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After seeing Ron Charles mention this book in his newsletter ("a work of illustrated nonfiction that will awaken and haunt anyone who reads it"), I decided to check it out to mark the 4th anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is powerful and very timely, providing important background on Russia's long history of aggression and also highlighting aspects of the authoritarian playbook in general.

A+ storytelling and a great Chicago book. Very well written - and warmly written, too. By the end of the first chapter, I felt like I knew these characters as real people. The part focused on the 1990 AIDS demonstration was really moving. I'd had this on a back burner for a while but decided to dive in after seeing Mick Herron recommend it recently in The Guardian ... and after reading about the Republicans' infuriating funding cuts for global HIV/AIDS programs.

Very well-written, entertaining and thought-provoking. I really enjoyed the focus on Tom, a scholar about 100 years in the dystopian future, who is researching a lost poem and also trying to teach uninterested students about our world. His appreciation of the past (our present) is fun to experience, and it provides a great perspective. For example: "I prefer teaching the post-2015 period, when social media were beginning to be drawn into the currency of private lives, when waves of fantastical or malevolent or silly rumours began to shape the nature not only of politics but of human understanding. Fascinating!"

And I loved a lot of the writing. There's a description of Tom trying to access a container and get it open, using not quite the right tools, and it reminded me of so many home projects I've done over the years. The effort, anticipation and frustration are captured perfectly.

The first part was funnier and more thrilling than the second part, but still it was great overall. And as for the title, what we can know is ... hard to say. Even things that people write in their journals may be false or misleading. And when the record isn't clear, Tom struggles with how to proceed: "Surely it was permissible to make educated guesses about the subjective states and lines of thought of people who had died a hundred years ago. Perhaps it was not."