Category: Books

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

Maxim Ilyakhov, Lyudmila Sarycheva “The New Rules of Business Correspondence”

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novye-pravila-perepiski

If anyone remembers, I really didn’t like Write, Shorten by Maxim Ilyakhov and Lyudmila Sarycheva, a book on editing texts. Judging by the number of likes my review received on Goodreads, I’m far from alone in this opinion. As a result, I had no intention of reading another book by these authors. However, a colleague first recommended it to me, then another gave it a high rating. So, I decided to give them a second chance—anything’s possible.

From the very first pages, I felt this might have been a mistake, although my opinion shifted slightly later on. As before, there are some practical tips in the book. But let’s break it down step by step.

The authors begin much like they did in their previous book: first, they highlight how poor the world of business correspondence has become, the old ways we were taught for years, and how outdated those norms are. Now, they claim, they’ll teach us how to do things right. At least this time, they spared us a pompous comic about their battle against evil. But the tendency to exaggerate and sometimes paint a bleak picture without much basis is still present right from the start.

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Reza Aslan “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth”

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I am not a religious person; I do not believe in God, and, in general, I am very cautious about any religion. I certainly see a significant difference between a deity and the institution of worship built around it. However, religions are a huge part of modern civilization; they have influenced the development of humanity and continue to do so to this day. Therefore, I have always been interested in what lay at the origins, where various teachings began, and what truth has reached us through the ages versus what is merely interpretation and speculation from later generations.

Christianity is over two thousand years old, and everyone except the laziest knows the canonical story of Jesus, but what truly happened? From a historical perspective, who was Jesus of Nazareth? What took place two thousand years ago? This question is explored by countless researchers, presenting history from various perspectives, sometimes creating masterpieces of literature (Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is worth mentioning). People try to find logical explanations for the contradictions in this history, as demonstrated in the recently described book The Gospel of Afranius by Kirill Yeskov.

But there are also works by genuine historians based on numerous sources. The book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan is one of them.

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Mark Manson “Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope”

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Mark Manson caught my attention right from the first book of his that I read, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, which I discussed previously. Mark is 36, a popular blogger, and recently an acclaimed author.

He has a fairly cynical outlook on the world, yet he presents this perspective with a sharp and interesting style. We’ve read about not caring in his first book; the new one shocks right from the title, setting the tone with Everything is F*cked, while the subtitle complicates it further: A Book About Hope.

Like the first book, this one drew me in from the start, though I hit a point where I stalled, setting it aside and only returning a month later.

It’s hard to pinpoint a central theme in this book. It seems to build on the previous ideas that you should keep things simple, that the world can’t be changed, but you can change yourself. Yet it doesn’t feel entirely cohesive. Manson structures the narrative so one idea flows into the next, but afterward, you realize the connections don’t hold together that tightly. At least, I found the connection too artificial. Still, this doesn’t stop the book from being good.

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Georgiy Daneliya “Nightmare on Tiptoes”

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koshmar

Georgiy Daneliya is one of the most prominent Soviet directors. I can’t say I love all his films, but his works like Walking the Streets of Moscow, Mimino, Kin-dza-dza!, Don’t Grieve!, Afonya, and Autumn Marathon are iconic, along with Gentlemen of Fortune, for which he wrote the script. And that’s not a complete list.

I once stumbled upon excerpts from his memoirs, but I didn’t pay them much attention until I saw a book called A Passenger Without a Ticket at a friend’s—a memoir by the director about his life. I got interested, started reading, and quickly got hooked.

I finished the book in a few days, and at the end, there was a note: “To be continued.” I thought that couldn’t be a coincidence, so I searched online and found that Georgiy Daneliya had actually written three memoirs, later combined into a single cycle, initially called Chito-Grito (when it was a two-part series) and later released as a single book titled Nightmare on Tiptoes.

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Josh Kaufman “The Personal MBA”

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A friend of mine recently decided to enroll in an MBA program. I was curious as to why. From my experience, I’ve noticed that while MBA holders often have solid foundational knowledge, they frequently lose out to those who have acquired these skills independently, especially through hands-on experience.

So, I checked out the course content and its requirements. It states that a certificate of English proficiency is absolutely essential. The thing is, in all my life, I’ve never bothered to get any such certificate. Yes, my English is far from perfect, I know. I work on it continuously, but I never got around to obtaining a certificate. Nonetheless, I work at a large international company and communicate with colleagues and partners in English daily, both verbally and in writing.

