December! Time of celebrations, cats, the very special retreat with my closest people and other shenanigans.

And of course, books. Many trains to take while visiting relatives, many books to read. And many of them were exceptional. Burial Tide, Lovesickness and Corn Maiden were absolutely captivating horrors. Economica and Doppelganger were excellent nonfiction books with a great deal of things to say. Special props to Between Two Fires: read it based on recommendation and was very very happy to have found it.
At the same time, well, the person wanted to recommend to me the medieval horror Between Two Fires, not the series of interviews with different characters navigating inside Putin´s regime. What a happy little accident.

The Night That Finds Us All

John Hornor Jacobs

HJ is certainly able to build a great, slow, tense atmosphere: at least for me. Interesting setting that has not been overdone, creeping dread, the open possibilities of „wow what comes next“. The characters are reasonably well done, nothing super new and exciting, but solid and at least for me creating enough tension to be interested in their stories and survival. Better than Lush Hell tbh.

But then: the disappointment when things are explained, when you get a literal wise person coming into the story to drop a bunch of meta-esotheric bombs between Bayes and meta-narratives having powers or whatever. I did not mind the swearing.

I do not think its a bad book and I certainly do not mind reading it: I wanted a nautical horror and I got a nautical horror, I am certainly not here to get my mind expanded. It´s just that from „wow neat little story“ I went shrugging and feeling a bit of disappointment. Oh well, worse things have happened in the world.

This Ain’t Rock ‚n‘ Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika and the Third Reich

Daniel Rachel

(review will be published after it is printed, now being reviewed by a historical magazine)

The Burial Tide

Neil Sharpson

A very pleasant surprise! Blends folklore and psychological horror very well, manages to build characters with completely understandable motivations on all sides of the puzzle, does not overstay it´s welcome at any point and feels pleasantly fresh. Can only recommend.

Something is Killing the Children Book Two Deluxe Edition

James Tynion IV, Werther Dell’Edera

Somehow it felt better than the first one. The inner politics of colleges are not totally braindead, characters have just enough background and motivation, it all goes by fast and the central dilemma of the conflict IS relevant and interesting (secrecy here is not for sake of secrecy and being eeevil, but for very real reasons).

The climax is a bit of a let down, but that is to be expected and I did not mind.

Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia

Joshua Yaffa

What makes it stand out immediately is its structure: rather than offering a single grand theory of Putin’s Russia, Yaffa builds the story through a series of intimate, closely observed portraits of very different people living and working within the system up to around 2020. A television producer shaping mass narratives, a woman running a charity, a historian involved in an NGO focused on the Gulag, a theatre director, a journalist reporting from Chechnya—each chapter feels grounded, personal, and human.

The great strength of the book lies in its nuance. Yaffa resists the temptation to divide contemporary Russia into simple categories of villains, victims, heroes, and collaborators. Instead, he shows people navigating a system that is simultaneously absurd, cruel, rational, predictable, and terrifying. These are not abstract political actors; they are individuals making everyday choices under pressure—choices about compromise, silence, resistance, ambition, fear, and self-justification. The title captures this perfectly: many of Yaffa’s subjects are caught “between two fires,” squeezed between loyalty to their work or ideals and the ever-present demands of an authoritarian state.

What emerges is a portrait of power that does not always rely on brute force. One of the book’s most unsettling insights—echoed by many reviewers—is how often the system functions because people understand it. They learn where the red lines are, how to avoid them, when to bend, when to perform loyalty, and when to step back. The state does not need to intervene constantly; uncertainty, selective punishment, and informal rules do much of the work. Yaffa shows how this produces a kind of moral fog, where no single decision feels decisive, but the cumulative effect is profound.

For readers who already feel they have a solid grasp of modern Russia, the book is still entertaining enough and seems correct in comparison with other sources. Much of it confirmed what I thought I knew—but it also opened new angles. People are rarely “fooled” or fully “coerced”; instead, they adapt, rationalize, and compartmentalize.

Importantly, Between Two Fires is not a book about Putin alone. Putin is present as a gravitational force rather than a constant character. The real subject is the society shaped around him—the incentives, the fears, the compromises, and the quiet calculations that allow the system to persist. This makes the book especially valuable, because it avoids the comforting illusion that everything could be explained—or undone—by removing a single man.

Of course, from today´s perspective, it´s hard to say if Between Two Fires is still relevant. The war escalated all the principles mentioned, removed much of the nuance and put a strain on the internal „symphony“ of the system. Is the collapse of the system closer? Is it even possible anymore?

Údolí zrůd

Steve Niles

Great art, quite a banal story which manages to mostly hit that „sibling deep love“ notes and present an interesting situation: however, it does nothing special with it.

The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China

David Eimer

If somebody would pick this up as a serious non-fiction/ antropology deep dive into the life of non-Han minorities in China, they would be confused, disappointed and would not learn much.

