Month: March 2019

Mike Pritula, Roman Zhikharev “Résumé for a Million”

1 comment
resume

I have an interesting story connected with the book Résumé for a Million. I know both authors personally, as we worked together at Wargaming. I had already read some of Mike’s articles on résumés and hiring before, and as a manager who has conducted many interviews myself, I strongly disagreed with many of his conclusions and advice. We even had a few debates on the topic.

So, when it came to this book, I wasn’t just cautious—I was rather pessimistic. However, it’s not fair to criticize without reading. That’s why I decided to buy the book, read it, and then form my opinion.

From the title, you might expect the book to teach you how to write a résumé that will sell you for the highest price. This was, in fact, the general tone of Mike’s earlier articles on the subject. However, the book turned out to be much more than just about résumés—the authors themselves divided it into three parts.

Read more

Fredrik Backman “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry”

1 comment

Fredrik Backman was my discovery of 2018. As I mentioned earlier, his novel A Man Called Ove was the best fiction book I read that year. That’s why I decided that I definitely needed to read his other books—or at least give them a try, since sometimes an author writes one exceptional work, but the rest don’t live up to it.

Backman’s second novel is intriguing from the title alone—My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry. It immediately makes you curious about who this grandmother is and what she’s apologizing for.

The main character of the book is a girl named Elsa, and her grandmother is quite a character. If Ove—the hero of A Man Called Ove—believed that life should be orderly and by the rules, Elsa’s grandmother is the complete opposite. She doesn’t accept any rules or laws, and Elsa adores her for it. Partly because every night in their dreams, they fly off to the magical land of Miamas together. And her grandmother is always on the lookout for adventures. Even her final quest for her granddaughter promises many mysteries and discoveries.

The most interesting thing is that, despite my super positive attitude going in, the first part of the book didn’t flow as smoothly for me as A Man Called Ove did. With Ove, I couldn’t put it down. Here, the rhythm was different, and while the grandmother is a colorful character, there’s just so much fantasy and make-believe that she feeds to her granddaughter.

Read more

Uladzimir Karatkevich “King Stakh’s Wild Hunt”

No comments

It just so happens that I had never read any works by Vladimir Korotkevich (Uladzimir Karatkevich, if translated from Belarusian), even though my wife really enjoys his writing. I had been planning to for a long time, but I finally decided to start my acquaintance with the relatively short novella King Stakh’s Wild Hunt.

The novella tells the story of the main character, a collector of Belarusian folklore, who travels to distant marshy areas to find local folklore among the people. He’s kind of like Shurik from a famous Soviet film, but from an earlier time and in Belarus, not the Caucasus.

Luck smiles upon him, and he quickly learns about the legend of the Wild Hunt of King Stakh—phantom hunters who torment all the descendants of an ancient noble family. Since the last descendant is a lovely young woman, the main character decides to investigate the situation and protect the innocent victim. It’s a detective story with a blend of Belarusian motifs and constant reflections on the place of ordinary people in history. Initially, the narrative progresses slowly and measuredly, but after about a third, the pace changes, and events start to unfold more and more rapidly.

Read more

Don Norman “The Design of Everyday Things”

No comments

The book “The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman absolutely did not meet my expectations. The reason for this was a misunderstanding of the synopsis on my part. I expected a book filled with numerous examples of good and bad design, a sort of entertaining read, and perhaps even colorfully illustrated. But the book turned out to be something entirely different.

This book is about proper design. And it’s not limited to just objects: it covers anything from the things around us to technological devices, rules, and procedures. The key idea is that the solution should best fulfill its purpose.

Read more