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Kirill Eskov “The Gospel of Afranius”

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Kirill Yeskov is a paleontologist, and writing science fiction and speculative literature is a hobby for him. The Gospel of Afranius is his first work, written in 1995, for which he received the “Big Zilant” award in Kazan. However, he became widely known to science fiction fans in 1999 with the release of The Last Ringbearer, which completely reinterprets the events of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I would argue that Yeskov laid the groundwork for this approach in The Gospel of Afranius.

This book is an attempt to view the death and ascension of Christ through the lens of cold logic. The “novella” essentially consists of two parts. In the first, the author tries to assess the known facts and inconsistencies in the story as we know it from surviving sources and the Bible, making it more of an analytical essay.

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Reflections on the “Neapolitan Novels”, Friendship, Violence, and Social Mobility

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I started reading the Neapolitan Novels after being bombarded with rave reviews about the book. And I must say, I was not disappointed. Though the book didn’t grab me right away. The saga follows the lives of two friends, from their childhood to old age, spanning from the 1950s to the early 2000s. And this friendship is quite strange—it’s filled with envy and competition. It’s more akin to a codependent relationship between a man and a woman (let me clarify, this is about psychology, not about any kind of romantic love, which isn’t part of the dynamic between these friends). It’s the kind of relationship where they can’t break apart, but being together for too long is unbearable. The two are bound by elastic cords that can’t be snapped. And if they do part ways, it’s only to crash back together with twice the force. They compete with each other throughout their lives, yet it doesn’t stop them from helping one another.

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Robert G. Fresson “Flying Colors”

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The book Flying Colors: A guide to flags from around the world caught my attention with its title. After all, it’s genuinely interesting to learn why each country has its particular flag and what significance lies behind it. The cover even promised to delve into the history of all these colors and shapes. I was intrigued enough to buy the book in print, which I rarely do these days. But I had no choice, as there’s no digital version available.

The book is quite small, just 112 pages. And even those pages don’t contain much text—there’s a lot of graphic content. Plus, early on, the author introduces little helper figures of different colors (they’re even on the cover, raising flags like American marines). It’s unfortunate, though, that these helpers don’t play much of a role later on. They appear in nearly every illustration, but quickly fade into the background, becoming “white noise” that you barely notice. I had expected each one to serve a unique purpose, but that wasn’t the case.

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Fredrik Backman “Three Novellas”

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I’m somewhat hesitant to read all of Fredrik Backman’s books at once, even though his first two really resonated with me, more than I expected. Maybe that’s exactly why I’m hesitant. Additionally, both of the books I’ve read left a lasting impression, and I feel the need to give myself time to process those emotions and let them settle.

That’s probably why, instead of jumping into his third novel, I decided to start with three short novellas that were recently published in Russian under the “unexpected” title—Three Novellas.

These are really just three very short stories, more like sketches. And all of them are quite sad. I’ve heard some readers refer to them as “stories about illnesses,” and in a way, that’s true.

The first one is about cancer and a little girl. And it’s quite unsettling how Backman, with such brevity and simplicity, conveys the inevitability of death, while also evoking a certain calm acceptance.

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Olga Gromyko “See You on Cassandra!”

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kassandra

The As*trobiologists series by Olga Gromyko, which started off with a bang, gradually began to grow dull over time. The last novel, in which the main characters of the series didn’t participate at all, was a particularly tough read for me. However, I generally enjoy Olga’s books, so I decided not to give up on the series, even though, to be honest, I was afraid that this eighth book would be a real slog. But the novel See You on Cassandra! turned out to be livelier and more fun than the previous one. With this book, Olga has taken a few experimental steps.

First of all, the book was released only in digital format and hasn’t been printed on paper yet.

Secondly, in this novel, she seems to have decided to bring together practically all the characters previously mentioned in the series—both from the novels and the short stories.

The main focus, however, is not on the primary heroes, the crew of The Space Brain-Eater, but on the organization protecting cyborgs, which was gifted an entire planet—Cassandra—in one of the earlier books. The plot revolves around this very gift, as many are eager to share in such a fortune. So, at the center of the story are the guardians of the sentient cyborgs and their intelligent (and not-so-intelligent) wards, who find themselves embroiled in legal and other shenanigans to defend their property and good name. All the other characters either lend a hand or drop by for a visit.

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