Tag: Books

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

The struggle with the story of the golem and the jinni was real. Over the course of 620 pages, two theoretically enslaved magical creatures fight for building their identity, freedom, and personal growth. The writing style reminds of the tales of Scheherazade. It’s slow-paced and enchanting.

The book itself is a work of art: hardcover, high-quality paper, large print, and beautiful full-color page edges. It’s definitely one of the most beautifully designed books I’ve read recently. Many thanks to everyone involved in its production.

The story unfolds slowly. For a five-star rating, the plot could’ve been trimmed down to 300 pages. Most secondary characters didn’t need to die.

4*/5 but thanks to the beautiful print, the book already has a new home.

Books I Read in April

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

April was not a great month for reading for me. I missed the first 10 days and then read a few short ones for the number. Nevertheless, some mind blowing books came out of it. Few but good.

Best Books

  1. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir – the sad story about necromancers who face too much magic and a universe that’s 10K years after the apocalypse. I think some love is lurking in there but it’s not a romance. It’s deeply touching, well written, engaging, interesting, and memorable. It was by far the best book I read this month, and I keep thinking about it.
  2. Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams – a former director from Facebook reveals dark secrets from her past work. Mixed feelings here. Her story is awful and at the same time, the genie is not going back to the lamp.
  3. Harrow the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir. A book where the imaginary and the reality are so mixed that I needed Wikipedia to explain the events to me. However, despite the 4*, I feel this book was far more memorable than the next books on the list that I can forget quickly. I plan to get the 3rd part as well but maybe after a break.
  4. The Narrow Road Between Desires – Patrick Rothfuss is a modern classic with his incredible skill of arranging small and tiny events into a larger puzzle. I’d say, a good member of the Cozy Fantasy family.
  5. Cursed by Alex Kosh – 5* but pretty much unavailable anywhere, I was the lucky first reviewer on Goodreads. And also, thematic, it is about ghosts and in line with Gideon, Harrow and the unfortunate sixth book.

Worst Book

  1. Five Broken Blades – ironically, almost identical plot with Gideon the Ninth, which I liked so much. The story is about 6 (no kidding) people trying to assault an immortal king who is both the enemy and the ally. However, unlike Gideon the Ninth, it’s constantly annoying, and none of it makes sense. For example, why 5 blades if it’s about 6 people, and why broken, if nothing is broken? The book doesn’t answer. Maybe the sequel will.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 11 Comments

Gideon is a young and charming young woman, master swordsman. She happens to be raised in a world ruled by necromancers with many terrible risks associated with this craft. Death being a relatively small risk given that the necromancers around can imprison your soul, use your bones, or both.

The book has a logical magical system, and a grimdark atmosphere, horror-ish, which is in a stark contrast with Gideon’s positive and bubbly attitude. I loved both and have no objections.

However, there’s lots of death in the book and it’s sad, very sad. I didn’t like that part.

Overall, 5/5 but I do not recommend it because of the overall sadness.

Scott Berkun on Values

~ Veselin ~ 11 Comments

Talking about values and virtue signaling is easy. But sacrifice is hard and often unobserved. We don’t get as much credit from others for living up to our values, as we do for merely proclaiming them on social media or t-shirts.

— Scott Berkun on his Substack blog

Scott Berkun is an inspirational writer. He worked on the Internet Explorer team between versions 1 and 5. He also lead a team at Automattic, an experience he documented in the book The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work.

I keep writing about kindness and using every opportunity to treat people well. His post resonated a lot with me because it challenges a thing I value highly. Kindness usually costs little, requires no sacrifice, and can be visible. Scott Berkun says this is not a real value. Even worse, promoting kindness as a public statement could be like wearing a patriotic t-shirt.

This is not a new idea but a new point of view that hasn’t crossed my mind before. The Bible has lots of quotes that give a definition of good, and the lack of publicity is a common requirement.

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.

— Matthew 6:3

For example, is it a good thing when you hand free iPhones to strangers for views on YouTube? It costs something so it checks the first requirement but is done in public so it doesn’t check the second. Same with pretty much any act of kindness that’s done for views or shared on social media.

I need to think more about this.

Spring Harvest

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

An evil person invented the International Book Day and all the local publishers came up with massive discounts.

I restricted myself. One of my rules for buying and owning books is that I won’t buy entire series, only the first book of the series. If I like that book, I’d get the second book, and so on. Buying is more expensive that way but it helps me navigate the book clutter. They take space.