Recommendations from our site
“Of all the books on my list, this is actually my favorite. I read it as a boy and I’ve read it to my children. The Butter Battle Book, by Dr. Seuss, is an allegory for nuclear apocalypse written during the Cold War. The premise of the book is that the Zooks eat their bread with the butter side up and the Yooks eat their bread with the butter side down. The Butter Battle Book traces the story of how this trifling difference leads to a war that starts with slingshots, then escalates with ever more elaborate weapons until the last contraption, a gumball-size bomb built by both sides, has the power to annihilate all life on the other side of the wall. The book ends with a Zook and a Yook staring at each other across the wall, on the brink of mutually assured destruction, poised to drop their bombs.” Read more...
“It should be compulsory bedtime reading for all children in the Caucasus. Yooks and Zooks could be Georgians and Abkhazians or Armenians and Azeris, who actually have so much in common. They adopt this bizarre identity and historical arguments to prove hatred for one another, when in reasonable times they get along fine.” Read more...
The best books on Conflict in the Caucasus
Thomas de Waal, Foreign Correspondent
