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
Werner Herzog, "A Guide for the Perplexed: Conversations with Paul Cronin"
Werner Herzog's "A Guide for the Perplexed: Conversations with Paul Cronin" is a book/interview with a famous movie director. On top of so many crazy stories that happened to Werner Herzog and some interesting trivia about movie making, it also shed some light on him as a person. I admit that I had him for this irresponsibly crazy guy, but there's nothing more wrong. He's bold but not reckless. I found book inspiring in art-creation-related aspects. I can definitely recommend it.