Alex
I was really angry at the main character for being such a “good white girl” in the second half, and the ending made me even angrier. The characters tried their best and lost, while the villains walked free to rule the world—it felt a little too realistic. I mean I'm not entitled to the good ending but I always hope for one.
Still, the book is great. It is easy to read, and the atmosphere of the American South is a total joy. It is definitely one of the better horror books out there.
The audiobook narration is also fantastic, which I bet wasn't easy considering the book features quite a long childbirth scene.
Absolute cinema. Much better than The Trojan Women. Not only is the story superior, but the descriptions of the setting and characters are far more vivid.
I absolutely loved the story. I vaguely knew the myth of Medea and Jason, but I had no idea how evil Medea actually is—or how her love, resentment, and eventually, her wrath destroy everything around her. Her longing for a home she can never return to because of her own actions was one of my favorite parts. Definitely worth a read; it's short and the verse isn't hard to follow.
A nice little play about the aftermath of the Trojan War. Apparently, Euripides was staunchly anti-war at a time when that was an extremely unpopular stance, especially with the invasion of Sicily looming on the horizon; I appreciate and respect him for that. He managed to portray the horrors of war very well within such a short play. I recommend reading it if you're up for some poetry.
Отличный экземпляр русского магического реализма с элементами абсурдизма. Всё очень по-русски, по-домашнему, но немного странно, как во сне. Рассказ Лихо совершенно точно лучший, два других похуже, но тоже неплохие и покороче.
Временами сильнейшие вайбы Сорокина, впрочем никогда не переходящие в откровенную чернуху (хотя и близко).
Good book, interesting tensions between Syracusans and failed invaders Athenians. The story is a bit slow but definitely has its moments. But I wasn't particularly invested in it or the characters until very late in the book, I wouldn't say at any point in the book I was interested in what was going to happen next - just a sad story with a side of crushed skulls here and there.
Narration by the author is not perfect but still good, considering Irish accent/dialect of the book I bet author knew better how to read them.
3.5/5
Easy to read and understand. The economic part is extremely good - explains variable and constant capital, surplus value, rate of surplus, rate of profit. Those concepts give you more ideas to explore and scenarios to imagine (like what if we replace half of the workers with AI). The ideological part is so-so, but it's not much, so not a problem.
I really enjoyed this book. It starts by going through various stages of human society (hunter-gatherers, agriculture, slave economy, peasant economy, etc.) from a historical materialism point of view. Despite being familiar with the concept it was an eye-opening experience for me to read in-depth analysis of past modes of production.
When it starts talking about the capitalist economy, though, it changes the tone and tries to get into a lot of details. Even though the most interesting parts are about the capitalist economy (domestic economy and wage gap, energy, development of steam turbines), it felt like the author lost the structure and just wanted to tell everything. The book also gets very math-heavy in random places - like you're reading about the gender wage gap and BAM you're reading about probability density.
The chapter about socialist economies also had its highlights. One that stood out to me is the suppression of bread prices (way below its labor value) in Poland led by workers' political power. It looks like a good thing on the surface, but it hindered the development of agriculture and in the end led to shortages.
In the end, Cockshott reiterates some points from Towards a New Socialism about the possibility of a consensus-based planned economy with modern technologies and tries to predict some developments of the future society.
All in all definitely worth a read if you're into this kind of stuff.
This book should be 50% shorter, especially the finale which takes a solid quarter of the book.
I really liked the first half of the book where magic intertwines with the reality of American life in 80s and 25 years later. But towards the end it became a drag with a lot of uninteresting action at the very end.
I am also not a fan of “road romantic” and Joe Hill definitely is - highways, cars, motorcycles.
The audiobook narration is perfect, nothing to say more.
3.5/5
Got it for free from Audible.
This book has one advantage - it's very easy to read. Other than that it's an average cop drama about Albuquerque PD (competent and even beautiful at times) doing their job (that's where fiction starts) and it gets personal.
It's not bad but not for me. The final twist is weird and in my opinion lazy. Also the title has almost absolutely nothing to do with the book's content.
A rare find - very good horror book.
The setting is slightly cheesy - Charleston, SC in 80s but I loved it - all these god-loving Reagan conservatives, marshes and eternal summer - what's not to like.
The book creates a great atmosphere of desperation for the protagonist: everything is clear as day and nothing can be done. That's the real horror, though the book has its share of paranormal shit as well.
