I've got through another few recommendations from these threads and finally got my reading mojo back.
80 When the Dust Settles by Lucy Easthope
Recently reviewed on this thread, Lucy is one of the UK's leading authorities on the planning for and the recovery from disasters. She's worked in some capacity on 9/11, 7/7, Grenfell, the pandemic, plane crashes, floods, the Iraq War to name but a few and is called in by government's, the military and corporations when disaster strikes. Despite the regular horrors she has to deal with, she recognises that people, victims and their families, are at the heart of these tragedies and she deals with this with sensitivity and compassion. It's not an easy subject matter to read but I found this very interesting.
81 Tunnel 29 by Helena Merriman
This is the true story of a rescue mission during the Cold War, helping people escape East Berlin. A group of students in West Berlin, many of whom have recently escaped East Berlin themselves, decide to build a tunnel under the Berlin Wall so their friends and relatives can escape to the West. Merriman uses interviews with the survivors, Stasi files, photographs and historical records to piece together this event and what it was like living on the 'wrong' side of the wall. I raced through this in two sittings and it's so fast paced and atmospheric that it almost reads like fiction.
82 The Island of Sea Women by Lis See
This was a fascinating account of the Haenyo women who are free divers in Jeju, an island in South Korea. It's a matriarchal society where the women are the bread winners, diving for octopus and abalone, whilst the men stay at home looking after the children. This would be interesting enough on its own but its set against the turbulent history of Korea during the twentieth century. The islanders suffered Japanese occupation, WWII, US rule and civil war which led to poverty, hardship and extreme brutality.