Basket.

George Kennan (he of the Long Telegram, Article X and the Containment Policy, remember?) died on March 17 and I didn't even know. Well, there goes yet another significant historical figure from the last century. Now the Pope is going too; one of the many things John Paul II was was a potent figure for the Poles of Solidarity to rally around in the face of iron-fisted oppression in the early 1980s. They've been dropping like flies since we entered the 21st century, it seems. Especially those from the Cold War era.

I haven't read Cold War history in a very long while, but it was never my topic of choice. Nor do I see any fresh new perspectives on the conflict about to emerge. It's been examined so much that it's now boring.

I also do not think Singapore gets enough books on alternate history - or maybe there just aren't enough to get. Plenty of those that people would call alternate history I prefer to regard as (alternate) historical fiction; a story set in a world made different by a twist in the past.

I think I need to go out and get a nice, thick history book and lose myself in it.