To read a book about the period of history I was born during, lived through, i.e., ‘The Cold War’, and survived, I would better read all my journals, than some other writer, who most undoubtably placed ‘their own slant on it’, thereby ruining the soup.
And why would anyone, I mean ANYONE, want to read a book about QUEERS? Since the outright threat of mass murder through the infection of the Los Angeles Basin Red Cross blood supply by queers in 1984, through to today, suffering the soiling of The White House with a pair of them existing in it for 8 long insufferable years, hoodatruck gives a rodent’s posterior, about a book concerning them?
I have so many real books, i.e., non-electronic documents, to read because I like certain authors, even if one or two are rushed works, to keep the reading public captive.
I think the most helpful view of a historical period comes from reading both original sources, such as diaries, contemporaneous journalism, or memoirs of participants, and a selection of recent scholarship.
The immediate sources give an impression of what it was like to live through the events. The recent publications include information that was unavailable to individual participants and can provide an overview of the events as a whole.