10/10 would read again
Jackknife: evil tree comes to life 2/5
The Indigo Room: a woman who works on soulcrushing office job has some excitement. Meh 2/5
The Blanks: very original and scary 5/5
Night and Day in Misery: average Missouri experience, trauma porn and ghost story 2/5
Letter Slot: a teenager makes not entirely morally justifiable deals 4/5
All in all only “The Blanks” is worth reading but it REALLY IS worth reading, reminded me of “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain” for some reason.
Мне очень понравилось, славянское dark fantasy с туповатым чёрным юморком это прям моё. В принципе я не почувствовал какой-то неровности в рассказах, все хорошие, но про Снегурочку вообще уже какое-то аниме (в хорошем смысле).
Атмосфера классная и чтобы избежать ломки я незамедлительно начал вторую книгу.
I read all 179 episodes + 21 special episodes in five days and it was awesome.
The story is kinda stupid but fun - the main character meets very little resistance but for some reason it didn't bother me, it's basically what I dreamed about when I was bored as a teenager, I didn't dream about overcoming obstacles or growing up, I dreamed about unlimited power and having a cool nickname (like Monarch of Shadows). The art is great as well.
I also liked manhwa format which is very easy to read on the phone, much easier than manga or comic books.
10/10 would read again.
Psychedelic experience with elements of psychological horror. It is definitely a classic and hardly feels like a 50+ year old book. At times it was too psychedelic for me, and even though it is a short book, it took some effort to finish it.The finale is just chef's kiss - absolute cinema.
The audiobook narration is quite good, and I can recommend listening to it.
Oregon mentioned - instant 5 stars.
But really, it's a very good sci-fi detective from the golden age of space exploration. The story is happening in 2028-2029, so it's quite interesting to read how people imagine the extent of scientific progress in the future and compare it to reality.
It never read hard SF and some people say that that's it but it didn't feel like hard, there are some long discussions and explanations, very basic math but there is no need to understand it, most of the resulting stuff is quite obvious or explained.
The audiobook narrator is surprisingly good and even did some voices in the first half of the book. The book is also free with an audible subscription.
I would totally recommend it if you're not afraid of that bittersweet feeling of dreams which you know will never be fulfilled.
Incredibly interesting book about Rwandan genocide. It obviously has some nightmarish scenes but not as much as you could expect.
I learned a lot about genocide itself, involvement of France on the side of killers and reinforced a notion of the UN as an absolutely useless and at times harmful organization.
It was especially interesting how genocidaieres used the resources of humanitarian help in refugee camps to continue terrorizing tutsis long after officially genocide was over and the international community was absolutely helpless to do anything and actually actively denied that happening.
It is sad to read this now, 30+ years later and see what Rwanda does to Congo now and how there is still a nightmarishly bad situation in Congo with full support of Western countries because everyone needs cobalt and nobody wants to think about Africans who mine it.
As for audiobook narration it's mostly fine but the narrator (who is also the author) often very audibly suppressing yawns or burps, absolutely bizarre how that wasn't fixed.
Yeah, Dan Winslow is a great writer. The form is perfect – language, action, plot, everything is how it should be. The audiobook narration also fits – low, alpha-male whisper.
But I just can't stand blue brotherhood crap and Denny Malone has definitely gone too far being anti-hero with an emphasis on “hero” for me to be able to read this without cringe.
I was hoping to give it 4 stars until the last 10%, where the most unbelievable turn of events happens. I don't want to use spoilers, but it was an absolutely unnecessary stretch and more “blue brotherhood” crap.
I don't know, maybe cops really think like this, I'm just not eager to read about it.
I heard that this is an homage to “The Secret History.” In my opinion, this book far surpassed it in both the annoyingness of characters and how slow the story is. The book is just enormous, and it certainly feels “post-modern” in a sense that you can read for hours and nothing happens.
I liked the last 15% of the book, but it's not worth it. It lures you with the same comforting language as Night Film, but it's nothing like it.
I wholeheartedly do not recommend reading this book if you don't have enough stamina for postmodernism. I don't, and it took me months to finish it, and in the end I am just annoyed beyond belief.
I kinda liked it, it's easy to read and provides lots of food for thought. But it's very obviously a propaganda piece, not bad but partiality just flows from the pages. There are some omissions (like no mention of Sino-Vietnam war or support of Khmer Rouge) and references are mostly to party officials or other “non-scientific” articles and books. I tried to check the most dubious stuff online and most of it seems to be true.
Excellent book if you wish to know what kind of stuff China is currently into.