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Shortest Book
29
pages
Longest Book
pages
Average book length in
2022
337
pages
Most Shelved
1,071,954
people
also shelved
Least Shelved
11
people
also shelved
Tim’s
average rating for
2022
4.4
4.4
Highest Rated on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ
4.54
average
Tim’s first review of the year
it was amazing
Very well written and thorough history of all things related to the April 26, 1986 explosion at Reactor Number Four at the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station in Ukraine, an event which was the world’s worst nuclear accident. A thoroughly researched book with an extensive bibliography and many pages of end notes as well as a number of maps, diagrams of the facility, and black and white photos, author Adam Higginbotham making use of state documents, i
Very well written and thorough history of all things related to the April 26, 1986 explosion at Reactor Number Four at the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station in Ukraine, an event which was the world’s worst nuclear accident. A thoroughly researched book with an extensive bibliography and many pages of end notes as well as a number of maps, diagrams of the facility, and black and white photos, author Adam Higginbotham making use of state documents, interviews, memoirs, and visits to the site, wrote a book that could have been dry but absolutely isn’t. At times it was so gripping it read like a novel and combined with his skillful humanizing the many people involved in the Chernobyl disaster, really brought the accident to life in a way that surprised me.
I have to underline again the fact that is book is thorough. Higginbotham covered everything, including the history of the Soviet nuclear energy program, the building of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station and the city that served it, Pripyat, what life was like in that city, what life was like for the people key to understanding the accident before it happened, what caused the accident, initial reactions to it including decisions on evacuation of Pripyat, the heroic efforts to put out the fire, what it was like evacuating Pripyat when it finally was evacuated and then what life was like for refugees once they were relocated elsewhere in the Soviet Union (they weren’t always welcomed for a variety of reasons), worse case fears of how the accident could have been worse and what was done about it (with fears of a China Syndrome scenario of molten fuel eating its way through the bottom of the building and making contact with “thousands of cubic meters of water� held in compartments below the building, which could have produced another explosion essentially like a “gargantuan dirty bomb� that would have hurled “enough fallout into the atmosphere to render a large swath of Europe uninhabitable for a hundred years�), how the rest of the world learned about what happened at Chernobyl, the medical saga of those who suffered from radiation exposure and what was done to save them (if they could be saved, wherein the reader will learn about different types of exposure and different very awful ways to die from radiation), the creation of the Exclusion Zone, a tour of the Exclusion Zone including the infamous Red Forest (killed by radiation), the return of nature to the Exclusion Zone’s “radioactive Eden� (with some discussion of the mutations in fauna and flora there), the advent of tourism to the Exclusion Zone (as well as discussions of looting), the design and construction of first the Sarcophagus (which the author described as a “medieval fantasy of a prison to hold Satan himself� and “a cathedral of brutalism in concrete and steel�) and later in 2016 the New Safe Confinement over Reactor Number Four to protect the world from lethal radiation from the site, the shows trials that the Soviet Union subjected to those they deemed responsible for the disaster, the fate of those found guilty, the exploration of the ruins by Chernobyl Complex Expedition (and its discovery of the infamous Elephant’s Foot, a “huge congealed mass of once-molten sand, uranium fuel, steel, and concrete� that remaining in its presence a mere five minutes “was enough to guarantee an agonizing death�), the effects the Chernobyl disaster had on not only Soviet nuclear energy programs but also those in other countries, what effects the disaster and government handling of it had on the demise of the Soviet Union and the political fortunes of Mikhail Gorbachev (with among other things, as the Soviet government bowed to pressure to be relax its grip on information about the disaster, “it proved impossible to fully regain its former level of control� on a range of other topics such as the war in Afghanistan and the “horrors of Stalinism�), the decline in funding of radiation cleanup efforts and studying the site thanks to the many burdens on the Soviet economy (“staggering under the burden of the botched market reforms of Gorbachev’s perestroika, the high price of withdrawing and demobilizing troops from Afghanistan, and the collapse in the international oil market,� with construction of the Sarcophagus costing �4 billion rubles, or almost $5.5 billion� which was the “equivalent to the total Soviet defense budget for 1989�), closing with many pages of notes of what happened to the principal characters in the story.
