Month: January 2021

Book: Roman Papsuev “Tales of Old Rus’. The Origins”

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Once, Roman Papsuev, also known online by the nickname Amok, began drawing characters from Russian fairy tales in the style they might be depicted for computer games, purely for fun. He shared his first sketches online for everyone to see. These illustrations quickly went viral, with articles about them even appearing on international platforms. That’s when Roman decided to take on the project more professionally, giving rise to the world of Old Rus’.

His illustrations continued to gain immense popularity, and the release of an artbook was only natural. In 2018, I bought and eagerly flipped through (calling it “read” doesn’t quite fit) the book Tales of Old Rus’. The Beginning. It was a classic artbook — lots of illustrations with minimal text, but all beautifully executed.

Later, Roman released a second book, titled almost the same: Tales of Old Rus’. The Origins. Based on the description, it was essentially the same book, but this time the author added significantly more text: he started describing the characters, explaining why they were depicted the way they were, and so on. The illustrations, however, were mostly the same. So I thought, why would I want to go through the same thing again? Still, I bought the book, if only to support the author.

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Book: Frederik L. Schodt “Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics”

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At one point in my work, I had to closely engage with the manga and anime industry (in the entertainment field, it’s quite normal for different areas of the entertainment industry to overlap: many games and movies are based on anime, and vice versa). However, I could never say I was a fan of this genre (unlike my older daughters). In my childhood, we didn’t have many comics, let alone their Japanese form in the style of manga, and my exposure to anime was limited to a couple of animated films that were allowed on Soviet cinema screens. I vaguely remember two: Taro, the Dragon Boy (which I really liked as a kid) and, later on, Puss in Boots: Travels Around the World. But we didn’t even know back then that this was anime.

After a closer encounter with it, I decided at some point to study the subject in more depth. Some aspects seemed quite strange to me, as someone raised in a completely different culture. For instance, when we were preparing to launch World of Tanks in South Korea, our Korean office practically created all the training materials from scratch, and to me, these pages on the site looked wild — it was a huge scroll of content in the form of a manga-style comic. But that’s just how they’re accustomed to receiving information.

As I delved deeper into the topic, I learned many interesting facts that all anime fans know, but the average person probably hasn’t even heard of. For example, many well-known Western franchises either have Japanese roots or were simply “borrowed” from Japanese creators due to a rather unique approach to copyright at the time. Here are just a few prominent examples to give you an idea:

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Book: Henrik Kniberg “Scrum and XP from the Trenches”

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Not long ago, on the last day of 2020, I wrote a review of the book Kanban and Scrum — Making the Most of Both, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in implementing Agile methodologies. However, this book was not the first by the author, Henrik Kniberg. His first book, published in 2007, also drew on his personal experience with agile methodologies and was titled Scrum and XP from the Trenches. Kniberg himself admits that he wrote this relatively short book over a single weekend, when he felt a strong urge to share his experiences with others.

This time, I won’t delve into the specifics of agile methodologies or why I’m singling out Kniberg’s books in particular, as I covered that in my previous review. Instead, I’ll briefly describe the book itself.

It’s also a very concise account of how he and his teams implemented various practices from Scrum and Extreme Programming in their work, with concrete examples and specific descriptions of the pros and cons. He’s not afraid to admit mistakes and point out what can go wrong. This is quite normal for agile methodologies, where much is governed by the motto “experiment and see what works best for your specific team.” The key is to frequently evaluate what’s been done (unlike older methodologies, where you might work for a year only to realize that you’ve been doing it wrong all along).

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Book: Shaun Bythell “Confessions of a Bookseller”

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Exactly two years ago, I wrote a review of Shaun Bythell’s The Diary of a Bookseller, which I thoroughly enjoyed and recommended to anyone who sees paper books as more than just bound sheets of paper. This real-life diary of a real secondhand bookseller unexpectedly became a global bestseller, even to Bythell’s surprise, so it’s not surprising that a sequel followed.

If the first book was recommended to me by a friend, I discovered the second one quite by accident. Still, riding the wave of unforgettable emotions from the first, I immediately added it to my “to read soon” list. The new book, titled Confessions of a Bookseller, closely mirrors the structure of the first — it’s again a diary spanning a single calendar year. Once again, each day he records the number of online orders received and processed, the number of customers in the store, and the earnings. In other words, absolutely nothing has changed. Do you like my diary? Here’s part two. The cover of the first book featured the little bookshop itself (which really looks like that; there are now many photos of it online), while the second book’s cover shows Shaun Bythell himself in his shop. By the way, the likeness is accurate — here’s what he looks like in real life:

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Book: Elena Rezanova “Never-ever”

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“Midlife crisis.” A cliché term that encompasses many things but most commonly refers to a moment somewhere in the middle of life (since each person has a sense of how long they think they’ll live), when many start asking themselves questions like “Have I been heading in the right direction all this time?” or “What’s the purpose of it all?” The real problem isn’t the questions themselves but the fear that the most productive years of life may already be behind them. And people who start asking these questions essentially trap themselves, especially if they’re unhappy with their current situation or it simply no longer brings them joy (which, in essence, is the same thing). Getting out of this psychological dead end is very challenging.

Elena Rezanova’s book Never-ever is precisely about this situation and what can be done about it. Elena worked for many years in HR (the Russian language still lacks an equivalent for the English term “Human Resources,” but these are people who theoretically help employees develop, can serve as a psychological “shoulder to cry on,” and also resolve interpersonal conflicts in the workplace). At some point, however, she and her husband realized that their reasonably successful careers no longer brought joy to either of them. They decided to make a radical change, something neither of them has regretted, as they found new, fulfilling pursuits that continue to bring them happiness.

I had marked this book as “something I’d like to read” a while ago, as that very same midlife crisis eventually caught up with me as well (even though I have a wonderful family and have achieved a lot in my career).

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