* Kandinsky : Painter of the Invisible * by Olga Medvedkova

(original title: "Kandinsky: le peintre de l'invisible")

A few years ago, I attended an exhibition of this Russian painter's works and liked it a lot but I didn't pay attention to his background so I got this very short biography. As expected, his life wasn't really extraordinary but it explains well the different shifts in his works through the years and as it's heavily illustrated (by paintings of course but also different pictures of him at different eras) it helps to instantly replace the different contexts of his phases.

Books read in 2017:

★☆☆ Konan Destylator / Andrzej Pilipiuk
★★★ All Quiet on the Western Front / Erich Maria Remarque
★☆☆ Ten dom / Agnieszka Wiatrowska
★★☆ The Big Sleep / Raymond Chandler
★★★ Diabeł łańcucki / Jacek Komuda
★★☆ Modlitwa, która leczy duszę według Ojców Pustyni / Józef Augustyn
★★☆ Czterdzieści i cztery / Krzysztof Piskorski
★★☆ Egipt: haram halal / Piotr Ibrahim Kalwas
★☆☆ Banita / Jacek Komuda
★★☆ Hen. Na północy Norwegii / Ilona Wiśniewska
★★☆ Timeline / Peter Goes
★★★ Wyspa na prerii / Wojciech Cejrowski
★★★ East of Eden / John Steinbeck
★★★ Długi cień PRL-u / Bronisław Wildstein
★★★ Brain Rules / John Medina
★☆☆ Self-Discipline: The Ultimate Guide to... / Jacob Wilson
★★☆ 2001: A Space Odyssey / Arthur C. Clarke
★★☆ One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way / Robert Maurer
★☆☆ Wings of Wrath / C.S. Friedman
★☆☆ Adept / Adam Przechrzta
★☆☆ The Robe / Lloyd C. Douglas
★★☆ Akademia Pana Kleksa / Jan Brzechwa
★☆☆ Osama / Lavie Tidhar
★☆☆ Czarna kolonia / Arkady Saulski
★☆☆ Grimm City. Wilk! / Jakub Ćwiek
★☆☆ Krfotok / Edward Redliński
★☆☆ Channel SK1N / Jeff Noon
★★☆ The Call of the Wild / Jack London
★★☆ Gardening / William Walsworth
★☆☆ Moby-Dick or, The Whale / Herman Melville
★☆☆ Pokonaj stres z Kaizen / Jarosław Gibas
★☆☆ Hel³ / Jarosław Grzędowicz
★☆☆ Dolina Issy / Czesław Miłosz
★☆☆ Not Peace But a Sword / John Henry Newman
★☆☆ Lexikon des Unwissens. Worauf es bisher keine Antwort gibt / Kathrin Passig
★★☆ The October Faction, Vol. 1 / Steve Niles
★☆☆ The Map and the Territory / Michel Houellebecq
★★☆ The Sermons of the Parish Priest of Ars / Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney
★☆☆ How to Be Happy and Live Life to the Fullest / Kevin Kerr
★☆☆ The Monk / Matthew Gregory Lewis
★★★ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer / Mark Twain
★★☆ The Inner Life of Animals / Peter Wohlleben
★☆☆ You Are Doing a Great Job: 100 Ways You're Winning at Parenting / Biz Ellis
★★★ Woodwork Step by Step / DK Publishing
★☆☆ Berserk / Paweł Majka
★★☆ Armenia. Karawany śmierci / Andrzej Brzeziecki
★★☆ Games People Play / Eric Berne
★☆☆ Zabawka Boga / Tadeusz Biedzki
★☆☆ Kaddish for an Unborn Child / Imre Kertész
★☆☆ Ślady / Jakub Małecki
★★★ The Sea-Wolf / Jack London
★☆☆ On the Beach / Nevil Shute
★★☆ Nicholas and the Gang / René Goscinny
★★☆ The Sword of the Lictor / Gene Wolfe
★★☆ Stardust / Neil Gaiman
★★★ Watership Down / Richard Adams
★★☆ Abchazja / Wojciech Górecki
★☆☆ Morfina / Szczepan Twardoch
★☆☆ A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science / Barbara Oakley
★☆☆ The Guns of Avalon / Roger Zelazny
★☆☆ Sign of the Unicorn / Roger Zelazny
★☆☆ The Hand of Oberon / Roger Zelazny
★☆☆ The Courts of Chaos / Roger Zelazny
★☆☆ Ziarno i krew / Dariusz Rosiak
★★☆ Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours / Robert C. Pozen
★☆☆ A Little Life / Hanya Yanagihara
★★☆ His Master's Voice / Stanisław Lem
★☆☆ Hunger / Martín Caparrós
★★★ The Time Machine / H.G. Wells
★★☆ The Nonexistent Knight / Italo Calvino
★★☆ The Futurological Congress / Stanisław Lem
★★☆ Od szczytu do otchłani / Antoni Ferdynand Ossendowski
★☆☆ Gynaecologists / Jürgen Thorwald
★☆☆ Rycerze w habitach / Edward Potkowski

| 2018 >>

*** Blutleuchte *** by Gerhard Hallstatt

Besides being the leader of the Austrian music band Allerseelen (Bandcamp), Hallstatt also wrote some (long) articles in the 90's and this book is a compilation of them (more than 500 pages in total).