One of the biggest areas of my own personal ignorance about Chernobyl was not knowing the names of anyone involved in the disaster. Higginbotham succeeded brilliantly in informing me of their names and really humanizing them in this book. Among the people the reader meets are Viktor Brukhanov (“an obedient tool of the nomenklatura,� a man who was assigned to build Chernobyl, not only the first nuclear power plant in Ukraine, but also the first nuclear station in the USSR built from scratch and who became the plant’s director, one of those put on trial for the disaster in 1987), Efim Slavksy (“Big Efim� or the “the Ayatollah� as he was also known, was a political commissar with the Red Cavalry during the Russian Civil War, as minister of Medium Machine Building was in control of all aspects of the Soviet nuclear weapons program and a major figure in the overall Chernobyl saga, particularly in establishing Sredmash US-605, a construction unit that encased the ruins of the reactor in the famous Sarcophagus, completed November 1986 but who also worked against such men as Valery Legasov, a man who “recognized the true scope of the decay at the heart of the nuclear state: the culture of secrecy and complacency, the arrogance and negligence, and the shoddy standards of design and construction,� to which Slavksaid the man was “technically illiterate and should keep his nose out of matters that didn’t concern him�), Leonid Toptunov (senior reactor control engineer, fifth shift, Unit Four, one of the men working at the reactor control room at the control panel and who received a lethal dose of radiation from the disaster, who as the author showed went from escaping criminal prosecution only because of his death to later having his image rehabilitated as a hero), Alexander Akimov (foreman, fifth shift of reactor Unit Four, who along with Toptunov received a fatal dose of radiation in an attempt to restart feedwater flow into the reactor and like Toptunov went from being made a posthumous scapegoat to later people publicly recognizing his heroism), Captain Piotr Zborovksy (the “Moose,� a man who commanded the operation to pump water out of the basement of Unit Four in hopes of stopping an explosion that could have created an even worse disaster), Maria Protsenko (chief architect of Pripyat, denied Party membership because of her Chinese heritage, who hand drew maps � photocopiers were very rare in the USSR � that were vital to among other things evacuating the city), Lieutenant Vladimir Pravik (head of the third watch on duty at the Chernobyl fire station the night of the disaster, first to arrive, who directed firefighting efforts and who died May 11 of that year from radiation received from his heroic efforts), and Major General Nikolai Antoshkin (chief of staff of the Soviet Air Defense Forces of the Kiev region, the man who organized and led the helicopter group ordered to drop sand and other materials in the dangerously radioactive smoking ruins of the reactor). There were many others, many heroic, some not, most with photographs in the two sections of plates.
A lot of the book is very sad to read. Some of it was from the heroic efforts at great cost, often resulting in deaths, that ultimately were for naught, as their efforts were sometimes ineffective because the nature of the disaster was poorly understood, often understandably so given the difficulty in getting information and the urgency in acting, but other times because of absolutely horrible preparation. One great quote was from Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, saying that “The extreme conditions revealed, in practice, a high degree of organization in some, and the absolute helplessness of others.� It was very sad to see truly heroic people doing things for naught because they were sent to operate parts of the plant that no longer existed or were sent out with an absolute lack of equipment, good equipment that they didn’t know how to use, or a lack of knowledge of the threats faced by radiation (following protocols to limit exposure at the reactor, but then unaware of say continued radiation exposure in staging areas).
Another sad aspect was the rush to blame the operators of Reactor Number Four for the disaster, of how the Soviet government covered up the real causes of the disaster, “the long history of previous RBMK [reactor] accidents, the dangerous design of the reactor, its instability, and the way its operators had been misled about its behavior.� Again and again following the disaster there were many people in Soviet government � and in the upper echelons of Soviet nuclear energy � that were very eager to blame plant operators and personnel but wanted no mention at all of institutional causes or most of all very bad reactor design.
