What Books Have You Read As A Result Of World Events? (6/11/23)

[Marc]

Have there been world events (during your lifetime) that have motivated you to read certain books? Wars, elections, political crisis, etc. Which books, were they fiction or nonfiction, and did you find the experience worthwhile?

[Lark]

Recently, I don't think I would have read either The Orphanage or Grey Bees without war in Ukraine. Nor would they have been written.

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic looms large in my past as a necessary book that changed my understandings of current events of the times.

[Alwynne]

Loads but not so much since the Pandemic, although also find that books lead me back to others, for example Scholastique Mukasonga sent me back to general histories of Rwanda.

I tend to select a mix of general histories - as most conflicts, political crises tend to have their roots in earlier events - and on-the-ground reports often by war correspondents. So Janine Di Giovanni on the Balkans and on Syria, Christiana Lamb on Afghanistan, Lindsey Hilsum on Syria, Ginny Hill on Yemen, Masha Gessen on Putin and on Pussy Riot. Various history books about Ukraine, Somalia, Northern Africa, Turkey, China, Myanmar, Cambodia. Histories of Iran by people like Michael Axworthy - looking forward to Arash Azizi's Iran's New Revolution: Women, Life, Freedom. Other historians include cultural historian Marci Shore on Eastern Europe, Timothy Snyder, Mark Mazower on Eastern Europe and his fascinating Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950, Justin Marossi on Baghdad, the legacies of colonialism in writing from people like Adam Hochshild.

[Alwynne]

Agree about Randy Shilts, there doesn't seem to be as much about AIDs in the UK, found Derek Jarman's diaries very good though, and recently not a book but the series 'It's a Sin'. Herve Guibert's To the Friend who Didn't Save my Life was really illuminating on France and worked well with Kate Zambreno's To Write as if Already Dead

[Greg]

Alwynne wrote: "Agree about Randy Shilts, there doesn't seem to be as much about AIDs in the UK, found Derek Jarman's diaries very good though, and recently not a book but the series 'It's a Sin'. Herve Guibert's ..."

Derek Jarman the filmmaker? He made so many interesting and unusual films. Quite a talent!

[Stacia]

I have a shelf that is broadly labeled racism-tyranny-social-injustice-etc. which overlaps your question. Sometimes I will purposely read a book to learn about the topic (racism, border migration, etc.) & other times I will read a book that has some of those themes (usually fiction) even if that wasn't my initial purpose in reading the book. While quite a few are US-centric, there are also quite a few from various places around the world. In all cases, yes, I find the experience worthwhile & I learn a lot.

These are not all of the books on my list that I've read (I created this list awhile ago so it's not updated with my reading from the past couple of years; if you want to see more recent additions, please look at the GR shelf I linked), but to give you a feel...

Prison:
The Story Within Us: Women Prisoners Reflect on Reading by Megan Sweeney (Editor), non-fiction
Panthers in the Hole by Bruno Cenou (script), David Cenou (illustrations), trans. from the French by Olivia Taylor Smith, non-fiction graphic novel; this could also be under the "Race" category

Race:
March graphic novel series by John Lewis
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, non-fiction
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds, inspired by Ibram X. Kendi's work, non-fiction
Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color by Andrea J. Ritchie, non-fiction
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
The Evidence of Things Not Seen by James Baldwin, essay/non-fiction
Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High by Melba Pattillo Beals, non-fiction
Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston, non-fiction
Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now by Andre Perry, essays/non-fiction
Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America by Laura Wexler, non-fiction
Murder at Broad River Bridge: The Slaying of Lemuel Penn by the Ku Klux Klan by Bill Shipp, non-fiction
The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson, non-fiction
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge, non-fiction
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, non-fiction
The Fire This Time by Randall Kenan, non-fiction
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, non-fiction
No Cause For Indictment: An Autopsy of Newark by Ronald Porambo, non-fiction
Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime by Ron Stallworth, non-fiction
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah, non-fiction
Hidden Witness: African-American Images from the Birth of Photography to the Civil War by Jackie Napolean Wilson, non-fiction
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, non-fiction
Augustown by Kei Miller, fiction
The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes, fiction
The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes, fiction
Darktown and Lightning Men, both by Thomas Mullen, fiction
A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley, fiction
White Tears by Hari Kunzru, fiction
Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters, fiction
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi, fiction

Immigration:
The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail by Óscar Martínez, non-fiction (an excellent book), non-fiction
Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions by Valeria Luiselli, non-fiction
Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera, fiction
Head in Flames by Lance Olsen, fiction
Broken Glass Park by Alina Bronsky, fiction
Goat Days by Benyamin, fiction

Tyranny or War:
Rue Du Retour by Abdellatif Laâbi, non-fiction
Draw Your Weapons by Sarah Sentilles, non-fiction
A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator's Rise to Power by Paul Fischer, non-fiction
Good Morning Comrades by Ondjaki, fiction
A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa, fiction
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, fiction
Taduno's Song by Odafe Atogun, fiction
A Funny Dirty Little War and Winter Quarters: A Novel of Argentina, both by Osvaldo Soriano, fiction
Ways of Going Home by Alejandro Zambra, fiction
The Palace of Dreams by Ismail Kadare, fiction
The Three Trials of Manirema by José J. Veiga, fiction
The Blue Line by Ingrid Betancourt, fiction

Terrorism:
Guantánamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, non-fiction
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami, non-fiction