The articles cover a wide range of subjects, going from the cult of Mithra to an analysis of the movie "Das Blaue Licht", from the festivities of the snake in Italy to Otto Rahn and the Cathars, etc... The main link between all topics is primarly the mysteries and old beliefs of Europe and how some people tried to "connect" to them. Generally, Hallstatt tells the story of outsiders (mostly German-Austrian) who lived in a "different" reality filled with various forms of mysticism which had an impact on them (the war for Ernst Junger, the stigmata for Therese Neumann, etc.) or goes travelling (to the castle of Montségur, into the man-made small caverns, to a drum festival in Spain, etc.). The passion of the author for its subjects can really be felt at every page and it's extensively informative. Also, each chapters contain a bibliography for further readings. Due to its format, it's a book that I've read over the courses of few months as I enjoyed randomly reading one chapter/topic from time to time to take a small break from other readings and it's IMHO the best way to read it as it keeps things refreshing and "entertaining".

Recommended. Available in English and French.

* Bauhaus * by Magdalena Droste

It ain't about the (good) gothic rock band but rather about the German art&design school which existed during the Republic of Weimar and from which some designs (like the chairs) lived up decades later.

I remember buying this book some years ago in a rush (had to take my train) and didn't pay enough attention to its content. As such, I've been really disappointed by it as it focuses mostly on the messy history of the school rather than analysing the products/designs outputs from an artistic perspective (although the author do that on some architecture cases). It thus reads like a long wikipedia page which can still be useful for references if you have to do some researchs for work but beyond that it's forgettable. After that I did a quick research on the market and it seems like every book is focusing on the historic aspect so it seems there's no good alternative.



* The Century Of 1914 * by Dominique Venner
(original title: "Le Siècle de 1914")

I have huge mixed feelings about this book. Its global intent is to show how the beginning of the WW1 and its many consequences over the years led to the Europe we're living in nowadays. The book is very unbalanced as 80% of it is dedicated to an history and analysis from the pre-WW1 to 1945 while the remaining 20% goes from post-WW2 to "today" (it was written 2006).

The (big) first part is excellent at telling the History of the first half of the 20th century in a well-written manner that keeps things interesting while developing an analysis of how the various ideologies of those times were born (and eventually died). Even if Venner put up his usual disclaimer about his inherent subjectivity and his past, it's still an objective work most of the time with many sources and reading suggestions in the footnotes. As he had already wrote several books on this era, it's an exercise where he's good at.

Then comes the post-WW2 small part and it changes from an History book to a political essay on today's world. Compared to the first part, it lacks rigor and detachment. The main problem is that while we know how most past historical events wrapped up and thus we know the "end of the story", it can only be speculations to try to theorize on the current era we're living in with an academic mindset. IMHO, the book should have stopped with the Treaty of Rome and the fall of USSR as the last meaningful events.

★★☆ Modlitwa, która leczy duszę według Ojców Pustyni / Józef Augustyn

Short book about prayer on the basis of Apophthegmata Patrum, i.e. Desert Fathers. It provides some practical insight for everyone, who wants to know something more about praying. But it does not provide deep enough insight into Desert Fathers' heritage.

★★☆ Czterdzieści i cztery / Krzysztof Piskorski

★★☆ Egipt: haram halal / Piotr Ibrahim Kalwas

Nice book written by Polish journalist, who converted to Islam and lives in Alexandria. It tries to critically explain mentality of Egypt people, it's beliefs, superstitions, national problems, phobias and secrets (as e.g. barbarian ritual of female circumcision). Interesting lecture.

List of all 2017 books.

Simon James: Rome and the sword: How warriors and weapons shaped Roman history.

Book by a British archaeologist about Roman soldiers and their weapons from the early republic to the 5th century AD. It isn't a traditional military history, but rather emphasises a) the development of weaponry, especially swords (goes into detail about the evolution of different types and the fighting techniques probably connected to them; e.g. I learned that Roman soldiers during the republic used fairly long swords...the short gladius commonly associated with them was used only during the early empire), b) the experience of common soldiers, their place in the social hierarchy and their role for Roman society in general. The book has a somewhat left-wing view: the brutality of Roman imperialism is emphasised and the empire is seen as being fundamentally based on coercion and oppression and exploitation of the large majority of the populace for the benefit of wealthy landowners. Soldiers in that view are seen as pretty much the henchmen of the class of large landowners, responsible not just for fighting external enemies, but also for internal security and the maintenance of an oppressive social order (the general violence of soldiers towards civilians, even Roman ones, is also strongly emphasised throughout). I'm not entirely convinced by that interpretation, but there's surely a large amount of truth to it.
I'd recommend the book if you're interested in the subject.

