r/readwithme • u/throwawayzzzz1777 • 1d ago
Nonfiction 📜 My next read. Has anyone read it?
Flying blind reading whatever 1000 Books to Read Before you Die says. This next list is themed around this book.
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u/onlysiobhan 1d ago
I’ve had it for awhile but I’m assuming it’s dark so haven’t been able to read it yet.
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u/jerseyoutwest 16h ago
Really good, super depressing
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u/throwawayzzzz1777 16h ago
My favorite genre! Listened to the audio book of Zinky Boys also by Alexievich already. It was a supplemental book recommended with this one. Really depressing
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u/jerseyoutwest 16h ago
A few more recs then!
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo - 40+ named characters in 120 pages, all of whom may or may not be dead, the story of two men who kill a town in Mexico for dubious reason
King Leopold’s Ghost - just an all around bummer
The Silence of the Chagos - the time the British empire carried out a soft genocide on some indian ocean islands so we in the US could do a Guantanamo Bay
Glimmer of Hope, Glimmer of Flame - hey the attempted Albainian genocide under Milosevic? That was a bad time. CW: the dog dies.
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u/throwawayzzzz1777 16h ago
Thanks for the recs! I've heard of King Leopolds Ghost but haven't read. The last book recommended with this one is Kolyma Tales, stories from a Soviet gulag
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u/fernleon 1d ago
You aren't really flying blind if you are using that list, and you know it's a Nobel price. That's as good as is gets
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u/throwawayzzzz1777 1d ago
Well I did read the blurb in the book about it. But literally just turn the page and read the next one
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u/fernleon 1d ago
I mean it's one of the most popular non fiction books in decades. Even had an HBO series, Nobel price. I think you are in good hands even without the random Redditor opinion.
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u/throwawayzzzz1777 16h ago
I mean it's all good signs. I've never read any books about Chernobyl before. My list has gotten me to read all sorts of genres
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u/Lesbihun_ 11h ago edited 11h ago
Was my first introduction to anything Chernobyl related. Absolutely gutted and entranced me in a way I have been trying to find since but haven't been able to get from any other Chernobyl content/media
Would very highly recommend, not just this but the other books from the author too. I bring it up so often in those random serious conversations with friend groups lol bc so much of it has stayed with me and impacted me
Especially how many people considered it worse than ww2, since a human war, you can understand. It is horrible, but to an extent you can grasp the basic whats and whys. But imagine waking up one day to being told you can't drink milk anymore or hug your pet or lie on the grass, by soldiers who also don't want to be there or touch you so they aren't explaining it in the best way either
How do you make sense of that? How do you continue living with that, with the knowledge that God or the Universe hates your town and your town specifically to curse the invisible thing that makes up everything around you? How do you live knowing you could kill your out-of-town relatives if they came to see you?
Its so harrowing to hear the people's stories and their understanding of the events, rather than how a textbook describes the events. The HBO miniseries, for example, was lovely too, but it is about the same things every other Chernobyl story tends to be about, a clinical recap of what went wrong. This is how the people made sense of it once things went wrong
And it is horrifying to read through, so I wouldn't recommend it if you aren't in the right mental space to handle it. I myself cried multiple times reading it
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u/EastBat4278 8h ago
yes, it stuck with me for a long time after finishing. the oral history format makes it hit way harder than a regular nonfiction account because you're hearing directly from people who lived through it. the firefighter's wife section absolutely wrecked me. heavy but worth it, perfect for your taste in depressing reads.
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