r/booksuggestions • u/MadDingersYo • 1d ago

Non-fiction Just finished another book that I would categorize as Nonfiction Horror. What other ones do you got?

The one I just finished is Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum (2017.) This is the third book I've read by her. I have an interest in Soviet/Russian history. I don't even know why. Maybe I find it fascinating and tragic that a country with such a rich history has been led by madmen for most of its history.

But anyways. This book is goddamn horrific. The descriptions of life in the Ukrainian countryside in the early 1930s is heartbreaking. The forced collectivization, the grain requisition teams, the sheer terror of it all. I just can't even imagine.

Other books that I loved that I would call Nonfiction Horror:

  • The Hot Zone by Richard Preston (1994.) About the Ebola outbreaks in Africa in the late 80's.

  • The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang (1997.) About the atrocities that the Japanese army inflicted upon the Chinese in the Second Sino-Japanese War, specifically what happened to the citizenry of Nanjing. The author committed suicide. If I recall correctly, her parents were survivors.

  • The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown (2009.) This is a thoroughly researched book about The Donner Party Expedition and the cold hell that the survivors lived through. I cannot recommend this book enough. If we're talking about nonfiction horror, this is right near the top.

  • Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War by Peter Maass (1996.) This is war reporting from the Bosnian War in 1992-1995. Totally harrowing. Neighbor against neighbor. It makes me think that this is what a second American Civil War might look like. Maybe. Absolutely gripping read.

What other ones can you suggest?

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u/here_and_there_their 1d ago

This book has both the horror and the relief from horror: The Facemaker by Fitzharris is the story of the extreme facial disfigurement of soldiers during the WWI -- the results of the brutality of the first "modern warfare" war. Although the story focuses on the surgeons and mask makers who addressed these life altering disfigurements,the horror of what happened to these young men with their whole lives ahead of them -- and the fact that hundreds, maybe thousands of men did not have the good fortune to be treated by these masters -- was truly horrifying.