The Secret Life by Andrew O'Hagan

How does the internet disrupt our sense of self? Where does human personality and contradiction fit into the big stories of the age – and does it matter if anything’s real anymore? In these three true stories, Andrew O’Hagan delves into the idea of selfhood in cyberspace.

The first is his account of trying to ghostwrite the autobiography of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. In the second, O’Hagan takes the identity of a deceased young man and creates an entirely new identity in cyberspace. And in the third he follows a guy called Craig who may or may not be the inventor of Bitcoin.

It makes for compelling reading. O’Hagan’s portraits of hacker life capture all the contradictions of digital humans; Wikileaks and Bitcoin may well be two of the biggest achievements of our age, but the people behind them are arseholes. Or, at least, they’re just as flawed as the rest of us – perhaps even more so. O’Hagan’s skill is in unpicking the motivations and mindsets that bring these very clever people into states of extreme anxiety, paranoia, and self-delusion. He’s also good on how the real world of publishers, agents, moneymen, and writers try to pin these people down, with mostly frustrating results.

It’s a gripping exploration of digital selves, and a demonstration of O’Hagan's masterful skills as novelist and reporter.