Welcome to Litsy!

A little nonfiction to kick off the weekend.

Last audiobook finished; I need to catch up on my reviews. No interesting recs from Hoopla app after finishing the last, so I decided to try this out. Turned out to be a suitable follow-up to the one I listened to about Jack Ruby, including more background for the CIA's knowledge and suspicion (very well hidden even from the Kennedy assignation investigation) of Oswald, and Kennedy's and Nixon's relation with security agencies and their impact.

Post WWII Finland, two couples, one American and one Russian. A cross country ski race between husbands and wives becoming friends-their only common language French. And then the reality of the early cold war begins. Definitely worth a read.

#Movie2BookRecs @Klou
Movie: The Bourne Identity

I keep finding new books to be excited about on your #auldlangspine list, @vivastory ! I have been on a spy kick lately and have never read le carre, so may take your lead to pick up a George Smiley book (but may indulge my idiosyncracies by reading Call for the Dead first). But the other covers pictured here are also speaking to me, so we'll see. I hope you also find something that speaks to you. A big thanks to @monalyisha for organizing 🥰

My first John le Carré book and it was excellent — beyond the smart plot twists of good spy fiction it read like great literature. This has probably been on my tbr longer than any other book. Thanks to my November #bookspin @TheAromaofBooks I finally read it!

#Movie2BookRecs @Klou
Movie: Oppenheimer

Mamdani is a lucid thinker, and writes with great clarity about the world that shaped what is now casually referred to as Islamic terrorism. As an anthropologist and political scientist he lays out the historical contexts of European colonialism and the Cold War to remind us that no situation arises out of thin air, but through careful cultivation by geopolitical superpowers. Informative. This was published in 2004; would love a current follow-up.