A review by devinsf
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham

4.0

This is probably about as far into this topic you can go and still have a book which is approachable for a layperson. Higganbotham doesn't shy away from providing technical details into what, precisely, happened in the reactor meltdown, but a huge part of the book is setting the disaster into context: The dynamic between Soviet nuclear engineering and the demands of the Party. Stylistically, this book reads a bit like an exceedingly well-researched magazine article; the chapter and section divisions and topic foci are well-considered; and his voice reminded me a little of a reigned-in version of Right-Stuff era Tom Wolfe. The book begins with several maps — in particular, the side-view cutaway of the reactor complex was extremely helpful during the chapters dealing with the initial aftermath of the explosion — as well as an index of key figures. All-in-all, highly recommended if you're a non-scientist looking for a legit, well-researched deep-dive.