Instead of donating poison and trash, I threw it out. For example, David Frum books I bought in the ’90s are in the landfill now.

There’s a reason for that. The Japanese made nukes during the war and there is at least one Japanese scientist that said they exploded one in a test right before Hiroshima.

https://www.historynet.com/book-review-japans-secret-war-japans-race-against-time-to-build-its-own-atomic-bomb-robert-k-wilcox-wwii/

Further confirmation comes from the enormous resources put into the ultra long range submarine that Japan built carrying only three airplanes. The only military use for such a vessel would be if it carried nukes. This sub confirms to me that even of they were not able to build a nuke they were trying their best.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-400-class_submarine

And, yes, he read voraciously, but he won because he won the meetings — that and doing without hesitation whatever Lenin needed done. Trotsky gave speeches, fiery writing. Stalin went to the meetings.

He also read up and read reports, wiretaps, biographies on everyone and everyone he met with. He read many letters from the people, including the camp inmates, daily.

Hitler’s Private Library by Timothy Ryback was an interesting read.

(Famously, all the documents related to the Japanese A-bomb projects are *still* uncataloged… the LOC isn’t all that good at such things, apparently.)

Stalin never struck me as the book-worm sort.

I read a lot. I used to read a lot of rubbish because I didn’t know any better. Tossed a lot of stupid, stupid stuff into the donation boxes. That included most of my college textbooks. The world is overflowing with bullshit.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Good ideas are precious and rare. Bad ideas have killed millions.