Books read in 2025#
John Barth, "Lost in the Funhouse"#
"Lost in the Funhouse" is John Barth's experimental stories collection (he calls it a cycle), which I found through AI chat "hallucinated" bullshit. It's interesting at times (especially, Ambrose's stories) and inspired me to think about a story where the main character knows he's the narrator of a story. Overall, however, I found it hard to get through and it reminded me of "Naked Lunch," which was a true torture to maul through. But I'm glad I read it.
Marcin Wojdak, "Ostatni turnus: Pocztówki z czasów PRL-u"#
"Ostatni turnus: Pocztówki z czasów PRL-u" from Marcin Wojdak is a half-album with photos and half-collection of short stories about post-communist vacation complexes. The main goal, which I feel was achieved, was restoring the lost world of these resorts, which are long gone. The author is roughly my age, so it's very relatable. I like how self-commenting on its form it was, which felt like a very natural continuation of "Lost in the Funhouse" (something I didn't plan).
The word "turnus" means a period of 2 weeks during which the same group of people would spend time together. And then another one. It creates an interesting dynamic where people would form short-term relationships, which would probably be gone short afterwards (but not always). I don't think there is an equivalent in English. I was even considering writing about this book in Polish due to lacking vocabulary.
And it was really nice to find a photo/story from a place where I was with my parents back in 1993.
Łukasz Najder, "Moja osoba. Eseje i przygody"#
"Moja osoba. Eseje i przygody" from Łukasz Najder is a collection of essays and something that doesn't have any other name than "a personal blog post." Our the Internet's contribution to the world of literature. Anyway, the author captures a couple of things in his writings, like the role of a man in the modern world, the traps of writing about oneself without consulting other participants, or death. I like his very rich style at times, something that I abandoned years ago.
An interesting thing when reading this after "Ostatni turnus" was that one of the stories is about first remembering and then visiting (and re-visiting) an old vacation complex. Another connection I did not plan when selecting it as my next read.
James Sallis, "Drive"#
I read James Sallis' "Drive" over a decade ago, as a huge fan of the movie, but I always thought that I rushed through it without much of a thought, so when I was choosing a back-up book for flying, I decided to give it another shot. It's very different from the movie and feels like a pulp story written in much higher literary style, which creates an interesting effect. A story of a man who wants to be anonymous in the world. As such, it reminds me of "Perfect Days."
Ádám Bodor, "The Birds of Verhovina"#
My wife has been recommending me Ádám Bodor's "The Birds of Verhovina" for a while, and I finally caved in. The book tells the story of a peculiar town with hot springs and its water brigade. The pacing is marvellous and the story is told non-linearly, jumping between various events. It feels as if someone captured the process of remembering old events from one's life, so they mix and distort. There's also a fair dose of magical realism. One of the best books to me.
Despite the book being its own thing, I noted other things it reminded me of: Cormac McCarthy's "Suttree" (general nostalgic atmosphere), Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (magical realism), Jerzy Kosinski's "The Painted Bird" (Eastern European village), Haruki Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" (the End of the World part), "From Inside" (animation about a bleak post-apo world), and finally, "Sky: Children of the Sky" (again post-tragedy world).
Kyle Simpson, "Unwrapping Monads & Friends"#
When Kyle Simpson wrote a book about monads, "Unwrapping Monads & Friends," I decided to read it. I'm done with monads in my life at this point, but I was curious how he tackled this. Kyle has a talent to nail various subjects without pretentiousness (and Lord only know how much of that there is around monads). I still think that monads are rather exotic concept in JS, but on a theoretical level, it's beneficial to be aware of it.
New Book Launch! 🚀 Unwrapping Monads & Friends by Kyle Simpson