Chernobyl 01

By Andrew Leatherbarrow,

Book cover of Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

Book description

At 01:23:40 on April 26th 1986, Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency shutdown button at Chernobyl’s fourth nuclear reactor. It was an act that forced the permanent evacuation of a city, killed thousands and crippled the Soviet Union. The event spawned decades of conflicting, exaggerated and inaccurate stories.

This book, the…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Chernobyl 01 as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The world’s worst nuclear accident took place at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986.

This short well-researched book is about what really happened before, during, and after the explosion and melt-down of the Unit 4 nuclear reactor. The author Andrew Leatherbarrow successfully interweaves his account of the accident with descriptions of his own visit to the abandoned city of Pripyat close to the power plant.

I like the book’s engaging style; it is informative and very readable without resorting to sensationalism or wild speculation. As Leatherbarrow explains, much is known about the causes of the Chernobyl accident but even…

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Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

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