Tag: reading

Book: Raphaël Lucas “The History of The Witcher”

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The Witcher is one of the few Eastern European franchises to achieve worldwide fame and recognition. In his book, Raphaël Lucas set out to tell the story of how this franchise came to be.

I know that many fans of both the games and Andrzej Sapkowski’s literary original were thrilled when this book was announced. It quickly became a coveted gift for any occasion. I’ve read the main saga (except for the later novel that stands somewhat apart) and played through all three games in the series adapted by CD Projekt RED. My feelings toward the books are lukewarm, which has earned me the disapproval of some of my more fervent fan friends. Among the games, I especially highlight the third one, where the developers clearly sold their souls to the devil (and I say this with firsthand knowledge of what it takes to create games).

That said, I’m always interested in reading about how such iconic products come to life, especially from industry peers, so it didn’t take long for me to pick up the book—luckily, it’s not very long.

While expecting a comprehensive overview of the franchise, I knew this wouldn’t just be about the games (even though the cover prominently features a poster from the third installment). However, the author started from an even earlier point.

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Book: Alexander ‘Balu’ Balunov “Korol i Shut: Between Kupchino and Rzhevka…”

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In my previous post, where I discussed the TV series The King and the Jester (Korol i Shut), I mentioned that the show largely adheres to the real history of the band. I was able to compare the fiction with real-life events thanks to the memoir of one of the band’s creators and long-time members—Alexander Balunov, known by the nickname “Balu.”

Balu has written several books, and I decided to read his very first one, published in 2016: Korol i Shut: Between Kupchino and Rzhevka…

The book is a collection of memories about the creation of each of the band’s albums, various episodes from their lives, the members of the golden lineup, and, of course, the two main leaders—Mikhail “Gorshok” Gorshenev and Andrey “Knyaz” Knyazev. Although Balu is the primary narrator, for many chapters he brought in other contributors, including Knyaz, violinist Maria Nefyodova, Alexey Gorshenev (Gorshok’s brother), and even their mother.

Balu made the book interactive from the start. The print version includes numerous links (in the form of QR codes) to audio fragments he references throughout the narrative. These links were intended to direct readers to Balu’s personal website—kroogi.com. However, the site is no longer functional, meaning these links now lead nowhere. But Balu also created an audiobook version, which he narrates for the most part, occasionally enlisting actors to help. This audiobook is completely free and available on the author’s YouTube channel. There, you can either listen to the entire book (though without the photographs included in the text version) or access the mentioned audio fragments directly: the audiobook on YouTube (with audio fragments matching the book chapters exactly).

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Book: Reed Hastings, Erin Meyer “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention”

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It seems that every large (or simply well-known) company has its unique culture, which is also considered the only correct and successful one. We are all unique, after all. However, the concept of “correctness” and “success” is highly subjective. Yet many want to showcase that they achieved success solely because of their approaches (and that others, therefore, succeeded despite theirs).

First, there was the remarkable book Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull about the culture at Pixar. Then came the very loud, but completely unappealing to me, Principles by Ray Dalio. Finally, I reached No Rules Rules by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who co-wrote this book with Erin Meyer. I frequently recommend Meyer’s The Culture Map almost every time someone asks me about the best books.

This book, like many others, was highly praised by my colleagues, receiving the highest ratings. However, I always strive to form my own opinion rather than follow the masses. I read it. And it took me quite a while to gather my thoughts and finally write my review. This is because it is one of the most controversial books I have read in the past several years.

On the one hand, I will definitely recommend it. On the other hand, I had comments like “interesting, but there are nuances” for nearly every chapter. This is because, as usual, I tried to apply all the described approaches to myself as a manager and to the companies I have worked for. And here, as they say, things became far less straightforward.

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Book: Alexey Dudarev “Dialog”

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Alexey Dudarev is a Belarusian playwright and screenwriter. My first encounter with his work (or at least what I thought was my first) happened during my final years of school, as his play Riadovyie (“The Rank and File”) was part of the Belarusian literature curriculum. Our school library handed out the book Dialog, which included this play among others. I read a lot during my school years, but I was cautious about unfamiliar authors, especially those who were part of the required reading list. However, the Belarusian literature curriculum often included real gems. Many years later, I couldn’t recall the details of Riadovyie, but I was left with warm feelings about it, as it had been a pleasant surprise.

