Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye. This week, all come from Shelley’s post about 2026 non-fiction award winners.

Redwood by Ben Macintyre

Summary: 1981. Tehran is in violent turmoil in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. The Soviets are planning to overthrow the Ayatollah’s fledgling Islamist regime. If they do so, one response contemplated in the secret chambers of American power would be to strike with nuclear weapons. Redwood is the story of how, at the height of the Cold War, one mysterious double agent, whose intelligence reached the highest levels of American and British governments, cracked open the KGB, revealed the Kremlin’s secret plot, and prevented Armageddon.

I’m thinking: No.

The Nord Stream Conspiracy by Bojan Pancevski

Summary: In September 2022, Scandinavian seismologists picked up tremors that resembled a huge undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption. These signals were caused by several devastating explosions that destroyed Nord Stream, the $20 billion pipeline carrying cheap Russian gas to Europe. The consequences were immediate, shifting global geopolitics, fuelling tensions in the Russo-Ukrainian war and triggering a manhunt that would rupture relations within the NATO alliance. The mystery of who blew up the pipeline has so far gone unsolved.

I’m thinking: Yes.

Groomed by Sonia Orchard

Summary: Sonia Orchard was in her forties when she told a therapist about the boyfriend she had when she was fifteen. Sure, he had been a decade older than her, but it was consensual… wasn’t it? To her surprise, Sonia broke down in tears, then began to shake uncontrollably – an unmistakable expression of trauma. Could the relationship she’d thought was love really have been abuse? Years later, Sonia tentatively called the police. As she began the gruelling journey through the legal system, she saw how allegations of child abuse and sexual assault were routinely minimised and rarely brought to light.

I’m thinking: Maybe.