Waiting for Contact: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Book
Imagine a network of extraterrestrials in radio contact with each other across the universe,...
Metro 2033 Wars
Games and Entertainment
App
This game is about Adventure. It’s not only a game, it’s a book, it’s a trip! More than 500...
The Final Day
Book
A major release in the New York Times bestselling One Second After series, set in an alternate...
Science fiction
Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist
Book
The definitive biography of Henry Kissinger, based on unprecedented access to his private papers ...
History politics
The story centres around Adrian Thorby and the events that happen to him over the week of the Cuban missile crisis. His age is never mentioned, but I'd put it at around 13. The tension between America and Russia is affecting Hull in 1962, but those aren't the only things that worry Adrian that week.
Generally, when starting a book I read as little of the blurb as possible, so I was a little shocked when, on the second page, there's the line:
<blockquote>"He felt his willy twitching..."</blockquote>
Don't get me wrong, it's realistic, but I hadn't been expecting it! There was more on this subject throughout the book, and at times it was somewhat awkward, but this was probably proportionate to the embarrassment Adrian was feeling!
McBurnie created really realistic relationships between the characters, whether Adrian's family or friends. I loved the sibling rivalry, and could really relate to the sense of panic Adrian's friend Tim and he felt when they 'lost' his brother's book.
It took me a little while to get into this, but once I did, I enjoyed it. It's a creeper! McBurnie captures the little things really well - fears about the nuclear threat, and family niggles, for example. I also thought that, once it got going, the story managed to evoke the history it was representing. The casual acceptance of caning in school helped with a lot of this, haha!
The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It
Jonathan D. Quick and Bronwyn Fryer
Book
A leading doctor offers answers on the one of the most urgent questions of our time: How do we...
medicine
The Joy of Insight
Book
In the 1930s, Victor Weisskopf worked with leading European physicists such as Niels Bohr, Werner...
The Jesus Man
8.7
Rate It
Book
It is 2037. Radicals in the Middle East have done the unthinkable. Low-yield nuclear weapons have...
BookblogbyCari (345 KP) rated When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain in Books
Aug 14, 2018
If only all events in history could be taught this way! This is his hands down one of the most entertaining history books you’ll ever read! The book is composed of 50 chapters depicting from lesser known points in history. The stories are dramatic, compelling, and often shocking. There are tales of heroism, injustice, conspiracy and cannibalism.
Each chapter is it's own little, well written, real-life story. And each is rounded off with a profound sentence or two to summarise. I gained an appreciation of the role of pigeons and dogs in the war, I learned why the Dodo bird became extinct, and I discovered that it’s possible to survive 2 nuclear bombs.
Normally with non-fiction book with so many isolated sections, I'd be tempted to skip sections, but that was not the case this time - I enjoyed every single one! I’ve noticed there are more books in the series, and I intend to read them all!
The best way to convey how well written the stories are, is to leave you with an excerpt:
“There was a sickening crunch and a violent jerk. The right wing of the plane was ripped off by the mountain peak and flung backwards into the rear of the fuselage. The plane, wildly out of control, smashed into a second peak, which tore off the left wing.
Inside the cabin, the terrified passengers expected the shattered plane to plunge them to their deaths. But the plane’s crash-landing miraculously spared some of those on board. The fuselage hit a snow-covered mountain slope and slid downwards before coming to a halt in a deep drift.
As a wall of silence descended over the wreckage, the injured and groaning survivors came to their senses. They were lost in the wilds of the High Andes. But they were alive!”
For more of my reviews, check out www.bookblogbycari.com
Valiant Boys: True Stories from the Operators of the UK's First Four-Jet Bomber
Tony Blackman and Anthony Wright
Book
Following on from the success of Victor Boys and Vulcan Boys, Tony Blackman, in collaboration with...