Book Club for Introverts discussion

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Wow... just wow.

Now I must admit that this hasn't been the easiest read for me and not only because of the severity of the topic but also due to the language. I hardly ever need the specific vocabulary for nuclear physics or reactor design as is so it was kind of tricky to keep up with it in a foreign language... thank God for dictionaries :)

As for the content this does indeed seem to be a carefully researched and accurate description of events. Some of which are indeed not widely known to this day... by the time the mass media lost interest over here in Germany it was still an accepted truth that the disaster happened solely due to a mismanagement of the plant staff. And that's what's still being taught over here, too... so yeah, this only goes to show both how well the sweeping under the carpet worked and that it is high time for a book like this. I know that I will certainly be giving some copies out as Christmas gifts this year (the German edition will fortunaletly be released tomorrow).

Though clearly a non-fiction book I appreciate that the author took the time to introduce the single people caught up in the events and gave readers the chance to identify with them and keep their fingers crossed for every them individually. This way big parts of the book have indeed been readable almost like a novel and I more than once found myself arguing with people to not go there, not to take radiation lightly or that they cannot just sweep everything from design errors to the actual disaster under the carpet.

And the worst thing is: This isn't just a fiction story. The disaster happened for real. It happened almost in my neighborhood (Europe isn't that big after all) and the contamination is far from being over.
Over here almost everybody knows what they were doing the instant they learned about it, just like with 9/11, and many people do remember how children weren't allowed to play outside, how all sand on playgrounds was exchanged and washed, how all agricultural produce and everything growing in their gardens had to be destroyed and they weren't allowed to use the ground water to water the new plants they planted afterwards for years.

And yet the massive impact seems to have been forgotten just one generation later...
In fact adventure travel agencies make a fortune now bringing people on site for a tour... have we all lost our minds now?