It’s a really great read, one of the better history books I have read. Sometimes it could get a little technical with discussions of the physics behind the disaster itself or the medical discussions of dealing with radiation damage (and the treatment of those suffering from these horrible injuries) but I never got lost. ...more
I have to underline again the fact that is book is thorough. Higginbotham covered everything, including the history of the Soviet nuclear energy program, the building of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station and the city that served it, Pripyat, what life was like in that city, what life was like for the people key to understanding the accident before it happened, what caused the accident, initial reactions to it including decisions on evacuation of Pripyat, the heroic efforts to put out the fire, what it was like evacuating Pripyat when it finally was evacuated and then what life was like for refugees once they were relocated elsewhere in the Soviet Union (they weren’t always welcomed for a variety of reasons), worse case fears of how the accident could have been worse and what was done about it (with fears of a China Syndrome scenario of molten fuel eating its way through the bottom of the building and making contact with “thousands of cubic meters of water� held in compartments below the building, which could have produced another explosion essentially like a “gargantuan dirty bomb� that would have hurled “enough fallout into the atmosphere to render a large swath of Europe uninhabitable for a hundred years�), how the rest of the world learned about what happened at Chernobyl, the medical saga of those who suffered from radiation exposure and what was done to save them (if they could be saved, wherein the reader will learn about different types of exposure and different very awful ways to die from radiation), the creation of the Exclusion Zone, a tour of the Exclusion Zone including the infamous Red Forest (killed by radiation), the return of nature to the Exclusion Zone’s “radioactive Eden� (with some discussion of the mutations in fauna and flora there), the advent of tourism to the Exclusion Zone (as well as discussions of looting), the design and construction of first the Sarcophagus (which the author described as a “medieval fantasy of a prison to hold Satan himself� and “a cathedral of brutalism in concrete and steel�) and later in 2016 the New Safe Confinement over Reactor Number Four to protect the world from lethal radiation from the site, the shows trials that the Soviet Union subjected to those they deemed responsible for the disaster, the fate of those found guilty, the exploration of the ruins by Chernobyl Complex Expedition (and its discovery of the infamous Elephant’s Foot, a “huge congealed mass of once-molten sand, uranium fuel, steel, and concrete� that remaining in its presence a mere five minutes “was enough to guarantee an agonizing death�), the effects the Chernobyl disaster had on not only Soviet nuclear energy programs but also those in other countries, what effects the disaster and government handling of it had on the demise of the Soviet Union and the political fortunes of Mikhail Gorbachev (with among other things, as the Soviet government bowed to pressure to be relax its grip on information about the disaster, “it proved impossible to fully regain its former level of control� on a range of other topics such as the war in Afghanistan and the “horrors of Stalinism�), the decline in funding of radiation cleanup efforts and studying the site thanks to the many burdens on the Soviet economy (“staggering under the burden of the botched market reforms of Gorbachev’s perestroika, the high price of withdrawing and demobilizing troops from Afghanistan, and the collapse in the international oil market,� with construction of the Sarcophagus costing �4 billion rubles, or almost $5.5 billion� which was the “equivalent to the total Soviet defense budget for 1989�), closing with many pages of notes of what happened to the principal characters in the story.
One of the biggest areas of my own personal ignorance about Chernobyl was not knowing the names of anyone involved in the disaster. Higginbotham succeeded brilliantly in informing me of their names and really humanizing them in this book. Among the people the reader meets are Viktor Brukhanov (“an obedient tool of the nomenklatura,� a man who was assigned to build Chernobyl, not only the first nuclear power plant in Ukraine, but also the first nuclear station in the USSR built from scratch and who became the plant’s director, one of those put on trial for the disaster in 1987), Efim Slavksy (“Big Efim� or the “the Ayatollah� as he was also known, was a political commissar with the Red Cavalry during the Russian Civil War, as minister of Medium Machine Building was in control of all aspects of the Soviet nuclear weapons program and a major figure in the overall Chernobyl saga, particularly in establishing Sredmash US-605, a construction unit that encased the ruins of the reactor in the famous Sarcophagus, completed November 1986 but who also worked against such men as Valery Legasov, a man who “recognized the true scope of the decay at the heart of the nuclear state: the culture of secrecy and complacency, the arrogance and negligence, and the shoddy standards of design and construction,� to which Slavksaid the man was “technically illiterate and should keep his nose out of matters that didn’t concern him�), Leonid Toptunov (senior reactor control engineer, fifth shift, Unit Four, one of the men working at the reactor control room at the control panel and who received a lethal dose of radiation from the disaster, who as the author showed went from escaping criminal prosecution only because of his death to later having his image rehabilitated as a hero), Alexander Akimov (foreman, fifth shift of reactor Unit Four, who along with Toptunov received a fatal dose of radiation in an attempt to restart feedwater flow into the reactor and like Toptunov went from being made a posthumous scapegoat to later people publicly recognizing his heroism), Captain Piotr Zborovksy (the “Moose,� a man who commanded the operation to pump water out of the basement of Unit Four in hopes of stopping an explosion that could have created an even worse disaster), Maria Protsenko (chief architect of Pripyat, denied Party membership because of her Chinese heritage, who hand drew maps � photocopiers were very rare in the USSR � that were vital to among other things evacuating the city), Lieutenant Vladimir Pravik (head of the third watch on duty at the Chernobyl fire station the night of the disaster, first to arrive, who directed firefighting efforts and who died May 11 of that year from radiation received from his heroic efforts), and Major General Nikolai Antoshkin (chief of staff of the Soviet Air Defense Forces of the Kiev region, the man who organized and led the helicopter group ordered to drop sand and other materials in the dangerously radioactive smoking ruins of the reactor). There were many others, many heroic, some not, most with photographs in the two sections of plates.
