Month: September 2023

Book: J.K.Rowling, John Tiffany & Jack Thorne “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is, first, a play—and second, it was written with J. K. Rowling’s involvement, but still not by her alone. Both of those facts affect the way it’s presented. A play doesn’t really need vivid descriptions or direct access to the characters’ thoughts and feelings. You can’t show all that directly on stage; interpretation is the job of a specific director and a specific production. And having two co-writers as well also makes a difference.

Chronologically, the story begins almost exactly where the last novel of the main series ended—where, in the epilogue, we were shown the now-grown-up Harry, Hermione, and Ron seeing their children off to Hogwarts. Among them is Harry’s second son, Albus Severus Potter.

Up to this point, I hadn’t written reviews of any Harry Potter book. I mean, why would I, when tens (if not hundreds) of millions of people have read them already, so everyone knows what they are and what they’re about. But with this play I decided to make an exception.

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Book: Yuri Voskresensky “Voskresensky’s Gambit, or How I Overthrew Alexander Lukashenko”

When I started reading Voskresensky’s Gambit, my wife looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Like, do I really have nothing better to do with my time than read something like this. Because it was obvious that this creation has no documentary value whatsoever.

First, a few words about the author of this “book.” Yuri Voskresensky has been in politics for a long time: he served as a district council member in Minsk’s Pervomaisky District, he was involved in business (there are plenty of questions there too, but that’s not the point), and later he joined Viktor Babariko’s campaign team—until Babariko was arrested on fabricated charges in 2020 and thus removed from the presidential race in the Republic of Belarus.

Yuri Voskresensky himself was arrested as well; he spent some time in the “Amerikanka,” the Belarusian KGB detention facility, and then changed his views and set about building a supposedly democratic and positive opposition under the name “Round Table of Democratic Forces.” He also actively helped (by his own claim) secure the release of several political prisoners (who, in the view of the official Belarusian authorities, are not political prisoners). And the charges against Voskresensky himself were never fully dropped and still haven’t been to this day—which, however, doesn’t stop him from engaging in politics and publishing books that receive glowing reviews in the very first days after publication.

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