Month: January 2023

Book: Arkady & Boris Strugatsky “Monday Starts on Saturday”

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Ah, it’s hard to write about such a classic, one that has been known to everyone for many decades. But I still decided to give it a try.

The thing is, Monday Starts on Saturday was the very first book by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky that I ever read. And that was back in my distant childhood. I remember laughing out loud at some episodes, trying hard not to show it, since I had to read some of them in a clinic while waiting my turn for physiotherapy.

Since then, the book has retained a sense of eternal joy and a smile for me, and that is why in my adult years I was very afraid to reread the story: what if I perceived it completely differently, and those childhood impressions faded? Nevertheless, the second time I also enjoyed it, and now I have read it for the third time. But this time I had a specific goal — to think about what had changed in my feelings and perception of the story compared to childhood, and also after so many years separating the everyday life of the book’s characters from today’s realities.

The book tells about the work of a programmer in an institute of sorcery and magic. Nothing less. Complete with all the trappings of Soviet research institutes of the 1960s–70s.

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Book: Ilya Varlamov “Travel Notes”

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Ilya Varlamov is a remarkable blogger (and now also a vlogger). For many years I enjoyed reading his journal — his notes about many countries were quite informative and always accompanied by wonderful photographs. More recently, I’ve also found him likable as a person because of his civic stance.

In 2014, the publishing house “MIF” decided to release his travel notes as a separate book. This edition caught my eye, and I decided to read in one place everything I had previously skimmed through in his journal.

However, the book turned out to be a huge disappointment. I don’t know who initiated the “paper” version, but it was done in a completely senseless way and with no clear idea of who it was for.

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Books Worth Reading (2017–2022)

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I am sometimes asked which books I would recommend reading. For the blog, this is generally not difficult — it’s enough to open all posts with the tag “I-recommend.” But since it’s been almost five years now since I revived my blog and began writing about the books I’ve read, I decided to put together a selection of non-fiction books I’ve read during this time that fall into the category of “you must read them.”

I have already written detailed reviews of all these books, so this time I’ve selected only the very best, grouped them by topic. For each book I give only brief recommendations on why they are worth reading, but you can always open the link to the full review. I hope this will be useful to someone. So, let’s begin.

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Book: Bulat Okudzhava “From School to the Front”

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Since my youth I have liked the work of Bulat Okudzhava, though back then I knew him only as a performer of songs. At home we had several of his records, and I enjoyed listening to the entire collection of my parents’ music. A little later I discovered Okudzhava also as the author of music and lyrics for many film songs, which I still enjoy listening to today.

Among other things, Bulat Okudzhava wrote quite a few songs for war films. I am sure almost everyone knows at least “We Face Deadly Fire” from Belorussky Station, or “Drops of the Danish King” from Zhenya, Zhenechka i ‘Katyusha‘. Okudzhava’s songs were able to convey the full range of feelings, and between the lines you could sense that the author knew what he was writing about.

And then I came across a book by Okudzhava from the series “My War,” in which veterans’ memoirs are published.

From School to the Front is not a single work but a collection of recollections that can formally be divided into “novellas” and “stories.” Formally — because this is not fiction, but rather the memoirs of Bulat Shalvovich, conveyed in his own manner.

The book begins with excerpts from interviews with the author, and only then come his writings. Okudzhava’s childhood was not easy. His father was repressed, and his mother also endured prison as the wife of a repressed man. And then came the war, at the start of which Bulat Okudzhava was only 17 years old.

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