Reading books is the key part of enlightenment. Self-education is the process that never ends. We should always strive to achieve new knowledge instead of spending our time watching mainstream entertainment trash.
The question about what to read is very important one. From my own experience I know that the ratio of good books to bad or mediocre is 1 to 10 at best; therefore, you need to sift through a heap of written garbage in order to find something really worthy.
Here I will not mention the ideological or political literature that must be read by our people. Here I want to mention a few mainstream books that I chanced to read and have found to be very interesting; therefore, can recommend others to read. I accentuate that here I will present only the mainstream books; the ones that you can find in a public libraries or bookstores. The forbidden literature is an entirely different subject.
“One minute to midnight” by Michael Dobbs. It deals with Cuban missile crisis. Very well written; the reader is held on the edge from page to page. I have read it about 10 years ago and it left a very good impression.
“Command and Control” by Erick Schlosser. The book deals with accidents on various strategic facilities. It is a documentary account but presented in a vivid form that far outpaces any fiction. Not especially bright book in terms of its informative aspect but a real page-turner. Good to take on a lengthy train travel.
“Public enemies” by Bryan Burrough. It is about crime wave of Great Depression period. There are all notorious criminals present: John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly; much more exciting than any movie depiction of those characters.
“When titans clashed” by David Glantz and Jonathan House. It is a historical study; not entertainment but rigorous academic book. It is about Soviet-German front in 1941-45. Mostly conforms to the Soviet historical version. It is more like a reference book with volumes of compressed data and brief description of military campaigns. It would be especially useful for non-Russians who don’t know much about the Eastern front. This book is a good introduction into the subject.
“1776. America and Britain at war” by David McCullough. The well-known subject for many Americans to the point of being hackneyed but it was exceptionally interesting reading for me. Before reading it, I had only rudimentary knowledge about those events once read about in a school text-book. For example, it was new for me to see how precarious was the position of American troops and that on many occasions the scale of war tilted toward English victory. It is easy to think long after the events that everything was preordained. But for people living immediately through those events, they seem totally different. The author is very apt in presenting this feeling of uncertainty. Maybe, for Americans who know this subject well this book wouldn’t seem especially bright, but for me it was very useful.
“The road to Stalingrad” and “The road to Berlin” by John Erickson. The 2-part book that deals with Eastern front. Written back in 1980es, it is outdated and don’t include later declassified information (especially about massive Soviet superiority in numbers of military hardware). Not especially bright book but worthy enough to read.
“1812. Napoleon’s fatal march on Moscow” by Adam Zamoyski. Well written book; interesting to read. I would recommend everyone interested in this subject. This book shatters some of the myths and preconceptions that persist since they were created by English and Russian propaganda of those times.
“Tannenberg. Clash of empires” by Dennis E. Showalter. A good historical study about Tannenberg battle that happened in August 1914. The famous battle of WW1 where field marshal Hindenburg and his chief of staff Ludendorff aptly defeated the invading Russian armies by using numerically inferior forces. The book itself is not especially bright but the subject is very important. I have read it with great interest.
“Kursk: the German view” by Steven H. Newton. It is a compilation of battle accounts by German commanders who fought in the battle of Kursk. Steven Newton is the author of numerous commentaries and foreword article. He is very professional and unbiased; there are no usual anti-German sentiments that are all too common among mainstream authors writing on WW2 subject. Very good book. Everyone interested in WW2 must read it.
“Panzer Operations: The Eastern Front memoir of general Raus, 1941-1945”. This book is compiled and edited by the same Steven H. Newton. General Raus’ accounts are very picturesque and lively. Reading it, you immerse in the spirit of the events.
“Overlord. D-day and the battle for Normandy” by Max Hustings. This book was written to commemorate the 40es anniversary of the D-day. Despite of being a mainstream book, it presents the events in more or less unbiased fashion (back then, in early 1980es, it was yet possible). The funny thing is that this book was translated into Russian yet in Soviet time (the censors, apparently, didn’t read through it carefully), published and distributed among many public libraries. It is precisely where I have first found it yet in mid 1990es. The reading this book made an indelible impact on me as a child. It was a revelation event. I never read anything like this. Being fully immersed in Soviet literature about WW2 I was stunned to read something so much different. From Soviet point of view such a book could be judged as “glorification of Nazism”. In great measure this book influenced me in my further research in this field and put me on the right path. Since then Max Hustings have written many books but this one is his best. In later years he tried to soften his image as being too pro-German and to preserve his reputation as a mainstream respectable historian. Definitely, he didn’t want to repeat the unenviable fate of David Irving.
“The harvest of sorrow. The Soviet collectivization and the terror famine” by Robert Conquest. Very important book describing the events of artificial famine created by the Stalinist state in order to annihilate millions of peasants who didn’t want to be collectivized. It is especially important now because it helps to clarify the Kremlin’s playbook on dealing with conquered population.
