Thread by @ChristopherJM

🧵An end-of-year thread. Since Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine began, many books have been written & more will be soon. I wrote one myself: The War Came To Us: Life And Death In Ukraine, which I hope you'll read. It provides a unique view of Ukraine & war going back to pre-2014.

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1681278741144633344

Here’s what reviewers have said about The War Came To Us. And links to find the book here, in case you're in need of a last-minute Xmas or New Year gift: linktr.ee/thewarcametous

My book aside, here are Ukraine books – new & pre-war – that I think are also insightful, fascinating, original. They're nonfiction & fiction. All have informed my understanding of Ukraine, its people, politics, culture, relationship with Russia, & provided important perspectives

Starting with the latest, here are some of my favorite books about Ukraine:

Ukraine Is Not Dead Yet, by my friend @megan_buskey. An exceptionally researched and profound book about Megan’s western Ukrainian family history. It takes you on a journey from the US to Ukraine, from the 21st century back to the mid-20th...

.@megan_buskey's book also deals with many aspects of Ukraine’s difficult and sometimes controversial past with great thought, understanding and care. Highly recommend. cup.columbia.edu/book/ukraine-i…

Ukraine: The Forging of a Nation, by Yaroslav Hrytsak, who is one of the country’s leading public intellectuals. I haven’t yet finished this book but halfway through it's one of the best histories of Ukraine I’ve read — maybe the best....

It was wildly popular in Ukraine when it first came out in original Ukrainian. It’s a public service to have it translated and published in English. History books can be dense and dry. This one is not. littlebrown.co.uk/titles/yarosla…

The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister, @OKhromeychuk. Deeply personal & moving. You can sense from the first page how much the book and her brother mean to her. Olesya and I spoke about our books at The Edinburgh Book Festival. That discussion is here: edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/w…

A Small, Stubborn Town: Life, death and defiance in Ukraine, by @AndrewWJHarding. Short, quick read, wonderfully told. The harrowing story of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the response of ordinary Ukrainians in microcosm.

https://x.com/AndrewWJHarding/status/1735683128935448670?s=20

The Showman, by @shustry. A biography of President Volodymyr Zelensky. I finished an advance copy. As expected, it’s well-written and meticulously reported. Simon was given great access to Ze’s camp. Probably the most comprehensive picture of the man all the world now knows.

For a more academic take on Ze, read The Zelensky Effect, by political scientists @oonuch and Henry E. Hale. Unlike Shuster’s biography, it’s less a narrative and more a study. Read to understand how and why Zelensky has been an effective wartime leader …

@oonuch …and was crucial to bolstering Ukraine’s “civic national identity.” It’s actually more about the nation than the man. hurstpublishers.com/book/the-zelen…

The Orphanage, by Serhiy Zhadan, is powerful and moving. My fave of his is Voroshilovgrad, about life in pre-war Luhansk. His new book, The Sky Above Kharkiv, a collection of his Facebook posts from the first months of Russia’s full-scale invasion...

...was translated into English and published this year. It’s a good real-time account of the fighting in Kharkiv in the first weeks of the war but not his best writing. yalebooks.yale.edu/book/978030027…

Andrey Kurkov’s Diary Of An Invasion is similarly good if you like short dispatch-like chapters. Like his Ukraine Diaries about the 2013-14 revolution, it’s brimming with amusing anecdotes & keen observations, in this case about Russia’s invasion. store.deepvellum.org/products/diary…

But Kurkov’s best Ukraine war book is Grey Bees, a novel about a beekeeper that is fictional but reflective of the reality of so many Ukrainians living in the crossfire of the war. store.deepvellum.org/products/grey-…

Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary, Olena Stiazhkina. A polemic and personal rebuke of Russia’s invasion in 2014, by a Donetsk native. Like other books by Ukrainian authors in this list, it’s in diary form. But this one is maybe the sharpest & most vivid. hup.harvard.edu/books/97806742…

The following books were not published this year; some are relatively new, others a bit older. But I think all are important and worth reading...

The Torture Camp on Paradise Street, @AseyevStanislav. A powerful albeit disturbing memoir about journalist Aseyev’s 2.5 years as a prisoner in Izolyatsia, a former art center turned detention facility in Russian-occupied Donetsk. hup.harvard.edu/books/97806742…

Aseyev's book underscores the fact that Russia’s brutality and penchant for torture began long ago, not in 2022.

Absolute Zero, by Artem Chekh. A haunting, deeply personal & realistic (read: unglamorous) depiction of war. Artem was a writer before he was a soldier. Thru his great prose, he recounts his time on the Donbas front, taking the reader with him into battle. glagoslav.com/shop/absolute-…

The Fight of Our Lives: My Time with Zelenskyy, Ukraine's Battle for Democracy, and What It Means for the World, @IuliiaMendel. Read for some interesting and unique insights into Zelensky’s pre-war administration and see how it’s changed.

Freedom and Terror in the Donbas: A Ukrainian-Russian Borderland, 1870s–1990s, by Hiroaki Kuromiya. The best historical look at the eastern Ukraine region known as the Donbas and how it came to be. The rare history book that isn’t dull; it keeps you hooked. It delves deep.

I love it because of the nitty gritty details. Important as ever in understanding why Russia believes what it does about Ukraine’s east. I must have read it through three or four times.

