r/bookclub • u/nicehotcupoftea World Reader Leader | šš§ š„ • Mar 31 '26
Philippines - Some People Need Killing [Schedule] Read the World - Philippines - Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista
Hello and welcome to the schedule for our next destination for Read the World - Philippines! We will be reading Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country by Patricia Evangelista. Check-ins will be on Tuesdays over four weeks.
Goodreads blurb
A fearless, powerfully written on-the-ground account of a nation careening into violent autocracyātold through harrowing stories of the Philippinesā state-sanctioned killings of its citizensāfrom a journalist of international renown
āMy job is to go to places where people die. I pack my bags, talk to the survivors, write my stories, then go home to wait for the next catastrophe. I donāt wait very long.ā
Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades later, in the face of mounting inequality, the nation discovered the fragility of its democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte.
Some People Need Killing is Evangelistaās meticulously reported and deeply human chronicle of the Philippinesā drug war. For six years, Evangelista chronicled the killings carried out by police and vigilantes in the name of Duterteās war on drugsāa war that has led to the slaughter of thousandsāimmersing herself in the world of killers and survivors and capturing the atmosphere of fear created when an elected president decides that some lives are worth less than others.
The book takes its title from a vigilante whose words seemed to reflect the psychological accommodation that most of the country had made: āIām really not a bad guy,ā he said. āIām not all bad. Some people need killing.ā
A profound act of witness and a tour de force of literary journalism, Some People Need Killing is also a brilliant dissection of the grammar of violence and an important investigation of the human impulses to dominate and resist.
Marginalia
Discussion Schedule:
14th April: Start - Chapter 3 - u/fixtheblue
21st April: Chapter 4 - Chapter 7 - u/Vast-Passenger1126
28th April: Chapter 8 - Chapter 10 - u/bluebelle236
5th May: Chapter 11 - End - u/nicehotcupoftea
Hope to see you in the discussions on 14th April! šš
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u/lazylittlelady Poetry Patron Jun 25 '26
Finally got this and started reading!
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u/nicehotcupoftea World Reader Leader | šš§ š„ Jun 25 '26
Excellent! I look forward to your thoughts.
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u/bluebelle236 One More Chapter... One More Spin Mar 31 '26
This is now on the bookclub calendar
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/embed?src=redditbookclubcalendar@gmail.com&ctz=Etc/GMT