December was the first month of settling down into a new way of life. And also a month, that feels, thanks to our nearly week long New Years Eve party, a bit shorter.
Fortunately, lots of travel, cooking and some gym time with headphones made up for a very full reading schedule.
Loved it on all possible levels. Nguyen introduces not only new ways to look at games and possibilities of analysis, but also new models of how to even define them and work with them, providing key theoretical framework with concepts of striving play and agential modes.
But what is even more important is that these philosophical concepts mesh very well with what we know from pedagogy and psychology and actually strengthen our understanding.
Strongly recommended.
Teach Like a Champion 3.0: 63 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College
First of all – of course, it’s possible to disagree with many of Lemov’s conclusions and opinions. For example, when he dives a bit too much into Jonathan Haidt’s conceptual territory, or when he repeatedly feels the need to preemptively position himself against all sorts of things.
But those are all minor quibbles – this is a massive and immensely useful book full of techniques (including videos!!!) about how to teach, why to teach, what tools to use, and why it all makes sense. It’s practical, to the point, and well-sourced. For anyone who teaches, it can be a huge help – and I wouldn’t mind making this required reading at faculties of education. It’s no Holy Bible, but few books are this practical, this useful, and this direct in explaining why we do things this way.
Kamome Shirahama, Michaela Kropáčková (Translator)
It doesn’t really move the story or anything else forward, but it has a nice sense of wonder, stays cozy, and keeps a nice pace. Considering the genre, why not?
(Switched to CZ translation to support the local publisher – works well.)
George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, Harmony Becker (Illustrator)
Heartfelt, informative, and mostly subtle. One of the classics of historical non-fiction, and very effectively uses all the features of graphic novel, without any unneeded bells and whistles. Deserves a place among the classics alongside Maus and The Arab of the Future.
Cullen Bunn, Jonas Scharf (Illustrator), Alex Guimarães
I wish I could love everything Cullen Bunn has ever written, because he’s made some massive bangers. I wish I could love this edition of Basilisk, because Comics Centrum gave it excellent treatment.But I just can’t. It’s confusing, aimless, predictable, and filled with brutality that leads nowhere and says nothing. The art is decent and the pacing is solid, but it all feels terribly empty.
How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them
The first chapters are solid – based on mapping real conflicts and civil wars, Walter builds a model of how they emerge, what drives them, which actors tend to reappear, and so on.
It’s a useful framework for understanding the world, with a good dose of personal insight and without falling into melodrama. And these are models we already know: those who are losing status and hope that anything can be changed peacefully start acting out in extreme ways. The section on current-day radicalization feels a bit weaker – it overemphasizes the role of social media without much deeper reflection and comes across as quite partisan. Sure, it’s clear social media played a critical role in electing Bolsonaro. But also Obama. The rise of the alt-right via social media doesn’t automatically mean the platforms are tools of the far right by default.
The weakest part is the perspective on current-day America: two years later, it already feels pretty useless, uninteresting, and relatively partisan. I mean, if someone insists on saying: “Antifa is just as dangerous as MAGA boys,” they’re just delulu. And really – why read theories and predictions about what a civil war might look like in 2024 when… it hasn’t happened?
The strongest idea in the book, for me, is the model of the “hate entrepreneur”, the guy who’s losing influence and relevance and turns to outrage and strong rhetoric to get money or straight-up political power – whether in post-communist Yugoslavia or it is happening on Czech Twitter because they§ve got nothing else going on in their lives.
For the Czech Republic, there’s an additional layer: realizing how non-obvious relatively peaceful transitions of power are. The Velvet Revolution is practically a miracle in that sense – an exceptional event. And perhaps because of it, we now have this slightly unhinged model of who we think should or could rise up in arms.
Leïla Slimani (Writer), Laëtitia Coryn (Illustrator), Sandra Desmazières (Colorist), Sára Vybíralová (Translator)
A sharp and fast-paced look into a specific sexual culture and the terrible failures it contains – and the impact it has on people. Slightly irritating were the author’s self-references: when people on the street tell her “such an amazing book, it changed my life,” it starts to feel a bit zu viel.
Still worth recommending!
The Greatest Stories Ever Played: Video Games and the Evolution of Storytelling
An entry-level, teen-focused book on major game narratives. The concept itself sounded extremely weird at first, but it’s time to admit that older games are both culturally relevant and increasingly out of reach for younger audiences.
Of course, for adults with a background in game studies or narrative theory, this is far too simplistic. At times even borderline offensive but hey, it is what it is. I can imagine high schoolers finding it useful.
A surprising and absolute banger, painting a very different picture from what I saw as the „mainstream“ of „meta-thinking“ science (Kahneman et al.). Very approachable, enhanced by well-chosen historical anecdotes (and that’s not something I say lightly), while offering both deep theoretical frameworks and quite practical takeaways on how to improve group cognition.