★☆☆ Banita / Jacek Komuda

Nice novel telling the story of outlaw living in XVII century, in the golden age of mighty Poland (republic of noble). 18+ because of violence and sex. And, to be honest, I think it's to much of that. "Diabeł łańcucki" was more focused on making the plot interesting and is much better lecture.

★★☆ Hen. Na północy Norwegii / Ilona Wiśniewska

Relatively interesting reading about Norway's far north. This book shows life of Sami people (also Sámi or Saami, traditionally known in English as Lapps or Laplanders), changes of last decades and conflicts with Oslo.

★★☆ Timeline / Peter Goes

Supposed to be nice reading with kids, but it was a bit too complicated for my young daughters (but graphically perfect!).

★★★ Wyspa na prerii / Wojciech Cejrowski

Great reading about living in Arizona. The style of the author reminds me Terry Pratchett and his sense of humor. The difference is that we're reading about real people and author seems to deeply understand them, their values, way of life and habits.


List of all 2017 books.

The first one of 2017 is done. Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and Spies in the Sixteenth-century Mediterranean World (by Noal Malcolmwas a heavy, but very interesting read on the geopolitics of the Ottoman Empire, Venice, the Papal States, Spain and many more countries, following the adventures of the Albanian families called Bruti and Bruni. These people, which all lived in that time, have, through some well-used connections, luck and ingenuity apparently played a role in many events from that age, as the council of Trent, the Battle of Lepanto, the German-Ottoman war, being on different sides, at different times. They corresponded or even talked with people like the kings and queens of Spain, England, Poland, different popes and their close assistants, the Doges of Venice, one of the Grand Viziers of the Ottoman Empire (which happened to be family)...

The amount of archives that had to be read for this is amazing, and it's very worthwile if you're interested in Counter-Reformation, Venice, The Ottoman Empire and the many connections that made trade and diplomacy between those two possible.

Read so far:
#1: Agents of Empire (Noal Malcolm)

* Chinese Myths * by Anne Birrell

An overview of the Chinese mythology. Kind of dissapointed as while chapters cover some interesting topics (creation, genders, characteristics of heroes, nature, etc.), it falls flat as it just compiles some myths excerpts without real in-depth analysis and a clear structure so it becomes a dull reading where it's hard to memorize anything valuable. It also has the annoying habit of making systematic translations of the Chinese names, if you've already seen some wu xia-pian movies where it's the case, you know how tedious it can be. All in all, it's unusable as a reference book.


* The Returnees * by David Thomson
(original title: "Les Revenants")

Thomson's journalistic career got a kickstart when he covered the Arab Spring in Tunisia and got acquainted there with some islamists groups. He earned their trust and over the years he made up lasting ties with many jihadists. Due to his special relations, he has been able to make in-depth interviews with them. In this book, those (French) people tell how and why they came up to the jihad and joined ISIS/Daesh, the life within Daesh and why they quit the organization (or not) and their life afterwards. Thomson's work is of great value as he doesn't make any judgments (or very slightly) on the life and deeds of the interviewees and just adds up some footnotes to explain some concepts or give some contexts when needed. As such, you can grasp the "human" side of the French jihadists as their voices is not filtered or deformed by propaganda(from both sides). A definitive reference book for those who are interested in the subject.

* Freddy Lombard * by Yves Chaland

It's a series of French comic books from the 80's (also edited in English). The series ended quickly due to the author's death so there are just 5 volumes. Even if the "hero" Freddy Lombard is a visual clone of Tintin, he's quite different as he and his two friends (Dina and Sweep) are poor people who gets jobs here and there which leads them into various unexpected adventures. The first 3 volumes are based on modern days crossing some mythology while the last two are more down-to-earth (with one happening during the 1956 Hungarian revolution). It's a bit difficult to judge the series as the first 3 are a bit of early experiments before settling down to a more predictable and serious style. IMHO his best work so far is in "The Comet of Carthage" as t's a big mix of humor, classic tragedy and visual flair.

* A Western Samurai * by Dominique Venner
(original title: "Un Samouraï d'Occident")

A few months before he killed himself publicly for his ideas, Venner had written this book as a legacy for the younger generations where he tells his vision of the proper "way of living". Inside, he writes about the relation between Man and Nature, the Japanese culture, the survival of Paganism under Christianism, the values conveyed by Homer and finally the doctrine of Stoicism. It's a bit hard to judge this book because, like Yukio Mishima, his suicide puts his life and work in a different perspective than a casual intellectual posture.

