A few weeks ago I came to the realisation that I had only really explored the history of Chernobyl with the wikipedia article. So just before the HBO Chernobyl had started I picked up my first book on the subject but unfortunately it turned out to be more of a personal history of visiting the site rather than a truly detailed history of the disaster. Now after watching the new HBO docu-drama, I'm eager to learn more.
Does anyone have a comprehensive reading list dealing with such issues as: -The event itself. -The trials following the disaster -The Soviet nuclear industry in general -the health affects of the victims and survivors -The current status of the site -the design of the new shell over the sarcophagus.
It's a long list so I thank you in advance for taking the time to reply.
A very brief list of some good books on Chernobyl:
Serhii Plokhy, Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe (2018) — recent book, gets deep into the response to the disaster from various members of the Soviet government, highly recommended. Discusses the trials afterwards, too.
Grigori Medvedev, The Truth About Chernobyl (1991) — a Soviet engineer gets into the technical details of the accident and its aftermath, fairly authoritative.
Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster (2005) — oral history of Chernobyl survivors, compiled by a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature — adds the human dimension in a major way.
Sonja D. Schmid, Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry (2015) — a thoroughly academic book, but one that goes into the history of the Soviet nuclear power industry prior to and through the Chernobyl accident, and also discusses the trials afterwards. Very useful if you want to really get into the details of how the Soviet nuclear system was set up (the divisions between military and civilian, the ways in which the labor market worked, the reasons behind the choosing of the disastrous RMBK design, etc.).
Kate Brown's Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future (2019) is still on my reading pile so I can't say too much about it at the moment, but it's another one to maybe check out.
Hope that helps!