What don't we know about the Chernobyl disaster? Adam Higginbotham will be here to talk about

his new book Midnight Internoble, the untold story of the world's greatest nuclear disaster.

How did coding become a massive and growing profession? Nilly Bowls will be here to talk

about Clive Thompson's new book, Coaters. Plus we'll talk about what we and the wider

world are reading. And one final bonus to celebrate an honor National Poetry Month will have a

special reading by Special Poet. This is the Bookerview Podcast. I'm Pamela Paul.

Adam Higginbotham joins us now. His new book is called Midnight Internoble, the untold story

of the world's greatest nuclear disaster. Adam, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me.

So what drew you to the subject of Chernobyl? Well initially, when I started reporting on the subject

back in 2006, I was interested in finding out the stories of people who'd been eyewitnesses to what

happened. And I was kind of inspired by the fact that I'd recently read Walter Lorde's

Night to Remember about the Titanic about the Synchia of the Titanic, which is this incredible and

concise book which reconstructs just the night of the Synchia of the Titanic through interviews

that Lord conducted in the years after the syncing with people who survived. And I'd read the

existing literature on the Chernobyl accident. Well, I just thought there was this really great

opportunity to write a long magazine piece that reconstructed the night in the words of the people

or through the experiences of the people that had been there. But then when I began interviewing them,

I realized that the existing accounts had huge holes in them and didn't really reflect the full

reality of what had happened. And then I went back again to Ukraine to do further reporting on

the story in 2011, around the 25th anniversary of the accident. And during that visit, I did some

things during the reporting that really frightened me. And I remember sitting in this hotel room in

the town of Chernobyl and looking at the window and thinking, I'm never going to come back to this

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