LSD: My Problem Child – Reflections on Sacred Drugs, Mysticism and Science
Great insight into the creation of LSD and the life of Hofmann: and when someone dies at the age of 102 and essentially creates a whole culture, you know it’s probably going to be interesting.
While some parts (the prologues in the 4th edition!) are a bit bland and slow, and sometimes the text gets overly detailed (and occasionally skips entire decades and topics), it manages to remain engaging and insightful. Especially when describing shared trips with other celebrities of the time and their trip practices, which are both insightful and downright funny. What’s also good is the very clear approach to the substance here: it does this, it has these benefits and drawbacks – think about it. No proselytizing, no attempts to demonize it.
The Way of the Psychonaut Vol. 1: Encyclopedia for Inner Journeys
I really, really wanted to learn about the extraordinary experiences of the author – to better understand how the psychedelic experience works and how it can be navigated or used for healing.
The opening historical chapters were neat, and mostly boiled down to: “Yes, this is what happened in Czechoslovakia regarding the substance.” But what came after grew progressively weirder, building not only incredibly convoluted ideas about the experience itself, but trying to rebuild the entire discipline of psychology on the experiences of birth and even previous lives. That was already hard to swallow – but when shared intra-consciousness came into the picture, I had to grit my teeth just to keep going.
What ended my journey with the book though was a truly bizarre chapter on suicide. Trying to explain something like a hot tub + razor suicide through the trauma of birth enters such ludicrous territory that I had to check out immediately.
Hot take: This book is actually quite dangerous. It can give readers a deeply skewed idea of the substance, possibly plant ideas that might make one’s own experience more risky. Worst of all, I can absolutely imagine people spiraling into the most problematic kinds of mysticism when they try to combine the “wisdom” here with their own psychedelic journeys.
Just a few well-written characters, a breakneck pacing and that kind of mystery that needs an exposé of „character gives a whole chapter explanation“. What felt already way too artificial was the amount of gore. Nothing against it, but it got a bit too much to be interesting.
Overall a solid horror you should not read if you have a soft spot for dogs.
The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality
A solid introduction to predictive thinking, though still very much an introduction – with some areas that felt too glossed over. I enjoyed it, learned something, and now I want to dive into some of the deeper material.
One small note – the Audible version is narrated by the author, which turned out to be a terrible, terrible idea.
Kamome Shirahama, Michaela Kropáčková (Translator)
In this volume, everyone has feelings they need to express – mostly by saying „I feel this“ and then doing rather inexplicable, even slightly toxic things to each other. It’s all done in a cute way, but still felt weird and a bit off. I decided to just race to volume 10 and end it there.
Kamome Shirahama, Michaela Kropáčková (Translator)
On the surface, this was a weird side story that doesn’t add much, feels a bit forced, overly wholesome, etc. etc.
But I have to admit – this time around, it mostly clicked for me. The whole „mushy, nice, warm“ thing works. It’s effective. But it’s also starting to feel more and more artificial – like choking on cotton candy. You definitely get your fix, but it feels a lot like going straight for your favorite chocolate. Sweet, sure, but also clearly constructed and ultimately not the best thing for me.
J.J. Abrams, Doug Dorst, V.M. Straka (Attributed Author)
First things first:
The gimmick of a book within the marginalia of another book is an amazing concept, and the production is wonderful.
The sad thing is that it just doesn’t lead anywhere. All the (3–4) stories we explore are not only cumbersome and awkward to read – everything takes far too much text to communicate, everything is an interruption within an interruption within an interruption, only to reveal… nothing, or nearly nothing. Banal stories of conspiracy, fights against oppression, and constant „what ifs“ and fake art reconstructions.
It’s an interesting experience, but leaves a lot to be desired. Comparisons to other „fake histories of art“ immediately came to mind – like Night Film, for example.
A nice thing to have in your library, not so nice to actually read through – and the payoff is limited.
Two friends travel on the Danube, when slightly creepy fauna hits the fan. One of the classics of the „otherworldly horror“ genre. Feels a bit outdated today, but still more than a worthy read.
The strongest (and weirdest) Christmas reading I have ever done.
Suffice to say: now I want to know much more about logotherapy and I feel greatly ashamed I have not read Frankl yet. Nothing more to be said, one of the few books where „everyone should probably read this“ truly applies. Combined experience of surviving holocaust and decades of _effective_ therapy with a clear humanist ideas and a genuine desire to do good in the world sums up to a book that has a good chance to change your life in the best possible direction.
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop
Hwang Bo-Reum, Shanna Tan (Translator)
We started listening to this one as a simple, before sleep activity. The first third was extremely hard to get into: and even started feelings of “this is so simple, even stupid!!”.
But then, the very slow rhythm gets under your skin and I started to understand much more how things work in Korean society: or at least in it´s version portrayed by the author. In the end, I was enthralled: a very solid novel, window in a different world with no great peaks, but a lot of healing, trauma and bottled up stress. Very happy to have met this.