Category: Non-Fiction

Charles Patterson – Eternal Treblinka [REVIEW]

December 24, 2024
Authors P-T (By Surname)Non-Fiction

Title: Eternal Treblinka

Author: Charles Patterson

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 296

Rating: 4.5/5

First off, I should say a big thank you to my Vegan Runners Secret Santa for getting this for me, although I did provide them with a pretty sizeable hint by making this the only thing that was on my wish list.

I’ve been meaning to get my hands on this for a while after first coming across it during the research for my horror novel, Meat. I ended up reading it over Christmas, and while it isn’t exactly the most festive of reads, it was actually a pretty good time to pick it up.

So, Eternal Treblinka. The core idea here is that the way we treat animals in factory farms is similar to the way that the Nazis treated human beings in concentration camps. In fact, Patterson shows that genocide is almost always preceded by people describing the victims of that genocide as “animals”, “vermin” and the like.

It’s not an easy book to read, especially when Patterson is talking about the horrific things that human beings do to both animals and other human beings, but it’s an important one. Reading it over Christmas made it hit even harder because while everyone else is sitting down to eat animal carcasses, it’s nice to have a reminder that there are people out there like me who find the concept disgusting.

The title of the book says it all, really. Until we stop subjugating animals to short lives of pain and suffering that end up with them being served up on a dinner plate, Treblinka will continue to happen. And so will the wars that mark us out as the planet’s most “intelligent” species.

Go vegan.

Learn more about Eternal Treblinka.

Debra Bourne – Parkrun [REVIEW]

December 7, 2024
Authors A-E (By Surname)Non-Fiction

Title: Parkrun

Author: Debra Bourne

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 360

Rating: 3.5/5

I picked up this book as a Christmas present for my dad, who’s also a big fan of parkrun, and I thought that I should probably pick it up and read it first. You know, to make sure that it’s a good book. Don’t worry though, he doesn’t follow me on social media and probably won’t see this review. Probably.

If you haven’t heard of parkrun before then you’ve obviously not asked me about my weekend plans of late. It’s essentially a free, weekly 5K run that takes place in parks all over the country (and the world), and it’s one of those things where once you go to one of them, you’re likely to become addicted. I’ve been every Saturday this year except for the first one, when my local parkrun was cancelled due to bad weather.

Debra Bourne’s books aims to chart the history of parkrun from its inception in Bushy Park to the present day, and that brings us to my only problem with it. I can’t vouch for the latest edition, and I don’t even know if there is one, but the copy that I read only took us up to 2014 or so. That made it feel as though it only covered half the story.

Parkrun has continued to grow in the years since, surviving COVID-19 and coming out kicking, and there have been all sorts of interesting (and controversial) developments. Bourne dedicated a chunk of the book to talking about how important the statistics are to runners, and they’ve since been taken away by parkrun, ostensibly because they stop people from taking part. It would also have been nice to have read about the politics that have stopped parkrun from continuing in France.

But while there are little quibbles and things that I would have liked to have seen, I can’t exactly blame Bourne. On top of that, I was mostly interested in reading about the early days, and she had those nicely covered with quotes from the people involved. So all in all, not bad.

Learn more about Parkrun.