In September I managed some reading about writing, horror classics, and some very popular non-fiction. I hope something catches your eye and at minimum you’ll find out which book is best read in an altered state of mind.
Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer
J. Michael Straczynski
Is this a book that will magically transform someone from a person who writes into a writer? No. And that’s good. The main message is that it won’t happen overnight and requires a lot of work, strategy, patience, and that mysterious ingredient, TALENT. For the American market it looks really well-informed, structured, excellently written, etc.
The bad news is that outside this environment the advice is of limited use (with the exception of obvious ones like “finish it”) and depends heavily on some basic concepts. For instance, the belief that people who write are fundamentally socially odd is rather unnecessary.
Of course, it’s also fully possible to read it just as a short book full of tips and stories from the author’s life, and as such it’s worth an evening.
Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?
Michael J. Sandel
A quick and pleasant introduction to basic thinking about justice in Western thought (Aristotle, Kant, Rawls, Hayek, Rousseau). Includes both analysis and criticism of their positions and ideas, and their transfer to today’s real problems and their, say, judicial aftermaths and solutions. And on top of that Sandel adds some of his own concepts and opinions: and does it well and interestingly.
The main problem is probably the great “Westernness” of the whole thing, where it really is true that practically all cited authors are white guys of various ages. And that doesn’t make their words less interesting, but I’d actually really be curious about a comparison with some Pacific/Indian tradition, or for example how Sandel views Frantz Fanon and his stance on revolt and its justification.
Even though some cases have aged and it doesn’t include everything, still a very good book, recommended.
Všechny cesty vedou k válce / All Roads Lead to War
Vojtěch Boháč
It’s brilliant, I think, that one of the best books about Putin’s war and what led to it is Czech. It draws on both the author’s enormous well of personal experience and other literature (Zygar, Galeotti) and composes them into a human, comprehensible context.
It’s not analytical in the sense of searching for structural causes, analysing narratives, or funny graphs against the backdrop of tragic things — it doesn’t go that direction and doesn’t want to. It presents an admittedly human, personal interpretation of things from someone who simultaneously likes people and doesn’t succumb to mad constructs like “poison in Russian blood” and so on. Worth reading and attention.
(and of course the special bonus is that on the crisis night when rockets started flying, he mentions only “I was sorting my notes and doing some work,” not “Wagner was being annoying with editing a book review” — dignified)
Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues
Jonathan Kennedy
This is complicated, especially because the book was a hit for a while and everywhere terribly interesting.
First a brief note: On a political level, I probably lean more toward the author than most people. This makes the following text all the more complicated, because I’d want to agree with him, but… it’s not really possible :).
We have a strong starting hypothesis: diseases drive development and history. But very soon it gets lost and fills up with pure factual errors. For example, French soldiers fighting in the American Revolutionary War really didn’t have to return to France because of a revolution — that came nine years after the war. Many parts about medieval church politics contradict the book’s own narrative (it can’t simultaneously be all-powerful and incompetent). Moreover, completely random information appears that doesn’t accord with facts and leads nowhere. The Roman Catholic Church did many terrible things, but a Catholic conspiracy in the 19th century to slander Neanderthals through a single scientist is completely… why. And these are just the things I spot quickly.
What’s really contentious is the analysis of “how the world works today.” Yes, weakening the state leads to terrible divisions and desperate deaths. But when the analysis turns to claiming that “Covid clearly shows that China will become the world’s leading superpower,” it’s fairly clear that this doesn’t quite work. Rather, it’s nonsense. A special problem is that this came out in April 2023, when it’s completely obvious that Covid isn’t making China a superpower and doesn’t even show this trajectory. China lags in economics and in the ability to project its power. Although the Chinese power project is impressive, there’s no real basis for the hypothesis “China will now be the model.” And so on.
And all these problems complicate reading. The first chapters genuinely interested me because I don’t have expertise on Denisovans etc. But when I see how many weak spots, including critical ones, the book contains, it seriously undermines my confidence in the author’s words. It feels like everything started with a strong hypothesis that didn’t pan out during writing, and we thus have a connection of ideas, facts, and insufficiently developed topics.
