Summer Prompt: A book that scares you

[Stina]

This was a summer-specific prompt last year, so I'll be saving it for my summer reading challenges starting sometime in May.

Maybe the other Stephen Graham Jones book? Or perhaps a math textbook. Or that book that is all about Trump's tweets....

[Mary]

Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy

This scares me not only because of what COULD have happened, but because of what could still happen. Fukushima still happened, although it used a totally different technology than Chernobyl. And as the author points out at the end, the world's population is still growing rapidly, mostly in Africa, India, China. These areas might well be tempted to build nuclear power plants to meet increasing demand, but how well equipped will they be to deal with a nuclear disaster? The world was incredibly luck in 1986 that the Chernobyl disaster wasn't worse than it was, because those dealing with it were totally unprepared and inept and were mostly looking out to save their own necks and reputations.

[Stina]

My summer reading was apparently cowardly, as this is the one prompt here I did not complete. So it goes onto next year's summer reading challenge as my priority read.

[Cheryl]

I didn't plan to do this prompt, but I was offered a chance to borrow a book that both scared and fascinated me -- I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara. It was good and it was scary.