A lot of the book is very sad to read. Some of it was from the heroic efforts at great cost, often resulting in deaths, that ultimately were for naught, as their efforts were sometimes ineffective because the nature of the disaster was poorly understood, often understandably so given the difficulty in getting information and the urgency in acting, but other times because of absolutely horrible preparation. One great quote was from Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, saying that “The extreme conditions revealed, in practice, a high degree of organization in some, and the absolute helplessness of others.� It was very sad to see truly heroic people doing things for naught because they were sent to operate parts of the plant that no longer existed or were sent out with an absolute lack of equipment, good equipment that they didn’t know how to use, or a lack of knowledge of the threats faced by radiation (following protocols to limit exposure at the reactor, but then unaware of say continued radiation exposure in staging areas).
Another sad aspect was the rush to blame the operators of Reactor Number Four for the disaster, of how the Soviet government covered up the real causes of the disaster, “the long history of previous RBMK [reactor] accidents, the dangerous design of the reactor, its instability, and the way its operators had been misled about its behavior.� Again and again following the disaster there were many people in Soviet government � and in the upper echelons of Soviet nuclear energy � that were very eager to blame plant operators and personnel but wanted no mention at all of institutional causes or most of all very bad reactor design.
It’s a really great read, one of the better history books I have read. Sometimes it could get a little technical with discussions of the physics behind the disaster itself or the medical discussions of dealing with radiation damage (and the treatment of those suffering from these horrible injuries) but I never got lost. ...more
°Õ±õ²Ñ’S
2022
BOOKS
it was amazing
it was amazing
it was amazing
it was amazing
it was amazing
it was amazing
really liked it
Tim’s last review of the year
really liked it
Interesting collection of 15 short stories, most horror though a few I would say were weird fiction perhaps. Hard to really review some without spoilers but here goes. The first story is “Best New Horror,� about a jaded horror magazine editor, one kind of really tired of the genre, who in pursuit of a story that actually thrilled him, a short story he would love to have for his magazine but one he needs the author’s permission to publish, falls i
Interesting collection of 15 short stories, most horror though a few I would say were weird fiction perhaps. Hard to really review some without spoilers but here goes. The first story is “Best New Horror,� about a jaded horror magazine editor, one kind of really tired of the genre, who in pursuit of a story that actually thrilled him, a short story he would love to have for his magazine but one he needs the author’s permission to publish, falls into horror himself. The story he was interested in was pretty much paraphrased within the story itself, but was pretty horrifying as was the ending. �20th Century Ghost� is a sad tale that has a ghost of a girl attached to an old movie theater. Though she is central to this story, it isn’t just about her. I liked it but it was very sad. “Pop Art� starts with the sentence, “My best friend when I was twelve was inflatable.� In it you hear the sad tale about one kid, Arthur Roth, who was literally an inflatable person, sentient, could move, but was inflated and with all the vulnerabilities that entailed, limited to communicating by writing in crayon on paper (had to avoid anything sharp). Very sad tale that will stick with me.
“You Will Hear the Locust Sing� is a tale about a kid named Francis Kay who wakes up one morning as a giant locust. Interesting, definitely horror, at times rather gruesome (and not just from body horror) also touches upon 1950s era Atomic Age horror as well as teenage boy daydreams of revenge fantasies and becoming giant monsters. “Abraham’s Boys� is a difficult one to review, but it a sequel of sorts to a well-known classic horror tale and that’s about all I will say. Vivid writing and a gruesome ending. “Better Than Home� is even more difficult to review, and though it has a horror element kind of in the middle of the tale, is not really a horror tale. I see a link to one of Joe Hill’s novels in the story though I am not sure it is a direct link so much as a story element he really liked that he used twice. To me the story falls more into the weird fiction camp. Also, it is probably the most upbeat of the stories in the book.
“The Black Phone� is a disturbing and supernatural-tinged tale about a child who is abducted by an all too human monster. Not as uncomfortable as it could have been but uncomfortable enough. Not sure what to make of “In the Rundown.� It has gritty, grounded descriptions of the main character in what looks like a slacker, loser, but really mundane life but definitely turns to horror. The ending was left open-ended (in my mind) but was really dark no matter how it turned out. “The Cape� was quite memorable and really difficult to review without spoilers. I will say the title is literal, as it is about an actual cape, and has some elements of humor.
“Last Breath� is a very Twilight Zone-esque tale about an obscure, creepy museum whose curator collects the last breath of various people, famous, infamous, and ordinary. Quite original. “Dead-wood� is two pages, the front and back of one page, and is so short to talk about at all is to spoil it. “The Widow’s Breakfast� is a tale of a hobo riding the rails in the 1930s and to me falls more under weird fiction than horror, though is horror adjacent. Not sure I understood it, but it has vivid imagery.