Želvy ninja: Poslední rónin / TMNT: The Last Ronin
Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Tom Waltz
Ok, so… Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, except 16 years later in a weirdly cyberpunk world that makes no extra sense (like how on earth does one ninja clan defeating another suddenly mean the winner gets freaking New York, why is April a super scientist, what the hell is up with those mutagens), characters in their darkness waver between “hm, fairly dark” and “for god’s sake that’s completely idiotic, why is the villain doing this” and a million other complaints that would probably knock anything else off the table.
But… they’re the Ninja Turtles. And you can forgive the Ninja Turtles an awful lot, and somehow strangely it held together for me, made sense (not plot sense, but… mood sense? Meta?) — it simply, humanly pleased me to read and I experienced some hints of feelings.
If you have no relationship with the Turtles or pick it up in a rational mood, a clear one star; there are things that simply can’t be done and are somewhere between “lazy writing” and “for god’s sake boys, don’t try so hard to be Miller, even Miller is an embarrassing Miller” (Miller from Dark Knight Returns ofc).
If you pick it up like I did after ketamine-assisted therapy in a completely foggy state of consciousness with the feeling “I really like turtles and stories of honour,” it’s a solid 4/5.
(Comics Centrum again did top-notch work with the edition, absolutely no question)
Freida McFadden
Toxic workplace, manipulative people, dark secrets, and tons of twists and completely epistolary chapters.
And it can maintain tension and you waver about what’s happening, and even though it’s clear it’s not god-knows-how clever, it delivers. Although the description of the neurodivergent heroine is absolutely… aaaaaaaa for god’s sake. The problem is the ending, which is just terrible, confusing, and… well, terrible, and I was cringing.
But still probably adequate for some Netflix series; for a six-hour rest, fine.
Usagi Yojimbo: Bunraku and Other Stories
Stan Sakai
Colour doesn’t suit Usagi for me and rather bothered me. What also limps here are the plots beyond the Hero — sometimes a bit holey, sometimes coincidences are absurdly random, and sometimes it’s too straightforward (the titular Bunraku practically has no plot as such). What works absolutely brilliantly, though, is again the atmosphere; the confrontations at the Adachi plain and Bunraku are very, very beautiful. Overall a solid 4*.
Král, jenž byl a bude, Kniha 5: Pustá země / Once & Future Book 5: The Wasteland
Kieron Gillen
Well, wasteland it truly is. And if anything is scarier than the emptiness and general confusion of the story, it’s definitely the matter-of-factness with which the author explains in the afterword how the main heroine is original and iconic. If only.
Otherwise I rather regret reading it, but I wanted to finish the series.
To, co zabíjí děti / Something is Killing the Children: Book One
James Tynion IV, Werther Dell’Edera (Illustrator)
I had doubts and there are tropes that bore me very much by now, but then it comes together, adds a few solid twists and redeeming arcs (as in, these people do things for reasons) and an extremely good Comics Centrum edition (though the translation didn’t 100% sit right with me). The result then is… really good! A very pleasant afternoon horror from a small US town with a few extra ideas and solid world-building. Appreciated.
Usagi Yojimbo 37: Křižovatky / Crossroads
Stan Sakai
This is one of the weakest Usagis. That means it’s still fine, but both long stories are more like tales that don’t really lead anywhere, have no deeper point, and nothing memorable.
Richard Matheson
One of the classics of modern horror and genre writing; you’ll know many of these from films and series. Today some are quite worn and boring, some I think are genuinely weaker (Mute), but even in the weakest it’s readable and sometimes spooky and above all, it can unexpectedly offer a great story (Conqueror seemed excellent to me).
I can only recommend, especially if you like wordplay and style experiments (Silk Dress and Born from Man and Woman really shine in this).
The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age
Tim Wu
A brilliant short history of modern antitrust that only in a small part concerns the present: but that present has also aged quickly. Typically, criticism of the FTC and praise for the EU has in just a few years literally reversed in the antitrust field, and while the US is decently active in antitrust, the EU is actually quite lazy in direct cases.