Category: Books

Notes about everything related to books, including reviews of books I’ve read

Book: Babaykin “Retired at 35”

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Another book by yet another popular blogger. Lately, I find myself reading more and more of these. On the other hand, it’s always interesting to see what people like and why. Although this case is a bit different. I have no idea who this Babaykin guy is. He claims to talk a lot about investments and be well-connected in various circles… but a quick search didn’t bring up this so-called “famous blogger,” so I couldn’t figure out what the book is based on (probably just bad at searching). Unlike Alexey Markov, whose book Hoolinomics was clearly grounded in his blog and who pops up instantly in search results. And then there’s the fact that the author is hiding behind a pseudonym, which I always find odd. Maybe he just doesn’t want attention (even though he talks quite a lot about his personal life).

But that’s beside the point. I wasn’t that interested in the blog anyway, given that there’s already a book. Plus, the rating seems pretty high.

The title of the book is intriguing in itself. Everyone’s lazy these days, no one wants to work, and sitting idle at 35 while feeling like a millionaire is the ultimate dream for most ordinary people. I’ll buy the book, read it, and become just like that! (Sounds a bit like some pitches I heard back in the ’90s.)

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Book: Roman Papsuev “Marvelous Wonder” (Volumes 1 and 2)

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I’ve been following Roman Papsuev’s wonderful world of “Old Rus’” almost since the first illustrations appeared, back when it wasn’t even a world yet—just the artist’s fresh take on well-known characters from Slavic folklore. I wrote more about this project earlier this year when I discussed the book “Tales of Old Rus’. Origins.”

By that time, however, Roman had already drawn, written, and released two additional volumes under the collective title “Marvelous Wonder” (Divo Chudnoye). I purchased both in mid-summer, devoured the first volume over a couple of evenings in July, and left the second one lying around, waiting for its time, all the way until September.

These are still art books, where the illustrations and high-quality printing are incredibly important. However, “Marvelous Wonder” already has some distinctions from the earlier books.

The very first volume, “Tales of Old Rus’. The Beginning”, was a pure art book, almost devoid of text. The second book, “Tales of Old Rus’. Origins”, as I mentioned earlier, reused many of the same illustrations, but Roman took the time to describe in detail how he created his characters, pointing out numerous details that one might easily overlook during a casual viewing. In this book, he also began to expand on the world in which his characters live. This turned out to be significantly more engaging than simply looking at the pictures.

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Book: Patrick Lencioni “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”

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I’ve already written about Patrick Lencioni and my introduction to his books two years ago, so there’s no need to repeat myself. In that same review, I mentioned that the first book of his I read was the bestseller The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, written in his favorite genre—a business novel. To briefly remind you what that genre is: the book is presented as a work of fiction, but it addresses a specific business problem, and throughout the narrative, it shows how the fictional characters solve that problem. At the end, the author usually summarizes the key points in a more straightforward, business-like manner.

Recently, during a discussion, I found myself referring to several of Patrick’s ideas from this book. I decided to open it again to find the exact quotes, and the book immediately pulled me in. I read it over just two or three evenings before bed, even though I was already familiar with the content. However, I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting the concepts, applying them to my own experience and the realities of several of my clients (as I now work as a management and process consultant). I think I may have appreciated the book even more this time than when I first read it.

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“The As*trobiologists” — now in English

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This post is mostly for my English-speaking friends (even though my blog is in Russian). Recently Amazon has started selling an English translation of one very good Russian Sci-Fi book with comedy elements. The book is written by my good friend and is very popular among Russian readers. But it would be interesting to know how good the Russian translation is and how this kind of humor is perceived by English-speaking audiences.

Olga Gromyko “The As*trobiologists” (Volume 1)buy
Olga Gromyko “The As*trobiologists” (Volume 2)buy

LitRes: Differences Between ePub and iOS.ePub

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Those who frequently use the LitRes website may have noticed that sometimes eBooks are offered in two ePub formats: standard ePub and iOS.ePub. Many have probably wondered, what’s the difference? I was curious too, so, as a well-known nerd… researcher, I decided to conduct my own investigation.

In addition to offering two formats, LitRes sometimes sells books in the iOS.ePub format separately from the regular eBook edition, and often at a significantly higher price. They used to do this quite often with Boris Akunin’s books.

Since deep down I’m still a bit of a programmer, I have a general idea of what the ePub format is (without getting into the weeds, it’s essentially hypertext). That’s why I was very curious about this sub-format LitRes invented, one they’re charging extra for.

When you try searching online, the results are pretty sparse. They mostly mirror the standard response you’d get from LitRes tech support when asking this question: “iOS.ePub is adapted for viewing on iOS devices.” Not exactly the most helpful answer. Thanks, Captain Obvious, so to speak. And even when you follow up with another question, Captain Obvious doesn’t falter:

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Book: Sid Meier “Sid Meier’s Memoir! A Life in Computer Games”

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In the video game industry, there are trendsetters, visionaries like Steve Jobs, and other legends. And then there are the gods. I’m not afraid of this comparison—Sid Meier can be counted among the gods of game development. Because it’s impossible not to know him, and his creations have forever changed the industry, setting the course for a significant number of genres and franchises. Even players who may not recognize his name almost certainly know at least one of his games, and that game is Civilization.

