Andrey's Bookshelf

This was beautiful. Maybe the best I've ever read.

It felt good diving in to live as an insecure, sensitive teenager trying to find love and place in life, then dive out and be again a 35-years-old married man with 9-5 job and mortgage

Probably, the greatest and most complex Dostoevsky's novel, although not my favorite. I still like Crime an Punishment better.

My miserable attempt to read a children book in French failed at around half. I'm not there yet. Will surely give it another try after a while

This is a book that can either turn a left-leaning person into right, or save the left from moral defeat. No wonder it was banned during most of the Soviet years

Yes, I went to therapy. Why?

It's a shame for a 30-years old Russian, but it was my first Dostoevsky. I'll just say that it made me read five other books of his in a row. Yes, that good

It's a good mental model to describe how the current stage of capitalism (or neo-feudalism, whatever) is developing. I definitely recommend it, but if I had to choose one book on the topic, I'd prefer Technofeudalism better

The opening part about Morse and Braille was exciting, and the rest, honestly, pretty boring.

It's full of such a strong love for humanity and hope for peaceful future, and curiosity, and humor

Maybe I expected too much, but it was pretty weak

It's so cute, lovely, naïve, but very entertaining and immersing story. Sexy af too btw

Short and fun hand-illustrated essay book by The Great Brian Eno. It's a theory to answer what art is and why we need it. I intentionally read it slowly, not more than one chapter per day. Enjoyed it a lot

As much as I love Zizek's speaking, I detest his writing. I really had to decypher every paragraph to get to the meaning of what he saying. When you get there, the ideas are brilliant, but the path to them is far from pleasure. It might say more about me than about him, but I quit at around a quarter anyway.

I knew it would be great but, man, it was even better than I expected. I just couldn't put it away. Watch sin and virtue fighting inside a man's head and the soul being slowly destroyed as they fight. My favorite Dostoevsky's book and, maybe, my favorite book of all time

Best you can read on strategy. It describes modelling tools and gives you a language to describe complex systems, be it businesses, ecosystems, social groups, geopolitics, or climate. Just read it. You will have to put some effort though

There's a good reason why it's been sold in every airport kiosk for last several years

I read it on a plane and cried like a bitch.

Sad multi-dimensional portrait of the late Russian empire told through miserable lives of prostitutes in a small town

Cory Doctorow helped me to stop being afraid of AI and finally clearly tell apart things I love about it from things I hate. The future might be or not be all grim and dark, but there's a fight ahead

I never read a book where both male and female characters would be so deep.

The first management book I read after I actually became a manager. It was fun learning something and immediately trying to apply it. Fun to read, little water, light writing style. I loved it

It's just bad. Not only by Dostoevsky's standards, but in general. Worth reading only where Dostoevsky started as a writer (spoiler: pretty low). Bright side: you can see here the conception of some of his later character archetypes.

Not the best Dostoevsky's novel by far, but it's rather unique. It's personal, describing his own real life events, it's written from the first person, so you can observe well only the main character's thoughts. So, if you've already read his greatest works, The Gambler is a good chance to experience Dostoevsky in a new way

Okay. Not great, but pretty nice. Sometimes you need a reminder that you don't

Fun read on how to deceive using data (and not be deceived). Data interpretation, p-hacking, human biases, pseudo-mathematics, and all kinds of number manipulations you see everywhere

Fascinating. Experiencing music is formed not by sound alone, but by location, light, people, surrounding culture, technology, time of the day, and so many little things this book talks about. And the sound of music, above all.