“Bobby Conroy Comes Back From The Dead� is a story with the main characters zombie extras in the filming of George Romero’s zombie movie. I am not sure the story really gelled for me nor that I could really tell you what it is about, but the zombie aspect seemed almost incidental and not sure I would call it horror at all though it is kind of about horror. “My Father’s Mask� is a strange, surreal tale filled with vivid imagery, some disturbing ideas, and has an ending I didn’t really understand. Held my attention but I am not sure I could summarize the tale. Lots of “from a child’s perspective and you can’t be sure he really saw what he saw� elements. “Voluntary Committal� is the final story in the book and is by far my favorite, about a man whose brother was neurodivergent and built strange fort-like mazes out of boxes in the basement of their parent’s home as a child, fort-like constructions that opened to other worlds, with his brother able to create something that if he wanted, someone could enter the boxes but never be seen again, as they went…somewhere else. Excellent writing, creepy, great tension, vivid imagery and characters, lots of mystery, completely sucked me in, all around the best in the book.
Enjoyable, I could see a few commonalities. The author is a baseball fan, has a knack for vivid descriptions of the evening and twilight sky, has vividly written and three-dimensional characters, and creates situations that even with the horror element removed, often aren't great at all for the main characters (as in even if ghosts weren't real, this character is already suffering). It is a somber book for the most part, not bleak, but close to it. ...more
“You Will Hear the Locust Sing� is a tale about a kid named Francis Kay who wakes up one morning as a giant locust. Interesting, definitely horror, at times rather gruesome (and not just from body horror) also touches upon 1950s era Atomic Age horror as well as teenage boy daydreams of revenge fantasies and becoming giant monsters. “Abraham’s Boys� is a difficult one to review, but it a sequel of sorts to a well-known classic horror tale and that’s about all I will say. Vivid writing and a gruesome ending. “Better Than Home� is even more difficult to review, and though it has a horror element kind of in the middle of the tale, is not really a horror tale. I see a link to one of Joe Hill’s novels in the story though I am not sure it is a direct link so much as a story element he really liked that he used twice. To me the story falls more into the weird fiction camp. Also, it is probably the most upbeat of the stories in the book.
“The Black Phone� is a disturbing and supernatural-tinged tale about a child who is abducted by an all too human monster. Not as uncomfortable as it could have been but uncomfortable enough. Not sure what to make of “In the Rundown.� It has gritty, grounded descriptions of the main character in what looks like a slacker, loser, but really mundane life but definitely turns to horror. The ending was left open-ended (in my mind) but was really dark no matter how it turned out. “The Cape� was quite memorable and really difficult to review without spoilers. I will say the title is literal, as it is about an actual cape, and has some elements of humor.
“Last Breath� is a very Twilight Zone-esque tale about an obscure, creepy museum whose curator collects the last breath of various people, famous, infamous, and ordinary. Quite original. “Dead-wood� is two pages, the front and back of one page, and is so short to talk about at all is to spoil it. “The Widow’s Breakfast� is a tale of a hobo riding the rails in the 1930s and to me falls more under weird fiction than horror, though is horror adjacent. Not sure I understood it, but it has vivid imagery.
“Bobby Conroy Comes Back From The Dead� is a story with the main characters zombie extras in the filming of George Romero’s zombie movie. I am not sure the story really gelled for me nor that I could really tell you what it is about, but the zombie aspect seemed almost incidental and not sure I would call it horror at all though it is kind of about horror. “My Father’s Mask� is a strange, surreal tale filled with vivid imagery, some disturbing ideas, and has an ending I didn’t really understand. Held my attention but I am not sure I could summarize the tale. Lots of “from a child’s perspective and you can’t be sure he really saw what he saw� elements. “Voluntary Committal� is the final story in the book and is by far my favorite, about a man whose brother was neurodivergent and built strange fort-like mazes out of boxes in the basement of their parent’s home as a child, fort-like constructions that opened to other worlds, with his brother able to create something that if he wanted, someone could enter the boxes but never be seen again, as they went…somewhere else. Excellent writing, creepy, great tension, vivid imagery and characters, lots of mystery, completely sucked me in, all around the best in the book.
Enjoyable, I could see a few commonalities. The author is a baseball fan, has a knack for vivid descriptions of the evening and twilight sky, has vividly written and three-dimensional characters, and creates situations that even with the horror element removed, often aren't great at all for the main characters (as in even if ghosts weren't real, this character is already suffering). It is a somber book for the most part, not bleak, but close to it. ...more
What did you read this year?
