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Book Recommendations: More Nonfiction Book Club Picks
Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham
April 25, 1986, in Chernobyl, was a turning point in world history. The disaster not only changed the world’s perception of nuclear power and the science that spawned it, but also our understanding of the planet’s delicate ecology. With the images of the abandoned homes and playgrounds beyond the barbed wire of the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone, the rusting graveyards of contaminated trucks and helicopters, the farmland lashed with black rain, the event fixed for all time the notion of radiation as an invisible killer.
Chernobyl was also a key event in the destruction of the Soviet Union, and, with it, the United States’ victory in the Cold War. For Moscow, it was a political and financial catastrophe as much as an environmental and scientific one. With a total cost of 18 billion rubles - at the time equivalent to $18 billion - Chernobyl bankrupted an already teetering economy and revealed to its population a state built upon a pillar of lies.
The full story of the events that started that night in the control room of Reactor No.4 of the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant has never been told - until now. Through two decades of reporting, new archival information, and firsthand interviews with witnesses, journalist Adam Higginbotham tells the full dramatic story, including Alexander Akimov and Anatoli Dyatlov, who represented the best and worst of Soviet life; denizens of a vanished world of secret policemen, internal passports, food lines, and heroic self-sacrifice for the Motherland. Midnight in Chernobyl, award-worthy nonfiction that reads like sci-fi, shows not only the final epic struggle of a dying empire but also the story of individual heroism and desperate, ingenious technical improvisation joining forces against a new kind of enemy.
Last Call by Elon Green
The Townhouse Bar, midtown, July 1992: The piano player seems to know every song ever written, the crowd belts out the lyrics to their favorites, and a man standing nearby is drinking a Scotch and water. The man strikes the piano player as forgettable.
He looks bland and inconspicuous. Not at all what you think a serial killer looks like. But that’s what he is, and tonight, he has his sights set on a gray haired man. He will not be his first victim. Nor will he be his last.
The Last Call Killer preyed upon gay men in New York in the ‘80s and ‘90s and had all the hallmarks of the most notorious serial killers. Yet because of the sexuality of his victims, the skyhigh murder rates, and the AIDS epidemic, his murders have been almost entirely forgotten.
This gripping true-crime narrative tells the story of the Last Call Killer and the decades-long chase to find him. And at the same time, it paints a portrait of his victims and a vibrant community navigating threat and resilience.
Yellow Bird by Sierra Crane Murdoch
When Lissa Yellow Bird was released from prison in 2009, she found her home, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, transformed by the Bakken oil boom. In her absence, the landscape had been altered beyond recognition, her tribal government swayed by corporate interests, and her community burdened by a surge in violence and addiction. Three years later, when Lissa learned that a young white oil worker, Kristopher "KC" Clarke, had disappeared from his reservation worksite, she became particularly concerned. No one knew where Clarke had gone, and few people were actively looking for him.
Yellow Bird traces Lissa's steps as she obsessively hunts for clues to Clarke's disappearance. She navigates two worlds - that of her own tribe, changed by its newfound wealth, and that of the non-Native oilmen, down on their luck, who have come to find work on the heels of the economic recession. Her pursuit of Clarke is also a pursuit of redemption, as Lissa atones for her own crimes and reckons with generations of trauma.
Lost & Found by Kathryn Schulz
Eighteen months before Kathryn Schulz's father died, she met the woman she would marry. In Lost & Found, she weaves the story of those relationships into a brilliant exploration of the role that loss and discovery play in all of our lives. The resulting book is part memoir, part guidebook to living in a world that is simultaneously full of wonder and joy and wretchedness and suffering - a world that always demands both our gratitude and our grief. A staff writer at The New Yorker and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Schulz writes with curiosity, tenderness, erudition, and wit about our finite yet infinitely complicated lives. Lost & Found is an enduring account of love in all its many forms from one of the great writers of our time.
#book club books#book club#book club pick#nonfiction#nonfiction reads#nonfiction books#Nonfiction Reading#library books#book recommendations#book recs#reading recommendations#reading recs#TBR pile#tbr#to read#booklr#book tumblr#book blog
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4 riveting science books that are perfect for your book club.
