in Westminster, the EU, NATO and the dominance of the American empire. But it's not all doom and gloom — Ali finds hope in the formation of new, visionary parties in Scotland, Greece and Spain, and in Latin America's Bolivarian Revolutions.

FODI TALK: Tariq Ali's 'The Twilight of Democracy' is on September 5 at 12.30pm.

DIETLAND BY SARAI WALKER

Once you've made your way through all this heavy nonfiction here, you may well be ready for a little escape. You'll find it in Sarai Walker's debut novel, Dietland. That said, this imaginative, funny book doesn't come without a message. It tells the story of Plum Kettle, a girl who tries her hardest to be invisible, because she believes that the fact that she's 'too fat' means that any attention is bad attention. Then, one day, she falls down a rabbit hole, into an underground community of women, where everyone approaches their own body — and their life — on their own terms.

FODI TALK: Sarai Walker's 'Radical Fat Acceptance' is on September 6 at 2pm.

UNSPEAKABLE THINGS: SEX, LIES AND REVOLUTION BY LAURIE PENNY

Laurie Penny is just 28, but her CV reads like that of someone much older. Right now, she's working as a contributing editor at The New Statesman, writing an Orwell Prize shortlisted blog and touring the world talking about her fourth book, Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution. In it, Penny defends her version of feminism, which is fundamentally about everyone's freedom to choose. In the process, she traverses poverty, prejudice, online dating, eating disorders and riots.

FODI TALK: Laurie Penny's 'Lost Boys' is on September 6 at 3.30pm. 

HACKER, HOAXER, WHISTLEBLOWER, SPY: THE MANY FACES OF ANONYMOUS BY GABRIELLA COLEMAN

Anthropologist Gabriella Coleman has spent six years delving into the deep, dark world of Anonymous. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy is the product of her adventures and an incredibly detailed look at the world of hackers, pranksters and digital activists. Coleman reveals her chats with numerous of the subculture's best-known figures, from Topiary to Tflow to Jeremy Hammond, while recounting their roles in major events, including Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring and WikiLeaks.

FODI TALK: Gabriella Coleman's 'Inside Anonymous' is on September 5 at 12pm. 

WITHOUT YOU, THERE IS NO US BY SUKI KIM

Since 2002, Seoul-born, New York-living writer Suki Kim has travelled back and forth to North Korea, returning with essays and articles covering major events — from Kim Jong-il's 60th birthday party, to his death in 2011 at the age of 69. During that year, she spent six months teaching English to the sons of the North Korean elite at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST). In Without You, There Is No Us, she gives us a detailed, intimate account of her experiences, providing a window into the education system of a nation we know so little about.

FODI TALK: Suki Kim joins Michael Kirby and Anna Broinowski for the 'Inside North Korea' panel on September 6 at 2pm.

COMMAND AND CONTROL: NUCLEAR WEAPONS, THE DAMASCUS INCIDENT AND THE ILLUSION OF SAFETY BY ERIC SCHLOSSER

Eric Schlosser, author of 2000's Fast Food Nation, has turned his legendary investigative journalism skills to nuclear weapons. Like its predecessor, Command Control aims to make us feel very, very uncomfortable. We're not as safe as we like to think we are. Two plot lines drive the book's structure — the first is the 70-year history of America's nuclear arsenal. The second is the story of the 1980 Titan II missile explosion in Damascus, Arkansas — a 'mishap' that could well have led to a detonation. According to Schlosser, far too many of these types of incidents occur and it's only good luck, really, that's keeping us from a disaster.

FODI TALK: Eric Schlosser's 'Nuclear Delusions' is on September 5 at 3pm.

MEMOIRS OF AN ADDICTED BRAIN BY DR MARC LEWIS

Neuroscientist Dr Marc Lewis first sought escape through drugs as a lonely, bullied boarding school student in New England. Starting with cough medicine, booze and pot, he made his way through the works; taking LSD, speed and heroin in California, nitrous oxide in Malaysia and opium in Calcutta. However, unlike many drug-addicted people, he eventually quit, and went on to become a neuroscientist and developmental psychologist. In Memoirs of an Addicted Brain, Dr Lewis recounts his experiences, focalising his drug-taking through its impact on his neurology.

FODI TALK: Marc Lewis's 'Learning Addiction' is on September 6 at 2pm.

RISE OF THE ROBOTS: TECHNOLOGY AND THE THREAT OF A JOBLESS FUTURE BY MARTIN FORD

Fancy yourself as indispensable to your employer? Believe that, even if your job becomes obsolete, you'll be able to side step into another? Martin Ford thinks you should think again. The robots are coming. And they're going to be cleverer than most of us imagine. In his second book, Rise of the Robots, Ford argues that, unlike other technological developments, the advancement of artificial intelligence promises to leave numerous of us completely, utterly jobless, thereby causing a massive leap in economic inequality.

FODI TALK: Martin Ford's 'Hello Robots' is happening on September 5 at 3pm.

Learn more about this year's Festival of Dangerous Ideas program, running September 5-6 at the Sydney Opera House, over here.

Top image: Dollar Photo Club.