Reading in September

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

My blog is at least partially about books but last month the books category remained silent. I attended the Alley of Books, met Nicholas Eames and bought many books but didn’t read much. Everything I started reading was either sub-par or slow. I finished 4 books, one of my worst months over the last years.

Best books

  • Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh – an unusual mix between Ender’s Game and Infinity Gate. A young, genetically modified super soldier, tries to save humanity while battling with prejudices. I enjoyed it and rated the book 5/5.
  • Inside Man by John McMahon – a crime story with several intertwined cases and a main mystery I couldn’t guess. I’d love to keep reading his Head Cases series. However, I never wrote a post about it and the reason why is probably also the reason for giving it 4/5 rather than 5/5. I can’t quite put it into words.

Worst books

  • Walk me Home by Sebastian Fitzek – DNF. I tried reading this thing for 3 days, going through 20-25 pages/day. It made me feel miserable. It’s an awfully unpleasant book, focused on describing torture and suffering. I only read maybe 70 pages in total before throwing it away. It might be better after the shocking intro but I doubt it. I didn’t give a 1* it on Goodreads because I didn’t finish it but this book is so unpleasant that I’m done with Sebastian Fitsek for good.
  • The Jury Master by Robert Dugoni – 2/5, an action/thriller that’s constantly switching between characters, successfully confusing you who is doing what. A few weeks after I finished it, I remember none of it.
  • Damage Control by Robert Dugoni – 3/5. The author clearly improved a lot after The Jury Master. The book has some good writing but the plot and the characters are cartoonish, painted in black and white. Unlike the previous two books, this one is readable and a solid 3/5. Robert Dugoni is a good writer and I’m glad my journey through his earlier works is over. I read all of his translated books.

GothamChess in Bulgarian

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

I had a period of chess addiction around the time my big kid was 5-7 years old. He showed interest in Chess, so I started learning it to make him a world champion. My kid lost interest in chess quickly but I kept playing and even attended the national championship for Rapid chess, where I had a terrible performance and got my soul crushed.

One of the streamers I watched at that time was the then younger Levy Rozman, GothamChess. I even subscribed to his Twitch and bought his courses before switching to streamers, more appropriate for my level. That period of my life ended long ago, I no longer study chess, don’t follow the developments, and very rarely play blitz. But I was surprised to find out that GothamChess grew so much in popularity that he got translated to Bulgarian.

Learnings from relationships

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Daily writing prompt
Which relationship has taught you the most about yourself?
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In order to answer this question, I need to remove a word from it – the word “yourself”. Sure, I learned stuff about myself when facing moments of struggle, suffering, risk, or terror. But the learnings in general are far more interesting and readily available than learnings from nearing breaking points. And you can learn from anyone.

I read this concept from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People where he makes a point that you should listen to people so they like you more. There is a quote predating his work and I think it’s cleaner than Carnegie’s as it means that you should just listen to understand with no particular goal. Here it is:

In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

So, you can learn things from almost everyone, as long as you listen. Listen with curiosity and no judgement, as Ted Lasso says.

Bench

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

I catch myself not taking cat photos when I spot cats these days. I saw maybe about 10 different cats today but I have zero photos and I’ll soon have to use my brain to come up with blog posts again. Or will have to scroll back the camera roll to the warmer weeks.

This young gentleman looked through me as if I didn’t exist.

Nemesis with Lauren Hart

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Arch Enemy released the new version of Nemesis with Lauren Hart. It’s a completely different song, compared to the iconic 2008 version with Angela Gossow. I’d love to see the live performance. I think it would be quite nice because Lauren Hart radiates energy like a Tesla coil.

Of course, the bar is set very high.

I hope they come to Sofia.