{"product_id":"9780955353949","title":"The Reporter's Tale","description":"The Reporter’s Tale is an adventure story about Tom Davies, a young Welsh writer who travels the world looking for the truth and, in a few days of blistering revelation in Malaya, finds it in a series of visions.\u003cbr\u003eThereafter, he takes his new insights on a journey through the media, becoming a reporter for top Sunday newspapers – and later an award-winning author of many books – and realising he has a fresh understanding of the causes of the violence which is so blighting the modern world.\u003cbr\u003eHis odyssey of discovery begins in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles where he finds that the media – with its persistent pursuit of violence – is the cause of much of the disorder there.\u003cbr\u003eThe global media, which specialises in reporting the worst of everything from everywhere, has become the mother and father of modern terrorism, he says, giving the IRA disproportionate power and importance merely because they offer violence. Television in particular is the catalyst for the growing disorder in our streets: becoming the very leader of street riot while also giving motive and reward to suicide bombers.\u003cbr\u003eThe many revolutions of the Arab Spring are fully explained by his visions, he shows. Here the world’s media first began feeding on the self-immolation of a Tunisian trader before spawning revolution after revolution in neighbouring countries. They all wanted freedom and democracy, we were told, but all that seemed to be happening was that they were deranged by watching too much television news as each service, particularly Al Jazeera, spooled out violent imagery on an almost twenty four hour loop mostly from footage downloaded from their viewers’ mobile phones.\u003cbr\u003eAll outlets of the media have come together and conspired to set loose a tide of evil which is turning violence into the very oxygen we are all now breathing, Davies shows in this book which may well be the most powerful and trenchant attack ever mounted on the tyranny of the modern media.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'How utterly fascinating I found The Reporter’s Tale! What a life! What an epiphany! I am astonished by the profligacy of detail – inner and outer – and by Tom Davies’ command of his own meanings'.\u003cbr\u003eJan Morris, writer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Steel worker’s son, gossip columnist, coal yard owner, novelist, travel writer, religious visionary. Tom Davies’ voyage through the last 60 years in The Reporter’s Tale is as strange and compelling as the Book of Revelation.'\u003cbr\u003eIan Jack, Guardian columnist and former editor of Granta.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI found The Reporter’s Tale both disturbing and thought-provoking. Berwyn Mountain Press is to be congratulated on keeping the faith with one of Wales’ most passionate and creative writers.\u003cbr\u003eMax Boyce, MBE, entertainer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn The Reporter’s Tale, Tom Davies takes the reader on a sensuous and, at times, harrowing pilgrimage. John Bunyan might have written something like this had he joined that rabble on a pub crawl to Canterbury. A testimony of hope, deep loss and a determination not to perish in the godless shadows of our days. Be inspired.\u003cbr\u003eStewart Henderson, poet and presenter of Questions, Questions, BBC Radio 4.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRapturous in places, repulsive in others, but a powerful autobiography, grappling with faith, sex, the media and the horrific implications of fictional violence on our disturbed society. Not to be missed, even if it demands a strong stomach.\u003cbr\u003eMichael Saward, hymnwriter and former Canon Treasurer of St Paul’s Cathedral.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Reporter’s Tale is the autobiography of Tom Davies, a steelworker’s son from Cardiff who went on to enjoy – and sometimes endure – a high-rise career as a writer. This is a packed and passionate book from a man who kissed the Blarney Stone and found God talking to him.\u003cbr\u003eWestern Mail.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTom Davies, the former Observer journalist and one-time Penarth coal merchant, has moved to Bala and is producing books at an enviable rate. This is an autobiography told with the speed of fiction. Davies spills the beans on a life that mixed God with debauchery in almost equal proportions. The Davies’ trajectory starts where many do, in the boundary-pushing ’60s. Colin Wilson, Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac all feature as early influences. Tom the Book’s progress from provincial journalist to UK national icon is charted with an engaging mixture of humour and revelation. I found it compulsive.\u003cbr\u003ePeter Finch, Chief Executive, Welsh Academy of Writers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI found The Reporter’s Tale a marvellous book which captures the spirit and atmosphere of working on a newspaper. The time Davies spent on the Western Mail is only one episode in the fascinating life he has led – but this revealing and painfully honest book will be of interest to anyone thinking of taking up journalism or writing as a career.\u003cbr\u003eBrian Lee, Echo Extra.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Reporter’s Tale is the story of a writer’s exhilarating journey around the world until he finally ends up running an art gallery in Bala. The journey is always entertaining and his life changes completely when he sees a series of visions in Malaya in which he understands that God is in deep distress because of the corruption of our modern media. With his new insights Davies argues that the modern media, with its romantic obsession with violence, cruelty and perversion, is causing widespread damage throughout the world. During his journalistic career Tom investigated a number of cases in which violence on the screen or printed page have inspired acts of violence like Hungerford and American school massacres. I regard The Reporter’s Tale as one of the most significant spiritual memoirs I have ever read, comparable to C S Lewis’ Surprised by Joy, Jack Clemo’s Confession of a Rebel and Malcolm Muggeridge’s Chronicles of Wasted Time.\u003cbr\u003eThe Christian Librarian\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis autobiography has a dynamic forthrightness and range. The chapters on the Welsh miners’ strike were a highlight as were those on the Sunday Telegraph. I never realised journalists were so drunken and badly behaved.\u003cbr\u003eJohn Davies, poet and publisher.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat happens to columnists when they’ve done hundreds and find the place where they started coming round again? If you were Tom Davies you’d simply carry on. Tom, novelist, reporter, investigative hack and perpetual commentator on the vagaries of life in Wales has spilled the beans in his recent Berwyn Mountain Press paperback, The Reporter’s Tale. Davies was a firecracker of a journalist who delivered news and insight as often as he did outrage, indignation and shedloads of damning with faint praise. His life as a regional journalist making good on the London nationals and then falling from grace and returning to Wales makes for exhilarating reading. Starting on the Western Mail, he went on to work for The Sunday Times, the Observer and the Sunday Telegraph, with episodes in between as a coalman and Christian evangelist. In that way of wayward creatives who are never happy where they are, he ended up working as a novelist. There are 16 fat titles listed on this ink man’s bibliography. One Winter of the Holy Spirit, the story of Evan Roberts and the 1904 revival in Wales is an excellent place to start.\u003cbr\u003eThe Insider, Western Mail.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTom Davies is never less than entertaining, never more readable than when he is being passionate. The Reporter’s Tale is a riveting read and Tom possesses – like C S Lewis – the rare gift of making theology accessible and deserves a wide audience. Tom is a reluctant prophet – but a prophet nevertheless – and his prose is soaked in wisdom, clarity and the odd drop of whisky. Highly recommended.\u003cbr\u003eAmazon.","brand":"Berwyn Mountain Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47114691641584,"sku":"9780955353949","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780955353949_p0.jpg?v=1763871350","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780955353949","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}