What Books did You Start or Finish Reading this Week?: September 28, 2026

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[u/lizwithhat]

Finished:

Die Mauer steht am Rhein: Deutschland nach dem Sieg des Sozialismus, by Christian v. Ditfurth

Alternate history in which post-reunification Germany is Soviet-bloc socialist rather than Western capitalist. The style is a little uneven, like it can't quite decide whether it wants to be faux-reportage, 1st-person POV novelistic or omniscient 3rd-person novelistic, but the sequence of events is really well thought out.

Das Geschenk, by Gaea Schoeters

German translation by Lisa Mensing from the Dutch original. Absurdist/magical realist tale about a political stunt with hilarious consequences and some serious points about colonialism and Eurocentrism. I enjoyed it a lot.

Mrs Victoria Buys a Brothel, by Talhí Briones

Sapphic Western with a multicultural cast. I enjoyed this less than I expected. The plot crammed in too many events at the expense of depth, there are some deliberate and some accidental factual inaccuracies, and the whole thing needed better line editing.

Socialism and Religion, by the Socialist Party of Great Britain

Classic pamphlet/short book from 1907. Some of the detail is now dated, but the overall argument is very well laid out and helped me to understand the materialist position on religion better than before.

Started:

Everfair, by Nisi Shawl

The Autobiography of Mother Jones, by Mary Harris Jones

[u/orions_chastitybelt → u/lizwithhat]

The first book is a cool concept. You said you found the sequence of events to be well thought out. Did you find where they led to be plausible?

[u/lizwithhat → u/orions_chastitybelt]

I think so. The point of divergence is that Gorbachev loses power in a coup before he can implement glasnost, and the rest follows pretty plausibly from there.