“The CIA Book Club is a story about the power of the printed words as means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free.”
Tonight‘s read. #NF #libraryfind
AnnCrystal 📚💝📚. 5h
“The CIA Book Club is a story about the power of the printed words as means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free.”
Tonight‘s read. #NF #libraryfind
My choice for the “dedication you loved“ #ISpyBingo square.
A rather harrowing middle-grade memoir about growing up Jewish in the Soviet Union, which honestly sounds as awful as any Western propaganda portrayed it. His family has secrets it's dangerous to ask about, and they worry he won't be “useful“ to the state--until they discover the drawings he made while sleeping under a table. The whimsical pictures break up the trauma somewhat. cont.
panThe author spends more time talking about Trump than the subject of the biography.
pickSo much more than a spy novel, Gabriel‘s Moon is a book about humans being - or not being - who you think they are. Gabriel Pax is a likable enough protagonist, but thematically, espionage is the real character here. We‘re on a need to know basis, and Boyd makes sure the reader discovers things at the same time Pax does. Side note: my lungs and liver hurt just thinking about the excessive nicotine and booze contaminating Pax‘s body.
July was a bit of a low month reading-wise, but I did enjoy the first in Boyd‘s series featuring reluctant spy Gabriel Dax
#12BooksOf2025
#ISpy My #October List @TheAromaOfBooks
Next year, all 12 boards all year! (plus the bonus boards). Also --- probably my first BINGO of the year with his one (I did October, November, and December for three months).
so-soThis was packed with so much information that at times it felt more like a recitation of names and dates. With all of the smuggling and secret police, it should have been more engaging.
pickThis was an interesting read about Kim Philby, who was spying for the Soviets the entire time he rose through the ranks of Cold War era MI6. He even managed to talk his way out of it when he first fell under suspicion. Something about the audio did make my mind drift away from time to time, but I don‘t know if that was just me.
pickThis was very interesting. At times the author treated the uneducated people who strived to raise their social status through communism with condescension. Saying that some people were promoted past their knowledge and talents was redundant. Monied people are also promoted in error😳.The bits about the Polish Home Army and the clergy were packed with insight. Communism in Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslavakia, and Poland is described in depth.