There are people whose names became their calling cards. Their games were bought without question, their name alone enough of a guarantee, because they had already created masterpieces in the past. But I can’t readily recall anyone else whose name was consistently placed directly in the titles of their games. With Sid Meier, this happened multiple times, starting with that very Civilization, officially titled Sid Meier’s Civilization (though the idea of adding his name to the titles didn’t actually come from Sid Meier himself).

Why can he be called a god? Precisely because, with resources modest by today’s standards, he managed to create an entire world with its own nations, a world that grew and evolved according to the rules set by its creator. He made his own Earth, where every player could also feel a bit like a god, guiding their chosen group of people from the dawn of time to the era of space exploration (in the original game, humanity’s journey to Alpha Centauri was one of the possible endings).

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Book: Richard Knaster, Dean Leffingwell “SAFe 4.0 Distilled”

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It’s impossible not to know about Agile development nowadays. Heaven forbid someone catches you unaware—it’s practically a career-ending move. I’m joking, of course, but the fact remains: every developer and manager in IT can talk at length about how they’ve implemented Scrum, Kanban, sprints, and plenty of other fancy terms in their teams. However, in practice, it turns out that very few people actually know how to make all this work properly (and the author of these lines harbors no illusions about his own expertise, even though I’ve been working in this field for a long time). While these methodologies have been actively used for many years, it eventually became clear that in their pure form, they work well for small teams, but when applied to projects with a large number of participants, the results are less impressive. That’s when the next wave of development began, as people started thinking and experimenting with how to scale these practices.

A lot of new methodologies emerged—some faded away, while others developed through trial and error and found their use. Among them are Scrum of Scrums, LeSS, and SAFe, though there are many others as well. It’s hard to say which one is clearly the best, but SAFe has recently gained a lot of followers and seems to be leading the pack statistically. At some point, I couldn’t ignore it because every methodology has its advantages. Even if it doesn’t fully take root for you or your team, you can always borrow some elements, implement them first, then move on to the next… and so on, as long as it genuinely improves quality, transparency, and, of course, the final result.

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How Else to Show Off

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I was browsing through different editions of Dmitry Glukhovsky’s Metro series and discovered that the entire trilogy has been released in a single volume. There are also editions with different illustrations. One has a rather dull cover, while the other features artwork from the latest game in the series, Metro: Exodus. The latter looks very beautiful and perfectly fits the theme of the book (even though it’s based on the game).

But then I saw previews of individual pages from the edition and was quite surprised by the original approach taken by the typesetter (or designer) of this edition. Here’s an example of one of the printed pages:

It’s rather unexpected and very unusual to see text laid out in two columns on a page, making a total of four columns across a spread. Of course, it looks fresh and grabs attention. But for me, it would be inconvenient to read. And it’s unclear why it was done this way. What problem was the designer trying to solve?

Tell me, would it be comfortable for you to read like that?

Book: Jan T. Gross “Neighbors”

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It might seem strange to begin a discussion about the book Neighbors by Jan Tomasz Gross with reflections on management, but for some reason, that’s the thought that came to me as I considered the book after finishing it.

Having managed people for many years, I’ve developed a few principles that I’ve always tried to adhere to in both work and life. One of them is to speak openly about what has happened and to draw lessons from both one’s own missteps and the events of history, even when they are extremely unpleasant. For me, Neighbors is precisely such an example. It is an honest account of events that took place in several small towns in Poland in 1941, when the areas around Białystok, previously occupied by the Red Army, were taken over by German forces following the launch of their war against the USSR.

The main focus of the book is on the pogrom in the village of Jedwabne, where, on July 10, the majority of the Jewish population was massacred. For many years, it was believed that the Jews were killed by German soldiers, specifically the so-called Einsatzgruppen. However, facts emerged that shocked many in Poland. It turned out that there were no Germans in the village at the time, and that all the atrocities were committed by Poles—the Jewish neighbors with whom they had lived side by side for decades—once the new authorities made it clear they would turn a blind eye to everything. And from there, it was just a short step to taking Jewish property and dividing up the spoils.

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Affiliate Programs of Bookstores: Description and Review of Popular Ones

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There is a concept known as affiliate (referral) programs. In short: you promote a store’s products, and in return, the store gives you a percentage of each sale. It’s generally beneficial for everyone: the store gains new customers thanks to advertising on external platforms, and the authors of popular resources get a small cut from the stores if their readers decide to make a purchase. Moreover, this is highly advantageous for stores (from my non-professional point of view). In most cases, when you pay for advertising, you spend money without any guarantee of getting it back. But here, you essentially receive free advertising and only pay a small percentage of the actual revenue generated by the user. Furthermore, as a store, you typically pay for a single purchase, but the buyer might stay and become a long-term customer. For subsequent purchases, you almost never pay anyone. Additionally, there’s the well-known factor of the first purchase—it’s much harder to convince someone to make their first purchase, but if they’re satisfied, the likelihood of a second purchase increases significantly.

As a devoted bookworm, I’ve always kept an eye on the development of online book sales. I witnessed the rise and growth of ozon.ru, and I even had a small hand in the creation of the Belarusian oz.by when it launched. From then on, I simply followed the market’s evolution.

As soon as such stores started offering affiliate programs, I signed up to test them out. This was especially advantageous when I was regularly writing the ” The Notes of Glitch the Hamster” series (the namesake of this blog), which reviewed all the latest sci-fi releases on the Russian-speaking market. Back then, I included links to books directly in my reviews, using my affiliate ID. I wouldn’t say I earned a lot, but I did manage to buy a few books (considering that getting books from Russian ozon to Belarus at the time wasn’t exactly easy).

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