* Egon Schiele * by Xavier Coste

This is a biography of the famous painter in the form of a graphic novel/comic book. It's particularly interesting as first off, Coste's drawing style fits the tone of Schiele's paintings and secondly because his story is a good example of the "doomed artist" stereotype. At the end, Coste also wrote up a text with his own observations and thoughts on Schiele. Very good surprise as it's informative, entertaining and visually pleasant. Read in Dutch, also available in French.

I've read the Children of Hurin, an expanded and fleshed out story in the Middle Earth canon from the Silmarillion's Turin Tarambar chapter.

And personally I think it was a huge mistake that Christopher Tolkien ended the book at Hurin finding his wife at a Tomb Stone, because Hurin's story was not finished yet at that. Hurin than found Mim the Dwarf and killed him in Nargothrond.

And than he gave to Thingol the Silmaril in spite and then his final death where cast himself from a high cliff down into the rocky waters where he now has nothing to live for because Morgoth pretty much F#$%ed him and his whole family in the ass.

This month of February:

The Sikhs by Patwant Singh

Interesting read of the history of the Sikhs and its leaders in Punjab region, in Northern India. It tells of the Gurus, the composition of Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh bible) over the years, the building and re-buildings of the Golden Temple.
It was rather violent with Sikh martyrs, Afghani warlords, Persian mullahs, and Mughal emperors warring with each other. Then the Sikhs ruled the Punjab region until the British Empire came along. Then the tragic Partition divided up the Punjab region, along Muslim/Hindu majority religious lines.
Then the author's warning to Indian leaders not to marginalize minority religions for political expediency. Then you wonder why India is not so strong as it ought to be? Weakened by its unofficial caste system and religious communalism.
As a history book, not a book of religion, I feel like it explains the basics of Sikhism.

Nightwings by Robert Silverberg

I had trouble finding this book in my small library because I thought Nightwings was written by Arthur Clarke :)
A small novel of the far future Earth stratified by guilds. It's a bit hard to explain. I think the ending was a bit cheesy.

Oh, forgot to post Friday. Another one of the freebies picked up last year (just temporarily free at the time though).

Enemy of Man

Since this is sadly so rare among self-published books that it pretty much requires mentioning, I'll start by saying that Enemy of Man is well edited. More notably, however, it's also properly constructed, not only in terms of the action, which keeps escalating and eventually explodes in a manner which may, in itself, be almost overwhelming, but also because greater depth and complexity is revealed to the reader as the story progresses, the characters develop, the scope expands from the initial focused heroic tale, and bits of information about the huge and intriguing planet, multiple intelligent and semi-intelligent species and even the galaxy itself begin to be presented.
The problems start from the fact that the heroic tale relies too often on the hero's luck and at times makes even less sense than that in order to allow survival, yet the bigger issue is that this greater complexity and scope is mainly only hinted at, too little actual information about the planet, the species and the events, past and present, being provided. As a result, when it should all come together, there's little reason to care, and I for one felt that the great escalation, in itself somewhat similar to events which in other books were capable of moving me to tears, pretty much only got in the way, halting or at least being a frustrating complication in the way of the story of the characters that I actually had at least some reason to be interested in. Therefore, while I obviously recognize at a rational level that species and planets and the galaxy are infinitely more important than any characters, I have little interest in the bigger story I gather the rest of the series is about, because this first book failed to make me feel involved in it.

Rating: 3/5
Read between Feb 20 and 24.

* The New Voluntary Servitude * by Philippe Vion-Dury
(original title "La nouvelle servitude volontaire")

Subtitle: "Investigation on the political project of the Silicon Valley"

It's quite difficult for me to write a mini-review in English as it would end up in an whole essay :o)

To sum up the idea, I could use this quote from the introduction of the book:
"As all thoughts go to "Big Brother is watching you", it's rather "Big Mother cares about you" which is coming up".

I've been quite surprised at how much I loved this book as it's a good mix between references (lots of books and articles cited in both English and French) and a higher political and philosophical point of view. Heavily recommended.
Interview of the author:
https://comptoir.org/2016/10/28/philippe-vion-dury-le-vrai-visage-de-la-silicon-valley-cest-celui-du-capitalisme-predateur/

Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon: finished this a while ago but kept forgetting to post. It's a post-apocalyptic tale a la Stephen King's The Stand, and if you're a fan of McCammon's writing, then you should enjoy this one. I remember liking it a lot back in the day when I first read it. Not quite as compelling upon a second reading, but still worthwhile if you enjoy tales in this genre.

Gateway by Frederick Pohl: a book I re-read once in a while. The first in the Heechee series, which I highly recommend. Not much more to say on this one - it's Fred Pohl, and I like his stuff, so... yeah.