A fictionalized story based on the events of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. It's an engaging enough narrative, and if you've never heard of the genocide before, it's an okay entry point. However, I'm not sure how much research actually went into the book, parts of it read like a Wikipedia article.
A short book about a mother with terminal cancer, told from the perspective of her daughter. It's a children's book, illustrated by a real cancer patient and parent who died shortly before the book was published. Clearly, real life children with sick relatives are a target audience here, and I'm glad books like this get written. It's a bittersweet narrative and also it took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that the protagonist and her brother are named Leia and Luke because the family are Star Wars fans.
If you've read the original story before (like I have), you'll be dissappointed, because the monumental novel, famously heavy with descriptions of various sea life, got decimated in order to fit just 100 minutes of radio time. Only the first and last chapters, which don't even take place underwater, got any attention from the directors. The middle of the book retained only a few key scenes, with some obvious and terrifying omissions like the entire South Pole episode. But the large and talented voice cast is impressive (Rostislav Plyatt as Nemo!!!), and the classical French music is a nice accompanement.
An unabridged audiobook based on a 19th century Russian translation, which in itself was interesting to listen to as it has words and name transliterations not present in modern Russian. I've read the book before years ago, and the re-listen just made me appreciate it all that more as possibly the funniest of all Jules Verne books. The decidedly modern and sometimes annoying stock music and the fact that the narrator put up different voices for characters, especially for Inspector Fix, only assured me more in its hilarity.
A thrilling epistolary novel about the inhabitants of Guernsey and their experiences during the Nazi occupation of the island during WWII. I never thought a story told entirely through letters could be so engaging, especially given the large cast of characters you have to familiarize yourself with, but I was glued to the page. One of the characters is gay and ends up finding happiness and meeting an unexpected friend and ally - it was a pleasant addition to an already very joyful story, even though it talks about the hardships and losses of wartime. Again, it's a fictional narrative but based on real experiences of Guernsey people. I've heard there's a movie but I really doubt it's anywhere close to the book in terms of emotional impact - there are simply too many characters and stories to wrap up.
Mikhail Bulgakov's short story cycle A Young Doctor's Notebook, which appeared in my earbuds very appropriately as I was binging Grey's Anatomy. Turns out fiction books about medicine are just as engaging (and occasionally scaringly graphic) as TV shows about medicine! Bulgakov is a true Master of the written word, you can't help but relate to the newly graduated protagonist who's been thrown from the warm, electrically-lit city to serve his duty in a God-forgotten countryside hospital. It's terrifying not only to watch the new doctor perform operations he'd only seen in textbooks before, but also fight the incredibly difficult battle of educating the village masses about disease, hygiene and medical care. I've just learned Morphine is based on the author's real life struggle with the drug, which makes me appreciate it all the more. The only downside I'll mention is that on my CD, different short stories were narrated by different people, which was a bit disorienting since all the stories share a protagonist and once you've gotten used to one narrator, you're met with another. Although the guy I initially disliked as narrator won me over at the end with Morphine.
Chekhov doesn't as much as write as he paints, the characters, locations and scenes engaging by themselves but also being part of a larger picture, a tragic picture in the Greek sense of the word. The events of the stories transpire because the characters can not change who they are, and even if they have kindness and charity in their hearts they will not change the world for the better.
This one's novella-length, so longer than the previous two stories. It takes place in the city rather than the countryside, and is a big bigger in scope and level of drama, but is also written with the same Chekhovian principles. The ending was genuinely touching.
I've tried multiple times to delve into Discworld but it never quite stuck. I think this time's the charm, though - the English humour definitely hits better once you're older and understand, for example, why taxes are so horrifying. Fantastic story - I'm always a sucker for time and reality-bending shenanigans. Mort is a great protagonist. Death is hilarious, as expected from Sir Terry. The only criticisms from me are 1) there's a dissappointingly racist segment about Discworld's "Japanchina" region, and 2) I don't know if I like how the romance subplots got resolved at the end? Honestly they were probably not very necessary, as romance subplots often are.
Another banger from Sir Terry. Little Esk, with her cunningness and boldness, reminds me of Lyra Belacqua, although of course His Dark Materials would only be published almost a decade later. Granny Weatherwax is a wonderfully complex and relatable character, apparently this is her first appearance in the Discworld novels. Bonus points for Lovecraftian horrors.
This book was already on my (metaphorical and non-existant) to-read list when I unexpectedly saw a cheap paperbook copy in a convenience store. The preface implies that this is the first complete Russian translation of the entire short story cycle, and I'm inclined to believe it - I was surprised to see such niche literature in a convenience store at all.
Like many in the last few years, I first learned of the King in Yellow as a character in the Lovecraftian podcast Malevolent. It took me a while to learn that the King is not a creation of Howard Lovecraft himself, but a different author who was an inspiration for Lovecraft. I also learned that Chambers' King is not as obvious or powerful as the King from Malevolent. And yet I wasn't quite ready for what this book actually is.
The ten stories were intended for the author to be published as a collection. However, some stories are more connected to each other than others. The first four stories are the only ones where the King in Yellow himself, and the mind-corrupting play he stars in, are actually mentioned. The last four stories share a setting, characters, even the naming scheme. The Demoiselle d'Ys takes place in a different time altogether, and The Prophets' Paradise is all mystical and allegorical.
Yet there are more connections between the stories, and it's implied that the King's influence is there even when not mentioned explicitly. Some stories which I thought would have a tragic end ended happily, and others where I thought a satisfactory conclusion was possible ended in tragedy. My favourite of the cycle is The Mask, because I love science fiction and mad scientists and "talented sculptor discovers a formula which turns living matter into marble" is so fitting in there.
As evidenced by previous entries, I like short stories. I like literature from previous decades and centures, books that stood the test of time. I like books that have profound messages and have made generations of people think and search for meaning.
However, sometimes one just needs to envelop oneself in an extremely long and extremely convoluted fantasy series for the sake of one's mental health. The Mistborn books have served me that purpose once, and I felt it was time to return to them.
First of all, the Graphic Audio dramas are fantastic quality! Each audiobook starts with their motto: "Graphic Audio - A Movie... In Your Mind!" I laughed out loud when I first heard it, it sounds so cheesy, especially narrated in that Voice that you usually hear in movie trailers. But they really did deliver! The voice cast is large and very talented (David Jourdan is now THE Kelsier for me), the sound effects are detailed and envolving (there's a whooshing effect that plays every time someone uses allomancy, it really adds another dimension to the magic system), the music can sound cheesy sometimes but it's definitely fitting. Also the full cast audio drama format makes it easier to make sense of the many characters and storylines that develop and intertwine in this complex narrative.
I remembered a lot about this world from my previous read, but forgot a lot of the more minor plots. The things that stuck the most in my mind were the main character deaths, and somewhat to my surprise I ended up looking forward to them, to the point of wondering whether the voice actors would be able to deliver dramatic enough screams of agony. (They usually did.) It's one of those stories you don't enjoy less if you're spoiled.
I've seen other people complain that Brandon Sanderson's language is not descriptive enough, characters too bland and clicheed, and magic systems more developed than other aspects of the world to the point that it feels more like a video game than a book. I agree with all of these points generally, though they're not necessarily weak points. I haven't delved into Brandon Sanderson's other books outside the Mistborn series, but to me his works feel like Marvel movies or Game of Thrones. Cheesy, bland, full of stereotypes and repeated storylines, but there's still quality in it that impresses you. Sanderson has his strengths and failures, but if you don't take the books too seriously, they're an enjoyable - and very long-lasting - sources of escapism.