What are you reading? What's your favourite book?

I want to read rupi kaurs home body, which I bought, but haven’t come around to reading it yet

This is shit. theconversation.com/your-poo-is-mostly-alive-heres-whats-in-it-102848

I'm reading this book by a contemporary Hungarian writer. The title means Orgy. It's the heaviest book I have ever read - not by volume, but by the horrific nature of the content. It's a historical novel about the last days of WW2 in Hungary when the Arrow Cross Party (basically Hungarian nazis) got on power by a coup on October 15, 1944 and they ruled until February 1945 when the Soviets finally defeated the Hungarian and German armies in Hungary. (By early 1944 the Hungarian governor Horthy tried to surrender to the Allied and jump out of the war, which Germany didn't want to allow, so they occupied Hungary in March 1944. Even though Jews were second class citizens by laws limiting their rights since 1938 in Hungary, but they were relatively safe until the German occupation in March 1944, when the deportations to German concentration camps began. The Germans then put various pro-Germany PMs in power. On October 15, Horthy, the governor, nevertheless declared on the radio Hungary's jumping out of the war, but it was a failed attempt and that's when the Arrow Cross Party did its coup with German support.)

This rule was a rule of terror. Orgy refers to an orgy of violence, torture, murder and rape that members of the party committed mainly against Jews, but also against many Christians they deemed an enemy (men who fled the army, Christians who tried to hide Jews or married Jews, people they suspected of being communist or supporters of the Allied forces, or people they just accused of any of those because they didn't like them).

The book focuses in particular on the most infamous body of the Arrow Cross party, the one from the 12th District of Budapest which was the most cruel and most efficient of them all. They tortured and murdered thousands and thousands of people in Budapest during that short period. Even though the Soviet army already surrounded and sieged Budapest their preoccupation still was to murder as many Jews as they could. They were so cruel that sometimes they were even too much for the German nazis. On one occasion they attacked a Jewish hospital, trying to kill all the patients and doctors, nurses, staff and it was a German officer that stopped them. In vain, because a couple of days later they went back and did it anyway.

The book is a novel but it's based on serious research and all the main perpetrators named in it were real people and their crimes were really as described in the book. And with the description of the horror the book doesn't hold back. It's a naturalistic portrayal of torture, rape and murder, which makes it so heavy, but also effective. Instead of just saying "and they were tortured" it describes in detail what it means so that the reader can't escape the reality of the horror that was done to these people. Men and women, rich or poor, old or young - children/minors included.

They also robbed these people of all their belongings, including their homes, where members of the party moved after the owners were killed. In a way it seems, they did the whole thing at least as much for the booty as out of "principle". Also I felt these Arrow Cross people were psychopaths. All of them. They murdered and especially tortured out if fun. They enjoyed it. Including their women, wives (they were often with them).

Now reading. I heard this was one of MJ's favorite books, BTW.