Ten top books on heroes

Don Mullan is the author of Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, a book critical in reopening the British government's inquiry (over 25 years later) into what became known as Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday was January 30, 1972, a day when thirteen civilians were killed by British soldiers during a civil rights march in North Ireland.

Paul Greengrass, perhaps better known to Americans as the director of The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and United 93 (2006), made a film (co-produced by Mullan) titled Bloody Sunday (2002) about those events.

In 2006 Mullan named his top ten books on heroes for The Guardian, including:

Rabble-rouser for Peace: The Authorised Biography of Desmond Tutu by John Allen

In 1982 I helped to organise an international conference on world peace and poverty, to mark the 800th anniversary of the birth of St Francis of Assisi. Desmond Tutu, then secretary general of the South African Council of Churches, was one of the first to accept an invitation, subject to the return of his passport, recently confiscated by the apartheid government. I first met him in 1984, the year he won the Nobel peace prize, and we have been friends since. John Allen's biography, due out in October, will undoubtedly be a definitive work for decades to come. Interviewees include former South African presidents FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, and US president Bill Clinton. In 1984 I drove Tutu from Dublin to Belfast and was overwhelmed by his gentleness and generosity. Unquestionably, his compassionate handling of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission checked a potential bloodbath of revenge. A wonderful human being.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue