Ghosts of Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

What is your weirdest reading habit? I used to like to read in trees when I was a teen.

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @blackstonepublishing for the review copy of Ghosts of Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino.

Ghosts of Hiroshima is a brand-new non-fiction book published for the 80^th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It’s based on forensic archaeology and over two hundred interviews with survivors and their families.  It gives the reader a first-person perspective of the events.  This is soon to be a movie by James Cameron.

My thoughts on this book:

·       Ghosts of Hiroshima vividly describes the horrible times for those on the ground in the A-bomb attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

·       It was amazing how many people survived both Hiroshima and the Nagasaki bombings.  After Hiroshima they fled to Nagasaki for various reasons, only to experience it again. 

·       There were interesting quotes at the start of each chapter.  Each chapter is long but broken up into segments to discuss different key players experiencing the bomb.

·       There were nice drawings with descriptions throughout the book to give detail.

·       There are notes and a great index at the end of the book to help those looking for specific details.

·       The pages are edged in black, which along with the cover, make it a striking book.

·       There is also discussion of the internment camps in the United States and how some Japanese Americans were deported back to Japan.  Many died when the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, but some survived to tell the tale.

·       American prisoners of war were also killed in Nagasaki, and some witnessed it all and were able to tell their experiences.

·       I can’t stop thinking about this book.  It’s a horrible part of history that I hope we never repeat.  Many of the people in the book wanted to tell their stories to make sure history does not repeat itself.

·       As a parent, I can’t imagine making it through the worse thing to happen to your family and being grateful your kids made it, only for them to come down with leukemia ten or so years later.  It was so sad reading about the rash of leukemia amongst the youngest survivors.

·       It’s interesting that there were still those who didn’t want to surrender after the A-bombs and fire carpeting.  They held the Emperor captive.  I wish they would have let the Emperor surrender before the A-bombs or right after Hiroshima.  So many people would have been saved.

·       I didn’t know much about the strike on Nagasaki.  The book states that this was kept quiet as the largest Catholic church in the country was at ground zero or the center of the strike.

·       It was strange how randomly people survived by being the right place at the right time, having the right instincts to duck, or wearing white clothing.

·       It was horrific trying to live through the aftereffects of the bombs for years to come.  I didn’t realize there was prejudice in Japan against A-bomb survivors and their children.

·       I was struck that those that were flying the plane that dropped the bombs experienced a strange electrical feeling in their teeth and the taste of lead.  I don’t remember ever learning that before.

Favorite quotes:

“The false sunrise did not only smash factories and crack concrete in Hiroshima.  It sometimes left a crevice in one’s soul.”

“This year [2010] came the rise of radiation denial and shadow people denial, and even claims in America [in its media] that I, and my experience of Hiroshima, did not exist.  The realities of nuclear war are so horrible that there are people who claim Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not happen this way and what I lived to tell is all lies.  What do they want?  Do they really want a sleep of forgetfulness?  So the whole world becomes hypocenters?  Don’t forget.  Never forget.  I saw it.  We all saw it.  No one should ever see if again, for any reason whatsoever.” – Keiji Nakazawa, Hiroshima artist.

Overall, Ghosts of Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino is an important nonfiction book about horrifying events in human history that should never be repeated.  I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

This book was published on August 5, 2025.