Books by Lindsey Hilsum

** BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK **`It has always seemed to me that what I write about is humanity in extremis, pushed to the unendurable, and that it is important to tell people what really happens in wars.' Marie Colvin, 2001Marie Colvin was glamorous, hard-drinking, braver than the boys, with a troubled and rackety personal life.

Sandstorm is the best kind of reportage: humane, historically-informed and full of details that only a writer close to the action could have noticed. The overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi has been one of the twenty-first century's defining moments: the Arab world's most bizarre dictator brought down by his own people with the aid of NATO aircraft. Lindsey Hilsum was in Libya when Gaddafi met his squalid end. She traces the history of his strange regime from its beginnings - when Gaddafi had looks, charisma and popular appeal - to its paranoid, corrupt final state. At the heart of her book, however, is a brilliant narrative of Libyan people overcoming fear and disillusionment and finding the strength to rebel. Hilsum follows five of them through months of terror and tragedy. This is the Libyan revolution as it was made and lived. Sandstorm will take its place in a library of classic books about turning points of history.