Later on, I learned that Alexey Dudarev’s plays weren’t only famous in the BSSR; they were also performed in many theaters across the USSR, including the Maxim Gorky Bolshoi Drama Theater in Leningrad and the Central Academic Theater of the Soviet Army, among others. These performances featured actors who were well-known throughout the Soviet Union, including from films.

It wasn’t until even later that I found out Dudarev wrote the script for one of my favorite films, which nearly every Belarusian knows—Belye Rosy (“White Dew”). This simple yet profound story about the final days of a village being displaced to make way for the city’s expansion is filled with both humor and the drama of family relationships, as well as reflections on what is truly important in life. And what a cast—Nikolai Karachentsov, Vsevolod Sanaev, Stanislav Sadalsky, Galina Polskikh, Boris Novikov, and many others.

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Book: Garik Korogodsky, “How to Spend a Million You Don’t Have”

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Since childhood, I’ve had a weakness for beautiful books. I might not even read them, but I’ll buy them just for their beauty (although lately, I’ve been buying more electronic ones).

That’s how Garik Korogodsky’s book first caught my attention — because of its design. I had no idea who this Korogodsky was, but the book sitting on my friends’ shelf simply demanded that I reach for it. And once I read the subtitle “and other stories of a Jewish boy,” its fate was sealed (I guess I have a genetic affinity for stories about Jewish boys). Interestingly, the book came to my friends from the previous owners of their apartments, and my friends hadn’t read it themselves.

First, a few words about the author. Garik Korogodsky, born Grigory Davidovich Korogodsky, has always been called Garik within his family. However, in the USSR, they didn’t want to put such a name on his birth certificate (I had a similar situation with my mom). Garik is a Ukrainian businessman and philanthropist, a dollar millionaire.

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Book: Evgeny CheshirKo “Diary of a Domovoi”

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I happened to see the book “Diary of a Domovoi” in someone’s feed, filled with a lot of praise, and it had even been reissued several times under the slogan “a new discovery of Runet.” And just at that time, I was in the mood for something light and non-demanding.

So imagine my surprise when, even before I started reading, a couple of days later, my wife suddenly began quoting from the same book. Apparently, she came across it at the same time from one of our friends. How could I resist picking it up and reading it myself?

The particular edition I chose is one of the most comprehensive, arranged in the order recommended by the author himself on his LiveJournal.

“Diary of a Domovoi” began as notes by the author from the perspective of a Domovoi, who suddenly decided to meticulously record what he did every day in the house he was entrusted with, along with all its inhabitants. And there are more and more of them over time.

At first, the Domovoi lives only with the Mistress and the cat, with whom he seems to have a friendly relationship, although he constantly tries to get the cat into trouble (fortunately, the cat is not particularly bright). Then, a small dog and the Mistress’s lover join the household. The Mistress’s mother also makes an appearance. After the entire family moves into a separate house, some local residents show up, including a priest, a partisan ghost, equally ghostly fascists, and residents of the protected forest.

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Book: Igor Mozheiko “West Wind — Fair Weather”

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We often reproach Americans for supposedly knowing nothing about World War II, for thinking they “won it,” when without the Soviet Union Hitler wouldn’t have been defeated. Of course, that’s all true. But it’s just as true that we ourselves know very little about their side of the war.

What can most of us name off the top of our heads? The Normandy landings (which have been chewed over from every angle in movies and in dozens of games)… and then the meeting on the Elbe. Oh right — we might have heard something about Pearl Harbor, and that they fought the Japanese a little bit over there, and that the evil Americans dropped two nuclear bombs, and that was that.

As executive producers, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg decided to tell more of the war through American eyes. First, in 2001, they released Band of Brothers about combat in Europe. And nine years later, in 2010, they followed with The Pacific about a part of the war we barely know at all — because the Soviet Union didn’t take part in it, and so it simply wasn’t something people talked about. (And I very much recommend both series if you haven’t seen them.)