Sexuality/Sexual Assault/Etc.:
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow, non-fiction
Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin, non-fiction
Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology by Amy Sonnie (Editor/Contributor), non-fiction
Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World by Catalina de Erauso, non-fiction
Sergio Y. by Alexandre Vidal Porto, fiction
Smile As They Bow by Nu Nu Yi, fiction

Drug Trade:
Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel by Tom Wainwright, non-fiction
The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, fiction
Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos, fiction

Other:
The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad, fiction
The Book of Embraces by Eduardo Galeano, mix of fiction & non-fiction

[Lesley]

I have mostly turned to non-fiction when an event has prompted me to find out more about it - then it’s often been journalism & other media, such as film or photography.
I have read fiction that features major events but the event itself hasn’t often been the impetus.
3 occasions where the event has impelled me to read fiction have been
Barefoot Gen, Volume One: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima - 10 volume graphic novel beginning with the US bombing of Hiroshima & concluding with the return of Japan’s self governance. Outside the scope of your question really, as it didn’t happen during my lifetime.
Laika - The only book I can recall not being able to finish since childhood because of its emotional impact on me. “The more time passes, the more I’m sorry about it. We shouldn’t have done it. We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog.”
In the Shadow of No Towers - after the emotional power of Maus, I was interested to see how Art Spiegelman would deal with the aftermath of 9/11
Most recently I have looked to fiction for a perspective on the Coronavirus pandemic. I tried Companion Piece but it didn’t resonate with me. I am curious to see what Fourteen Days: An Unauthorized Gathering brings.

[Alwynne]

Greg wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "Agree about Randy Shilts, there doesn't seem to be as much about AIDs in the UK, found Derek Jarman's diaries very good though, and recently not a book but the series 'It's a Sin'. ..."

I totally agree, think he was a fascinating, innovative film-maker, he also wrote a number of diaries/memoirs that chronicled the progression of his creative work as well as what happened to him after he found out he was HIV positive and his later AIDS diagnosis, he died from an AIDs-related illness.

[Alwynne]

Stacia wrote: "I have a shelf that is broadly labeled racism-tyranny-social-injustice-etc. which overlaps your question. Sometimes I will purposely read a book to learn about the topic (racism, border migration, ..."

Great list, some excellent titles, I've read a few books stemming from genocide studies that overlap with your tyranny section. Also read a lot of the books on race/racism but as I'm a woman of colour I tend to think of those more in terms of personal/general interest rather than in response to particular outside events. Although have read histories of the Raj, Partition and books on Black American history, particularly rated Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America's Great Migration as well as Black British history, Windrush etc. Currently looking forward to Hakim Adi's African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I remember in the early 1990s when baseball hats with the "X" logo became popular, I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley, which is an excellent book.

[Janet]

Your question happens to coincide with my recent readings. My husband and I recently took a road trip and listed to the audio version of Fintan O’Toole's We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland

O'Toole was born in the late 1950s and he writes of significant events in Irish history that took place during his life time, the most important one being that Ireland went from a backwards, rural country run by a small group of wealthy cattlemen, and where a sad percentage of the population lacked plumbing and electricity, to a modern society, all in the space of 60 years. It was particularly interesting to listen to this with my husband, as his family is much closer to what’s happening in present-day Ireland than mine is, since he has relatives there still. O’Toole is, first, an amazing stylist, but beyond and in addition to that he is brutally analytical about the machinations of those years – the craziness of “The Troubles,” the fall of the Catholic church due to the pedophile scandals, the loss of power of the political party Fianna Fáil, which couldn’t unwind itself from the church and its scandals and the collapse of the so-called “Celtic Tiger” real estate bubble.

What’s of interest to me is that just after reading this I started to re-read (listening as audiobooks) the Benjamin Black/ John Banville Dr. Quirke crime series set in 1950s Dublin. What really stands out in re-reading this series is how Banville paints his protagonist as a bruised survivor of unspeakable child abuse from having been sent, at a young age, to Ireland’s infamous industrial schools run by the Catholic church, and how that trauma follows him throughout his life. Novels in the series deal with priest pedophilia, the Magdalene laundry scandals, the selling of Irish babies to wealthy Americans, to name a few real life instances, and it’s fascinating to see how much of the Quirke series story lines follow the same historic events O’Toole analyses in his book. This is most apparent on re-reading the series in its entirety (7 vols). n.b: I didn't draw the parallel between O'Toole's book and the Quirke series - it was O'Toole himself who brought it to light in a New York Review of Books article in a 2022 article.

[Tracy]

I’m not sure I could name all the books I’ve read that were inspired by current events. I am one of those who wants to understand more than just the surface, so I jump down the rabbit hole if my interest is piqued.

Since this is Pride Month in the US, I will use LGBTQ+ as my example: an older CNN documentary about music led me to listen to The Stonewall Reader, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, Angels in America, then a deeper dive into Reagan’s ignoring AIDS led me to Iran-Contra, which led to multiple books, documentaries, etc. about the “drug wars” and how inner city Blacks were set up. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, There are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, which led to A People's History of the United States, and We've Got Answers.

Then, to come back on topic a bit: Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, The Great BelieversTell the Wolves I'm Home, and finally, because I needed a laugh, Blame It on Bianca Del Rio: The Expert on Nothing with an Opinion on Everything

[Ruben]

I just finished Diary of an Invasion by Andrey Kurkov - an interesting Ukrainian perspective of the Russian invasion from a very good writer. And a good companion piece for those of us that recently read Grey Bees (which also makes an appearance in the diary, because they were making it into a movie when the invasion happened).