January 2025 in Books

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

2025 starts well, as if the Goodreads challenge is still usable. I completed many good books last month.

Best books

  1. A Deadly Influence by Mike Omer – I had to read a book that says Instagram is evil. Well written, a bit heavy. 5/5
  2. The Waiting by Michael Connelly – Michael Connelly only gets better with time. His “new” character Renée Ballard is even cooler than Harry Bosch. 5/5
  3. Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat – Liquid anger against the oppressive regime in Iran. 5/5
  4. Night of the Dragon by Julie Kagawa – A slightly romantic finish of a great artifact disposal fantasy. 5/5
  5. Completely nuts by Gilles Legardinier – Low-stakes bubblegum. 5/5

Worst books

  1. Defiant by Brandon Sanderson – Spensa gets misbalanced nerfs and OPs, nothing to read there. 4/5 but really lower.
  2. Rainbow (Дъга 1) – a comic book about the dark twists of ordinary fantasy events. 4/5

Budapeshta Street

~ Veselin ~ 7 Comments

This is Budapeshta Street (named after Budapest), one of the most hipster areas of Sofia where the new and old live together. Lots of restaurants and small businesses and not as many tourists as elsewhere.

New graffiti, an old house, and a giant ancient hole between the two, filled with Roman ruins.

How to Teach a Kid Play Chess

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

Chess is a game that should’ve disappeared by now. Chess engines have become so strong that humans can no longer contribute to game theory—except by coding the chess engines. Yet, YouTube is filled with funny and wildly popular chess influencers. As a result, both of my kids have taken an interest in learning the game. Now, it’s time to teach my youngest, who is 6.

Here’s my strategy for teaching the game:

  1. Show the piece movement, arrange the board and start playing
  2. Do not win! Little kids seem to love beating their parents 🙂
  3. Do not take any pieces outside of avoiding check or recapturing
  4. Encourage them to use all pieces
  5. Once you feel like the kid got a basic idea, switch to mini games
  6. Give them 2 rooks and queen vs your king. Let them find a checkmate
  7. Once they find a checkmate, give yourself a pawn and play hard
  8. Once they find a checkmate, give yourself 2 pawns. Teach them how to attack the backward pawn
  9. Once they find a checkmate, give yourself a knight. Teach them forks
  10. Keep adding pieces to the board for both sides until a real game becomes possible

Around point 10 it’s time to find a chess club. This is when the chess became a chore for both of us with the big kid. Also, finding a tick where the kids played didn’t help much. I’ll try to improve the process with the second kid, maybe find a club without ticks.

A Deadly Influence by Mike Omer, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

A Deadly Influence is a crime thriller about Abby Mullen, a hostage negotiator assisting with a kidnapping case. Somehow, the kidnapping is linked to a cult. Abby Mullen grew up in a cult and is still haunted by the massacre that brought it to an end.

Overall, the book is fantastic—well-written, unpredictable, and somewhat logical. I don’t often read fiction about events that could actually happen.

The only issue was that the publisher used a very tiny font size to save from paper. It was painful to read. They squished a 450-page book into 300 pages.

5*/5.