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Book: “White-Red-White. Flag. Nation. Identity”

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The publication in 2024 of a book about the white-red-white flag — or, as it is often called, the BChB (from the Belarusian bel-chyrvona-bely) — is rather symbolic. Once again, numerous myths and layers of dirt are being thrown at it, just as has happened periodically throughout its existence.

As an introduction, it’s worth noting that the white-red-white flag was the official flag of the Republic of Belarus from 1991 to 1995, as was the coat of arms “Pahonia,” rendered in the same colors (since, according to the approved designs, the red of the flag was meant to match the red of the coat of arms). Moreover, to this day these symbols are not formally banned in Belarus. However, in present-day Belarus one can receive a very real prison sentence for displaying them — and even for something as accidental as a white-and-red color combination, whether it’s socks or an LG TV box left on a balcony.

The book “Bel-Chyrvona-Bely” (published in Belarusian) is arguably the first full-fledged scholarly study of the origins of both the flag and the coat of arms, as well as of the color combination itself, released in the form of a substantial volume. I wouldn’t call it popular science — it is genuinely a thoroughly researched work by an entire collective of authors (who, unfortunately or perhaps fortunately for themselves, remain unnamed in the book). It is rich with illustrations, and all conclusions are supported by an extensive array of references, as one would expect from serious academic research.

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“Ten Little Indians”: On the Changing Titles of an Agatha Christie Novel

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Content note: This post examines the publication history of Agatha Christie’s novel and the evolution of its title and associated rhyme. To document that history accurately, it includes direct quotations of period wording that contains racial slurs. Such language is unacceptable in modern usage; it appears here only as part of quoted historical material, for context and analysis.

Today I’d like to talk a little about Agatha Christie — more precisely, about one of her most famous works, the novel “Ten Little Niggers“. In Russian, both the novel and the 1987 Soviet film adaptation by Stanislav Govorukhin are still known under the title Desyat negrityat (“Ten Little Negroes”). In Russian usage, the word negrityonok historically functioned as a neutral racial descriptor rather than a slur, which partly explains why the title remained unchanged in that cultural context.

I first encountered this work in childhood — not through the book, but through Stanislav Govorukhin’s 1987 film adaptation, released in Russian as Desyat negrityat (and often referred to in English as Ten Little Indians). I saw it a year later, while vacationing at the seaside with my parents. The film was being shown at the resort cinema, and if I remember correctly, my younger brother and I even went without our parents.

I remember how that closed-circle mystery (Christie specialized in exactly that kind of structure), combined with an excellent cast and the oppressive atmosphere of the production, made an indelible impression on me. It didn’t exactly frighten me, but it was impossible to look away as, over the course of the story, nearly all the main characters disappear one by one. And yet — what could an eleven-year-old boy, which is what I was at the time, really understand of it? Back then I looked like this (not exactly a heartthrob, of course, but still reasonably presentable):

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Book: Nikolai Lyutomsky “I Was Lucky”

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My parents are both civil engineers by education, so from childhood I knew quite a bit about how construction works from the inside. My dad often took my brother and me to construction sites, and my mom, in my early years, worked as a design engineer. That’s when it stuck with me that there are architects, and there are designers. I can’t say for sure how exactly this was explained to me back then, but what settled in my mind was roughly this: architects are artists — they’re about making things beautiful — and designers are the ones who figure out how to make that “beautiful” actually happen with the resources available. Nikolai Lyutomsky’s book “I Was Lucky” is precisely a look at this industry through the eyes of an architect who was fortunate enough to work on many interesting projects. And I really wanted to hear from the other side of the fence, so to speak.

Nikolai Lyutomsky began his career as a state-employed architect in the USSR, and later founded his own architectural bureau, “Elis,” where at first he worked independently, and in recent years with strong support from his wife and son, developing landmark projects of very different kinds — from residential complexes to schools and theaters.

We rarely read books by people we don’t know. And I didn’t come across the book “I Was Lucky” by chance — I learned about it from the author’s page literally on the day it was released, because I was lucky (there’s a little pun on the title) to get to know Nikolai Vadimovich personally (even if not in person, but through correspondence). And I want to tell that story in this review, because it seems very important to me for understanding the author’s personality.

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