“Kolyma: the Arctic death camps” by Robert Conquest. Highly recommend this book to everyone. Kolyma is a name that every Russian knows; it means more than Hell or any imaginable suffering. It is an epitome of the Stalin’s mass terror. The truth about those events should be disseminated as widely as possible. Robert Conquest is one of the few among western scholars who dealt with this fairly unpopular issue. The mass terror in Soviet Union is the subject much less discussed about among western public than “German atrocities” despite of the fact that Stalin’s state has annihilated much greater number of people than any number that could be ascribed to German account.
“The main enemy: the inside story of the CIA’s final showdown with the KGB” by Milt Bearden and James Risen. Exceptionally interesting book. It is purely factual but written in such a fashion that it is more enthralling than any fiction. I have bought it by chance in Novosibirsk bookstore back in 2009 and have read it three times. Highly recommend it to everyone.
Having described some of the most interesting English books that I have read, I need to mention those that are not interesting or unworthy to spend your time on. As I said above, the bad books are much more numerous than the good ones. I will not occupy space by recounting all those useless or boring books that I have read but I will mention some of the absolute champions in this regard. Never read “The team of rivals” by Doris Kearns Goodwin if you value your time. The voluminous book that deals with the Civil War but written in such insipid way (trying to be good and politically correct to everyone) that can bore anyone to death. The only reason that I have once bought it was that there was no other English non-fiction historical book in the book-store at the time.
But the absolute winner in the category of written garbage is “Singularity is near” by Ray Kurzweil. Amazingly pompous trash, pretending to be scientific and futuristic. The author tries seriously to assert that in the future there is going to happen some kind of merger between humans and computers and that at some point human life would be fully transferred into digital format. Something like this. It is fairly big book of 600 pages but profoundly poor on intellectual content; incoherent ravings about coming bright digital future of universal happiness. The style of such authors is reminiscent of the one used by biblical prophets promising coming paradise for all who convert to the “true religion” or of the Marxist agitators from the last century. It seems that these are the same people who package their core message into different wrappers in different historical epochs. No wonder in itself. What surprised me was the popularity that these ideas have gained among some people. When I have read this book (back in 2008), I simply deemed it to be yet one utopia by a semi-insane freak. But in later years I started to hear how this author was mentioned in serious discussions about social and scientific developments. Definitely, Kurzweil’s ravings are pushed by some powerful backers into mainstream field as something profoundly bright; insanity that is presented as a work of genius. In essence, it is on the par with an idea of sex-change and multiplicity of genders. I am sure it is from the same basket. This book is certainly unworthy to spend anyone’s time on.
Yet one category that I want to mention is the books that are not bad in their literary quality but may be harmful in their influence. For example, the very popular book “1984” is considered as a must-read prophecy about the coming technological totalitarianism. I have read it twice. Yes, it is a page-turner that fascinates the reader but its influence on the mind is very questionable, especially on the young and undeveloped minds.
First of all, its main message is one of the gloom and unescapable social failure. The reader is led to conclude that any resistance is hopeless and that the system is too powerful to oppose it. In this sense this book is a welcome image-booster to any totalitarian state: “look, how we can break anyone opposing us; better obey us or else…”
I don’t think that the author intended it to send this message. Most probably it happened to be by itself. We must remember that Orwell wrote it being mortally ill and he essentially transferred his own assured demise to the overall message of this book. I don’t think that such a message should be propagated. Besides it, we must remember the fact that he was a socialist who was disenchanted with Soviet version of socialism and wanted to expose some of its atrocious traits. Very probable that he was honest in his intentions. But this fact doesn’t change the already formed personality that he had. He had developed as a socialist and an enemy to “fascism”, that is, to any society based on ethnic identity. Therefore, his book and his ideas are equally hostile not only to Stalinist societies but to ethnically homogeneous authoritarian states too. He is both “anti-communist” and “anti-fascist”; the perfect role-model for characters like Alex Jones.
In his book Orwell advocates some kind of liberalism and striving for “freedom”. By “freedom” such people understand the ability to live as they want without society or state interfering with it in any way. For example, the idea that society should have no say about what happens in anyone’s bedroom is of the same kind. It is a thoroughly rotten image of “freedom”. In some way we can see the long-term consequences of this perverted understanding of “freedom”. Society must have the definite say about what happens in bedrooms. Otherwise, the descent of society into bestiality and degeneracy of all kinds is assured and inevitable. If we allow perverts to exercise their supposed “personal freedom”, after some time they would compel everyone else to accept them as something normal and would forbid any criticism of their dirty ways. It is precisely what has happened with American society.
I don’t say that Orwell wanted this development; not at all. But it is precisely where those liberal sentiments lead. Step by step this attitude allows rottenness to destroy a healthy society, forbidding it on false moral grounds to vigorously defend itself from encroachment of degenerates.
Considering those facts, I must conclude that such books like “1984” are more harmful than useful. I would not advice to read it, especially for the young people.