[via Book Page]
You don't need scientific training to enjoy these entertaining, offbeat books.
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives by Mark Miodownik
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life by Helen Czerski
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For the latter half of High Fantasy month at The Hidden Bookcase, we’re reading Graceling by Kristin Cashore, chosen by Sorren Briarwood.
Graceling is a YA fantasy novel following Katsa, a teenager Graced with a preternatural aptitude for killing, who acts as an enforcer to her tyrranous uncle, King Randa. When she rescues an abducted royal from a neighbouring kingdom, she discovers there’s more to the crime...
We’re so excited to chat with you about Graceling! This episode will be available at 5PM BST on Monday the 29th August. We hope to see you then, and in the meantime, you’re always welcome through the bookcase!
#graceling realm#kristin cashore#graceling#bitterblue#queer podcasts#lgbtq podcasts#book club books#book club podcast#fantasy book club#ya fantasy#podcasts on tumblr
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Funniest thing I’ve seen on tiktok are those sigma male boys getting mad that American psycho was written by a gay man and going “well I like fight club better” buddy I’ve got some world ending devastating news for you
#I don’t like fight club#but other people do#gay people on their way to write some of the most relevant popular influencial literature of the 90s#solius posting#this shit also kills me because both of those books have. OVERT homosexual themes and moments
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Being a “Fun Fact !” kind of autistic is all fun and games until you get halfway through sharing an interesting tidbit and realize that it probably wasn’t appropriate to share in polite company and now you have to deal with the consequences :(
#autism#neurodivergent#adhd#fun facts#GOD I’m such an idiot#anyways now a 10 year old is out there looking up swear words online and it’s all my fault :(#I got so excited by the fact that I knew a fun fact#that I didn’t stop to think that maybe not everyone knows that fun fact for a reason :(#it’s like explaining how to successfully bury a body at a book club#or explaining the dangers of Scientology to your sister’s boyfriend the first time you meet him#or debating gay sex positions with your best friend in front of your mom#no matter how much I wish to be a beacon of knowledge in this world#sometimes there are things others just don’t want to know#and consciously that’s valid but the autism ? I does not care
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I Have Some Questions for You:
In 2019 I told you that Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers was the one book you should read that year (still true), and while I’m not yet prepared to say I Have Some Questions for You is the best thing you’ll read this year, it’s certainly in the running.
Following Brodie Kane, a podcast producer, as she returns to her high school boarding school to both teach a class and investigate the…
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#franz kafka quotes#franz kafka#franz kafka diaries#letters to milena#the metamorphosis#metamorphosis#books and reading#books#bookblr#bookworm#literature#literary quotes#gregor samsa#the castle#amerika#consuming#profound#literature club#book quotes#daily kafka#kafka#kafka quotes#books & libraries#old literature#old books#feminine hysteria#girly memes#just girly thoughts#girl blogger#girly blog
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y'all so im reading the maid by Nita prose right now and I have so many thoughts and am annotating the fuck out of this book. granted im also reading it for a book club
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if you wanna listen to naddpod you should know this about the hosts: brian murphy is a straightman to his inner most core and he's the funniest person alive, these things exist simultaneously and would not exist without the other. emily axford is clinically insane to a point where it's easier to not try to follow her logic when she says things. jake hurwitz is a certified cool guy but he's the biggest loser in a room of nerds playing dungeons and dragons. caldwell tanner can only be described as exactly what a 1930's cartoon describes as a rascal. three of them are a throuple and the fourth is their boss.
#naddpod#not another dnd podcast#brian murphy#emily axford#jake hurwitz#caldwell tanner#8 bit book club#bahumia#trinyvale#eldermourne#ba2mia#and yes i know theyre not technically a throuple its just murph and emily that are a couple but if the intro to your podcast is 'my life#slash comedy partner my wife and my other life slash comedy partner caldwell' im calling you a throuple
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ajaneofallreads on Instagram
#bookblr#bookish#book quotes#books#quotes#bookstagram#booktok#book tumblr#reading#book club#book lover#bibliophile#bookworm#book worm#readers of tumblr#booklr#book community#reading aesthetic#reader aesthetic#bookshelves
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Book Recommendations: National Reading Group Month
In honor of National Reading Group Month, here are some titles featured in our book club kits that you can check out to share with your own reading group!
