During a Sunday emergency edition of his co-hosted programme in March 2026, a viewer asked Kiriakou which of his own books to read first for an understanding of the CIA.[1]
His own books
He answered that the reader should start, if a copy can be found, with his first book, The Reluctant Spy. The qualification matters: he said in the same breath that he believed he could reclaim the rights to that book and publish a new edition, and that he was looking into it at the time.[1]
For a reader who wants to learn more about CIA tactics specifically, he recommended his second book, Doing Time Like a Spy, noting that its second edition had just come out and that it was therefore easy to find.[1]
Beyond his own
A second viewer asked for a reading list on modern foreign policy and history. Kiriakou named The Rise and Fall of the CIA, written in the 1980s, as the one he had started with himself. He described it as his first real, deep introduction to CIA covert action operations and to covert operational failures, running from the creation of the Agency through to Iran-Contra, and told the questioner to start there if a copy could be found.[2]
He added a standing recommendation for anything written by Tim Weiner.[3] His co-host offered a further title of his own; that recommendation is the host’s rather than Kiriakou’s.[3]