We picked this up with my wife for mutual reading before sleeping, with a vague idea of the book as a bold travelogue, bit worried that Eimer would settle in the „guidebook for tourists“ style of most of his production. This is certainly something different – it feels like reading updated Paul Theroux plus more success with sex and drugs. The author is quite honest with himself and with what he sees: including the tragic, ugly, downright pathetic or sleazy. Of course we do not know what was left out: but even what stayed in hits quite hard.

In the end, the book stays in the weird position: it is not serious non-fiction, it is not engaged journalism, it is not exactly a travelogue you can or should follow. But these sharp edges and authenticity (including the problems of both the places, people and author himself) give the book a certain charm.

Milada Horáková

Zdeněk Ležák, Štěpánka Jislová

CZ only
Historický komiks o Miladě Horákové, co má pár problémů.

a) vlastně to není úplně historický komiks, je to přiznaná hagiografie která začíná tím, že Horáková = TGM.

b) s tou historickou přesností je to spíš nešťastné – ne, že by základní fakta byly úplně mimo, ale všechno už je předem interpretované s tím, kdo je nerozporný hrdina a kdo je padouch. A i když bych s tím hodnocením nakonec souhlasil, nedojde k němu nějakým osobnostním vývojem nebo čímkoliv lidským, je to popis hrdinky co vždy byla hrdinka

c) není to vlastně ani moc komiks. Je to slideshow ilustrací ke krátkému textu, která prakticky nepracuje s nějakou akčností, rámováním, framy nebo cokoliv – máme tady řadu historických komiksů, které užívají ten formát k vyprávění, tady je to fakt jenom ilustrace

JE to určitě myšlený dobře, ta grafika sama o sobě JE krásná, ale zdráhal bych se říct „takhle to má vypadat“, no.

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler

Italo Calvino

WARNING

This is not a book. It is a key symptom of you being pulled into clutches of quite powerful, multi-narrative predators trying to break your basic ideas of narrative consistency. If your reading brought you close to this book, you still have time. Turn away. Read things with beginning, middle and an end. Read books with all proper four walls and a roof.

Untold miseries lie on the path of If on a Winters Night a Traveler..

Apartment 16

Adam L.G. Nevill

I wanted to voice some kind of disappointment or something, but in the end – it has it´s specific shtick, it has its weirdness (purposefully?) broken language at points, it has some twists and some cool expeditions into madness/ grotesque. One or two scenes will stay with me, the overall story and vibe will clearly not.

Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World

Naomi Klein

Longer reflection upcoming, super short version: collection of interesting thoughts, ideas and concepts stringed together by a metaphor which did not work for me at all and was actually confusing things more. Still, an obviously good book.

The Ones That Got Away

Stephen Graham Jones

One of the better short horror story collections I have read recently. Jones has a strong, distinctive style full of ambiguous plots and stories open to interpretation, but not in a way that turns stories into hazy poetry. Also, every story has it´s own language, including some quite stark differences (from mean teen girls to old marine captain).

The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares

Joyce Carol Oates

Good collection – with the titular Corn Maiden standing far above all other entries, introducing great anxiety through quite civil and normal situations. The work with anxiety, nostalgia and „socieatal sickness“ is perfect and introduces new kind of horror, something distinctivly different than other horror authors.

Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future

Dan Wang

First – I am not sure about the central metaphor and simplification: and we are not learning much about it to be honest. The USA side of things is not even tackled – however, recently released Abundance goes well into the argument of US building anemia. Still we are not getting any real answers for question that seemed central to me: are the „lawyers/ engineers“ symptoms or causes of the maladies?

With the most parts focusing about China, I feel like I learned quite a lot (even after reading on China for some time, some of the logic and facts felt a bit deeper than is usual), however, when it got into Western politics I felt a bit confused. Praise for Spain as example of good practice was a bit surprising, but felt nice and reasonable to an extent – however, pointing to Tesla and Musk AND DOGE specifically as examples of a possible bright future does not feel very relevant for a book that was released in August of 2025. Doge failed and was shut down, Tesla numbers are falling all around the globe AND Musk specifically has promised quite some large infrastructure projects, that just were not delivered at all. That opens up the question: can I trust the details in the parts I am not familiar with, if the book contains so obvious oversights?

Economica: A Global History of Women, Wealth, and Power

Victoria Bateman

Good reframing with some strong explanations and concepts, some very strong historical structural claims based on anecdotes and small samples and very approachable tempo. Can imagine this as a very solid intro book into “women in economic history” course, could very well be a mandatory part for any history.

Milostné strasti nebožtíků

Junji Ito

The main story is an absolute banger, with the rest trailing behind, but still slapping. Paranoia, pure dread and mystery with a great atmosphere, what more can you ask for?

(Czech edition afaik has some extra stories on top, but they honestly pale in comparison to Lovesickness)