Timo
Excellent overview to the history of London, especially from the esoteric point of view. There's stories from Spring-Heeled Jack to Highgate Vampire, small biographies of famous London residents from Helena Blavatsky to Aleister Crowley, from John Dee to William Blake, what do Ley lines have to do with Hawksmoor churches, ancient legends about the founding of Trinovantum (New Troy), which 1000 years later became Caer Lud, Caerlundein, Londinium and finally the London we have learned to know. I've had many lunches and relaxing walks at the Bunhill Fields burial grounds where William and Catherine Blake were laid to rest. It's incredible to learn about the history of my hometown and I'm planning to explore many places mentioned in the book during the next summer. There's also tons of references and tips for further reading. If this kind of stuff is any of your interest, grab a copy of this book and dive in.
This book continues where Prisoners of Geography was left off, but gives more focus to the future and includes even a chapter about space. No, not about aliens, but travelling to space and colonising the Moon and Mars. It's well written and gives the reader many interesting insights they never probably even thought about.
If you have read Luke Harding's Mafia State, this book goes to the same territory but digs much deeper and is like an encyclopaedia of Putin's Russia, a huge list of names, businesses and their connections to each other and major events like assassinations, war in Ukraine, Crimean takeover and so on. This book also doesn't let western banks and tycoons to stay in the shades. It's a long and exhausting read but also impressive. The amount of background work done must be enormous!
If you've ever read any critical books about Trump and the rise of fascism, this book probably doesn't offer you anything new. It's still well written and the author has done her background work very well. Instead of just listing issues in the Trump administration, she's taking the reader deeper to the American Midwest, to the actual Rust Belt, one of the sources of the whole movement.
I decided to re-read this in English. I had forgotten many details but I still remember how terrible the Finnish translation for the word telescreen is. The book is a classic, often quoted and badly misunderstood. It was banned in Soviet Union and censored in Finland. Although it's pretty good description of a dystopian society, it also focussing too much on technical details instead of the characters. Good but could be better.
I enjoyed Ready Player One quite a lot as it brought me a huge amount of memories of old video games and other geekery I've always been into. The sequel, however, didn't give me the same vibes. The protagonist has turned out to be a bit of a dick and there's another treasure hunt, which feels like it fails to get as interesting as the previous one. I didn't really enjoy the epic battle against the seven but I bet it might look great in a movie. The book gets better towards the end so keep reading if you feel like you want to give up after the first hundred pages.
Tämän kirjan sanoman voisi tiivistää sanoihin: kyllä tsuhna on sitten tyhmä! Kymmeniä maa- ja kiinteistökauppoja strategisten kohteiden vierestä eikä niitä kyetty, haluttu tai edes ymmärretty estää. Ennusmerkit ovat olleet jo kauan ilmassa eikä Venäjän hyökkäys Ukrainaan varmaankaan jätä enää epäilyksen sijaa yhdenkään isänmaallisen poliitikon ja virkamiehen ajattelussa. Haluaisin vain tietää, kuinka monta vieraan vallan edun mukaisesti toiminutta ja toimivaa hyödyllistä idioottia tai suorastaan valtionpetokseen syyllistyneitä meillä edelleenkin työskentelee päättävissä asemissa. Poliitikkojen NATO-takki on kääntynyt nopeasti mutta kovin tietämättömiä ja naiiveja monet heistä vaikuttivat olevan vielä pari vuotta sitten. Turvallisuusselonteot ovat olleet puutteellisia ja riskiarviot leväperäisiä. Toimittajalla riittänee työnsarkaa edelleenkin syyllisten etsimisessä. Johannes Virolaisia ja Tarja Halosia Suomenmaassa tuntuu riittävän, samoin hyväuskoisia ja epätoivoisia kuntapäättäjiä.
Not as good as the first part of the Languedoc trilogy, but still entertaining. I remember reading this in Finnish in the summer 2009 at my mum's summer house but I had forgotten most of the details already.
I wasn't really a big fan of the writing style. It's fragmented and there's a lot of dramatic...Pauses. What? Yes. Pauses. Really? Yes. A fly is buzzing on the ceiling. Next the author will jump into something very different before returning back to the story. Her story. Story. This is how a huge chunk of the storytelling goes.
Some descriptions are great, e.g. the exclamation mark coloured coat, but sometimes I feel that the author tries to be a little bit too clever. The first edition of this book got destroyed and I hope the author has by now learned what a backup is. Perhaps re-writing the whole book was a good thing? We can never really tell.
Despite my criticism above, I liked the actual story and the description of life in the 1970s when university students were dreaming of a communist revolution and theatre was just one way to achieve that goal. This story could possibly work very well as a movie.
I seriously began considering becoming a vegetarian while listening to this audiobook. I think it started as a really strong, even disturbingly detailed description of a society where cannibalism is part of the normal cuisine. I removed one star as the last quarter of the book doesn't really reach the same level.
My first thought was “What the heck is this book all about? Why does it have so great reviews?” A moment later I started to understand why. It's a fantasy world that reminds me of video games Myst and Journey. But what is the place and how did our protagonist end up in there? You can only find out if you keep reading.
Sad life stories
So many sad life stories. War, hunger, poverty, violence, racism, alcoholism, corrupt regimes. And there are so many of them in this book. Soviet life seemed better but was it?
I really don't get the point of this book. Most of the time there isn't much happening.
A story about a housewife who became a sex worker together with her husband. If you've read about sex work before, this book doesn't probably tell anything new or shocking. If you think sex work is all about being a victim of human trafficking and standing in the corner of a street while waiting for clients, you are obviously wrong and should read this book.
I've enjoyed watching The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan on BBC so I was excited to read this book. It didn't leave me cold as I didn't know much about his history other than “he's done some comedy”. This book is not made out of jokes and funny stories, but stories about life, told in his signature style: wry, sarcastic and a little bit self-loathing. Something many of us can very much relate to. At least I can. I don't know about you.
A collection of small stories. Some quite average, some excellent. I liked especially the one which was written from the alien perspective.
This book is a summary of Russian history and historical events which have shaped the Russian empire, Soviet Union and the current Russian state and the Russian people. It's a good information package for those who want to understand the Russian bear a little bit better.
This book did not motivate me well enough to finish it. It's like reading a bad presentation with lots of massive yelling punchlines that don't really impress. Save your time for something better.
It wasn't quite what I was expecting. There's quite a lot of monologue and very very little dialogue. Kinda in a similar way to Interview with a Vampire. I should have read this horror classic long time ago but better late than never.
Audiobook: What happened behind the scenes before and after Russian invasion to Ukraine. How Finnish politicians realised that there is no turning back and the threat was real.
I lived in Berlin for 2 years so I have a personal relationship with that city. I'm also a big fan of Babylon Berlin TV series so I was interested in grabbing this book. It's a story taking place in the capital of Weimar republic. Communism and fascism are raising their ugly heads and threatening the peace. There's poverty, violence, sexual minorities, wild parties, protests and other events that happened nearly hundred years ago.
I don't know why it took so long for me to read this book. I loved the movie and I was happy to see that it was very loyal to the book.
This was painfully long. Some bits were getting really boring. Definitely the weakest of all Witcher books I've read.
A collection of short essays about being an immigrant, someone who has grown up and lived in a country where they are not part of the majority culture. I think every white person should read this to try to understand all the issues caused by racism and what kind of obstacles people may face when whiteness is the norm and anyone not fitting that norm is always treated as an outsider, an immigrant.