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.
Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.
The Unreal and the Real by Ursula K. Le Quin
In this two-volume selection of Ursula K. Le Guin's best short stories - as selected by the National Book Award winning author herself - the reader will be delighted, provoked, amused, and faced with the sharp, satirical voice of one of the best short story writers of the present day.
Where on Earth explores Le Guin's earthbound stories which range around the world from small town Oregon to middle Europe in the middle of revolution to summer camp.
Companion volume Outer Space, Inner Lands includes Le Guin's best known nonrealistic stories. Both volumes include new introductions by the author.
My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh
In the summer of 1989, a Baton Rouge neighborhood best known for cookouts on sweltering summer afternoons, cauldrons of spicy crawfish, and passionate football fandom is rocked by a violent crime when fifteen-year-old Lindy Simpson - free spirit, track star, and belle of the block - is attacked late one evening near her home. As the dark side of this idyllic stretch of Southern suburbia is revealed, the close-knit neighborhood is irreversibly transformed.
In My Sunshine Away, M.O. Walsh brilliantly juxtaposes the enchantment of a charmed childhood with the gripping story of a violent crime, unraveling families, and consuming adolescent love. Acutely wise and deeply honest, it is an astonishing and page-turning debut about the meaning of family, the power of memory, and our ability to forgive.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.
Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother - who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.
When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town - and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.
#fiction#book club books#book club pick#national reading group month#reading recommendations#reading recs#book recommendations#book recs#tbr#to read#TBR pile#library books#booklr#book tumblr
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The February 2023 Celebrity Book Club Books
[via Beyond the Bookends]
Here’s what these celebrity book clubs will be talking about in February:
Reese Witherspoon Book Club: The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
Read with Jenna Book Club: Maame by Jessica George
The Good Morning America Book Club: River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer
Oprah’s Book Club: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
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Book club paintings vol. 1 ♡ The Love Letter (1911) by George Lawrence Bulleid and Miss Auras, The Red Book (1907) by John Lavery
#cottagecore#bookblr#reading#bookish#learnelle book club paintings#dark academia#light academia#cozycore#cosycore#art details#art detail#art history#Books & libraries#booklover
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I was listening to Behind The Police (podcast about the history of American policing) recently and at one point the hosts were discussing the tendency of white supremacist/fascist violence to have this element of absurdity to it - ie, people dressing up in white KKK robes and calling themselves wizards while attacking black people - and the point of this is to deny their victims the decency of “straightforward” experiences of violence. To later recount that a group of wizards attacked you makes you to sound absurd to whoever you’re talking to, and it becomes more difficult to make sense of. it’s all “just a joke bro.” your discomfort and fear and confusion and pain is the punchline. and modern right wing discourse is so laughably deranged as to be a joke in itself (perhaps best epitomised by the now-memetic phrase “the fluoride in the water is making the frickin’ frogs gay”), but this is of course deliberate. the rhetoric of “satanic pedophiles are sacrificing children in the basement of a pizza restaurant” or whatever is employed because it distracts from the real message they’re trying to deliver (ie, antisemitism). it isn’t just a denial of reality but a very particular form of cruelty that makes it more difficult for the victims of right wing violence to be taken seriously, to make sense of what’s happened to them.
and it feels like the same thing is happening now with transphobia - rhetoric that insists on “protecting children” from trans people while the US is actively loosening their child labour laws (x) (x). this isn’t a case of mere “hypocrisy,” this is rhetorically deliberate. the rank absurdity and insincerity of their words is meant to deny you the ability to think clearly, to distract you, to make you sound like a crazy person, to enrage you, all the while they get to carry on as if they aren’t saying or doing any of these things
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