Tag: war
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My Friends by Hisham Matar
“Some books, like some people, are shy”
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Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergman
Bergman’s history of extrajudicial killings by Israel’s government is essential, gripping and alarming.
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City of Thieves by David Benioff
A WWII novel by the Game of Thrones guy. It’s as good as any war novel I’ve read.
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The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang
This is brutal and upsetting, and at times I wondered if I could continue reading. But it’s not war porn by any means — Chang wanted to both educate and understand with this book. So she spends a lot of time pursuing the (predictably elusive) why of the event. It’s similar in some aspects to Shake Hands with…
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8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee
“…the biggest deception of all, and the kindest there is, is to be deceived. That could mean invaluable comfort to the other.” The only criticism I have for this book is that it was too short. In the hands of another author this would have been a monster 900-page generational epic. Mirinae Lee isn’t here…
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This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends by Nicole Perlroth
Exhaustive nearly to the point of exhausting. The middle third was repetitive and tough to stick with. Others have noted issues with timelines and I agree – it might have been more clear to have the book told in chronological order. I found myself stopping several times to try to pin down the chronology. HOWEVER…
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Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham
Detailed, well-researched, gripping and grim as hell. It makes a fantastic companion to the HBO miniseries – in fact many events in this book seem to have been recreated in the series, though no formal attribution was made. It’s a horrible story of institutional failure paid for in human lives. Written like a thriller, it…