The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, by prolific historian @SPlokhy. IMO, Plokhy’s best book. But his new one, The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History, is also good & the antidote to those who wrongly claim the West brought the war to Russia. hachettebookgroup.com/titles/serhii-…

Greetings from Novorossiya: Eyewitness to the War in Ukraine, by my pal @p_pieniazek. Published in 2015, the book is a brief but detailed account of summer 2014, when Russia’s initial invasion of the Donbas began. Pawel and I ran around reporting a lot of these events together.

@p_pieniazek One nice thing this book has that others don’t are great photos throughout. Pawel has published a new book in Polish, which I’m not yet able to read. It’s below.

https://twitter.com/p_pieniazek/status/1614881054648684545

Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine, Anna Reid. The first book on Ukraine I ever read. Got it in Feb 2010, day after I found out from @PeaceCorps I was moving to Bakhmut for 2+ years. It’s as relevant as ever and with a good update. hachettebookgroup.com/titles/anna-re…

Bonus: A Russia book. Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine, by the prolific @MarkGaleotti. It reads a bit like a spy novel while still filled with facts and analysis. Mark writes of Putin’s wars over the years and the various tactics employed in them. bloomsbury.com/us/putins-wars…

.@MarkGaleotti has another book with @scrawnya coming in 2024 that I’m looking forward to: Downfall: Prigozhin and Putin, and the new fight for the future of Russia.

https://x.com/markgaleotti/status/1736711626886128018?s=46&t=TUBPHx8mOIq5hS31kSfSvQ

Side note: I also recommend @scrawnya's Hybrid Warriors: hurstpublishers.com/book/hybrid-wa…

I told you there were more Ukraine books coming next year. Here's what I'm looking forward to reading next...

Language Of War, by Ukrainian author @mykhed_o. We will be fortunate next year to have his first book translated into English and published in June.
For now I recommend reading these pieces of his in the @FT:

penguin.co.uk/authors/303637…
ft.com/content/367fff…
ft.com/content/96d58d…

Your Presence Is Mandatory, a novel by @SashaVasilyuk, “about a Ukrainian World War II veteran with a secret that could land him in the Gulag, and his family who are forced to live in the shadow of all he has not told them.” Read this while we you wait: nytimes.com/2022/02/26/opi…

We Play On: Shakhtar Donetsk’s Fight for Ukraine, Football and Freedom, by Andy Brassell. It’s the story of Donetsk’s Shakhtar soccer club, owned by oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, which has been playing in exile since 2014. littlebrown.co.uk/titles/andy-br…

Our Enemies Will Vanish, by @yarotrof. Knowing Yaro, his book about the first year of Russia’s invasion will be meticulously reported and superbly written. I look forward to comparing his take on events with my own experience during the same time.

https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1737862186549330242

Out now but haven't read yet: Putin's Prisoner, by @cossackgundi, with assist from @johnsweeneyroar. I had the pleasure of meeting Aiden near Mariupol just before the invasion. He’s smart, thoughtful, and cares deeply about Ukraine.

https://x.com/cossackgundi/status/1666857718387290135?s=20

Live. Fight. Survive., by @olddog100ua. I admit I haven’t read this one in full, just the preview. But same as Aiden above, I’ve found Shaun to be a thoughtful observer and commenter, not to mention a brave soldier and adopted Ukrainian patriot. penguin.co.uk/books/459170/l…

I haven’t yet read I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost, by journalist @mirrorsbreath, but it’s on my list. Same with War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky, and the Path to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine, by @zygaro. I've read the previews and have the books on my to-read stack.

I did manage to read books unrelated to the war in Ukraine. Here are some that I enjoyed this year + ones on my list for 2024...

High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest in Russia’s Haunted Hinterland, by @parfitt_tom, was my fave non-Ukraine book of 2023. Equal parts memoir, travelogue & history book, there’s something for everyone to take away. Tom’s writing is just lovely. He’s the nicest guy, too. Just saying.

Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends, by my friend @lindakinstler. Wow. Part investigation, part memoir & family history, with twists & turns that unfold over decades & across Europe. Linda is a brilliant journalist and masterful writer.

Chip War, by Tufts University professor and my pal and namelganger @crmiller1. I’m a few chapters in and it’s great. The topic might intimidate some, but I promise that Chris’s book reads like a thriller.

A Day In The Life Of Abed Salama, by @NathanThrall. I devoured in a weekend this heartfelt and masterfully written book that taught me more about Palestinians and Israelis than any other book, article or history lesson. Just a great nonfiction book and story.

My Fourth Time, We Drowned, by @sallyhayd, is at the top of my list. I started it & then forgot it on a plane. 🤦🏻‍♂️ Picking up a new copy ASAP. A compelling, urgent and important story of our ongoing migration crisis. No wonder it won the Orwell Prize.
penguinrandomhouse.com/books/696846/m…

The Wager, by @DavidGrann. Everything by Grann is great. This one is so fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable. A dramatic tale of misadventure and mutiny on the high seas. A ton of research went into it. All that said, it’s a quick read; you won’t get bogged down.

Last but not least, my colleague @MilesMJohnson’s Chasing Shadows. A suspenseful journalistic feat about global terrorism and drugs that takes you inside the shadowy world of international crime. Who doesn’t love reading about that?

An addendum to the Ukraine book list.
Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States, by @PopovaProf, @OxanaShevel. I haven’t yet read yet but having followed them I’m sure the book will help us untangle the complexities of Ukraine & Russia. politybooks.com/bookdetail?boo…