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A review by liamflew
Chernobyl 01: 23:40: The incredible true story of the world's worst nuclear disaster by Andrew Leatherbarrow
2.0
The author admits that he is an amateur and it does show. When reading I noticed a few editing mistakes and typos that I would expect from a work that had been self-published.
I think it could have been useful for the book to have been looked over by someone with a background in science or science writing. Some of the explanations can be quite oddly worded and poorly structured. Some language concerning atomic physics is not used as precisely as it ought to be, though this is to be expected in a book for a general audience.
The recount of the Chernobyl disaster is interspersed with chapters about the author's trip to Chernobyl—this doesn't really add to the book and tonally does not fit with the rest of the book. It is a bit misleading, as it means the book is a rather slim tome on the disaster itself
The author states in the preface that he cannot stand when authors of non-fiction force their opinions on the reader despite this occuring frequenty throughout the text, with the author editorialising in ways that really take you out of the book. As well as this, the author consistently states his disbelief that everything went as wrong as it did in a way that doesn't really further some generaly argument he wants to make about why the accident happened.
To not be entirely critical, the photos included are evocative and show the aftermath in a way that is not easily described and were the reason I decided to buy the book. I would seek out these photos, but defer to other books such as Svetlana Alexiavich's Voices from Chernobyl
I think it could have been useful for the book to have been looked over by someone with a background in science or science writing. Some of the explanations can be quite oddly worded and poorly structured. Some language concerning atomic physics is not used as precisely as it ought to be, though this is to be expected in a book for a general audience.
The recount of the Chernobyl disaster is interspersed with chapters about the author's trip to Chernobyl—this doesn't really add to the book and tonally does not fit with the rest of the book. It is a bit misleading, as it means the book is a rather slim tome on the disaster itself
The author states in the preface that he cannot stand when authors of non-fiction force their opinions on the reader despite this occuring frequenty throughout the text, with the author editorialising in ways that really take you out of the book. As well as this, the author consistently states his disbelief that everything went as wrong as it did in a way that doesn't really further some generaly argument he wants to make about why the accident happened.
To not be entirely critical, the photos included are evocative and show the aftermath in a way that is not easily described and were the reason I decided to buy the book. I would seek out these photos, but defer to other books such as Svetlana Alexiavich's Voices from Chernobyl