Darth Brutus's Bigger & Badder Book Diary 2022

31.12.

A short novel about seven people who were sentenced to death by hanging and their thoughts a night before the execution.

31.12.

A bunch of short stories about a life of a man in 19th century conservative Russia after the failed attempts at modernizing the country and the destruction of the liberal revolutionaries. I think the author has something to say about the frozen atmosphere of the time.

29.12.

A short story by Leonid Andrejev. Andrejev's Judas is more like Richard III of Shakespeare, a very complex character who gets betrayed while trying to betray others. It's a very fascinating story, but very, very dry.

29.12.

Postman always rings twice in Russia.

26.12.

Everything you need to know about his films. Ah well, maybe there are some background and production details you might want to know that are not here, but you get the point.

26.12.

26.12.

Well well, what do you know? I liked it, in fact it's the first Bronte book I did like.

25.12.

After a decade or so I got to read this indie punk rock comic again, and I'm still loving it. Sucks that it's so short and there's no continuation, but what the hell.

25.12.

What's more Christmas than the Holocaust?

Lolz.

25.12.

18.12.

A must read for anyone interested in the films of Masaki Kobayashi.

15.12.

Hardcore is right. This is very hardcore.

15.12.

Just what I expected. This book is all about fancy talk and very little substance. The arguments are superficial and childish, even though the author tries to imply that the traditional economy is somewhat dated and wrong by the cliche "it's the current year" argument and throwing some empty "positivist" labels and few basic points about economic modeling. But it's mostly just vague and abstract wordplay and rhetorics with little to no substance to it, no mathematic models or even proper arguments against the old "positivist" way of thinking.

Now here's my point: back when I studied this shit they straight up told us that the economic theory is mostly mathematics these days, and pure mathematicians more or less rule this field. The reason it's all about mathematics is because of measurability and controllability, with math you can effectively model shit and optimize the outcome any way you want, and measurability means you can actually measure what you're doing and actually tell accurately what's happening or if your model even fucking works. With this kind of humanistic nonsense none of that works, and trying to appy this garbage in real life will just end up in total chaos like the one we're currently facing right now.

Doesn't really have much to do with my criticism, but as far as I have read, the author isn't any big shot economist anyway. Going to an university or graduating isn't that big of a miracle these days, so I wouldn't let the label fool me unless there's some really hard ass merits and papers to prove the actual competence.

Fuck all politicians. Kill them all.

12.12.

This is so spot on it's not even funny. For Unabomber increasing control is a vital part of industrial society, as the technology advances, so advances the government's hold over your thoughts and actions, think about the social media and the algorithms they already use to scam and manipulate you. He also analyzes the modern left and SJW's to the teeth.

This shit was written back in the early 90's.

11.12.

Edward Bunker was one badass motherfucker. He was a career criminal, but he was also a great writer.

6.12.

A highly exhausting collection of writings by Martin Luther. These essays, speeches and letters are barely anything compared to the vast body of this man's bibliography, but I think I got the picture. Martin Luther was quite a personality himself, always keen on making his voice heard and talking with people, at one time a priest told him to finally stop as he started confessing so many and so meaningless sins the poor man couldn't stand it any longer.

Martin Luther was a great writer, but most of his wordplay and humor have sadly been lost in the translation. I think the man was at his best in his less formal letters where he could express himself just as he liked it without too much thinking.

I'm not surprised they didn't include his writings about Jews even on the list of his works, but I found the book somewhere else. Luther is known to have said in his later years that if he could he would gladly burn all of his works just so people would rather read the Bible instead of his ramblings, so you know he probably didn't mean his books to be taken that seriously.

Oh yeah, my favourite quote is from one of his speeches: "I wish I would become a ghost after my death so I could haunt all the godless priests and monks of this world."

5.12.

A classic among WW1 literature, it's about 400 pages long with facts after facts with zero filler. It's supposed to give a clear overview of the main events of the Great war and not focus too much on lesser battles and people, but what it does, it does extremely well. An essential read for anyone who's interested in the topic.

27.11.

I don't think this was really that good. Sure, it covered a wide variety of topics from pre-war politics to economy and propaganda, but maybe it went a little too far instead of just focusing on fewer subjects with more depth.

10.11.

Another more humorous Dostoevsky. Not my cup of tea.

9.11.

A surprisingly entertaining read despite being a religious work. I enjoy Luther's straightforward way of writing, plus his sense of humor is very on point.

3.11.

A humoristic novella, a rarity from Dostoevsky. It's fine, but nothing special.

3.11.

So far this has been the worst I've read from Dostoevsky. Within 200 pages to story doesn't go anywhere.

2.11.

A collection of praise and defensive speeches from Ancient to Renaissance era, some are dry as a sand, others passionate and adventurous, the last one being an over the top parody of a speech. A great read.

16.10.

The title is somewhat misleading, because this is more about the practical side of history and archaeology more than, shall we say, fictitious portrayal of life in ancient times.

10.10.

I don't care what people say, I found this novel extremely boring, like really really really bad snorefest. It might just be the translation or cultural things, but I just didn't feel this one at all. Shit happens.

8.10.

A near perfect academic introduction to the wonderful world of Assyriology. In case you're new to this stuff this book will probably exhaust and overwhelm you with all the details, but if you're a nerd like me and you already know these things inside and out, then you'll likely enjoy it and learn something new while reading it.

4.10.

A fantastic autobiographical novel. Mike Tyson used to nobody destined to die young either by drugs or gang violence until some boxing coach noticed his talent and introduced Mike to his friend Cus D'Amato who ended up becoming a father figure for the young athlete. After Mike became a star his life started to crumble down with drug and sex addiction, business failures and bad relationships. At one point he ended up in jail for allegedly raping a young woman, which might have been just another case of greedy girl accusing a rich and famous man to leech him off his money. Mike had lots of those kinds of women around him all the time.

26.9.

Ali was the greatest, but this biographical book sucks. It's based on a helluve lot of interviews from anyone even remotely near Ali's life, and the end result is a huge mess and all over the place.

21.9.

I deeply respect champions and masters of their craft. George Foreman was one of the best boxers ever and a man who saw all more sides of life than most of us will ever even know exists. Here the man shares some of his wisdom and talks about his religious views, the man feels very humble and honest.

However, around here this book was falsely marketed as an autobiographical work, which it definitely is not. That's why I was so disappointed with it, because I really wanted to learn more about his life and career, not just the spiritual side.

20.9.

19.9

15.9.

9.9

One of my least favourite novels from Kazantzakis. It's ok and all, but as far as I've read his stuff there's way better stories out there.

21.8.

21.8.

18.7.

A tale of an outlaw and a princess.

One day a poor man finds a beautiful white horse from his property. He tries to make the horse go away, but it always comes back to him. According to a local belief the God himself has lead the horse to him, so by the traditions it now belongs to the poor man. After a rich prince comes to claim back what once was his, the poor man becomes an outlaw of the mountains.

18.7.

2.7.

1.7.

A good novel by Moravia, it's about a tragic relationship between an artists and a wicked woman.

30.6.

A mother and her daughter escape war to the countryside of Italy, but only find more trouble when the raging war along with famine and sickness eventually reach them. This was a very dark Mizoguchian novel, I liked it.

30.6.

A semi-fictional autobiography of Kazantzakis himself. It's really not just about his growth and life, but also a tale of the philosophical foundations of his persona, religious mysticism and the world and people around him. Once again, what an amazing writer the man really was!

29.6.

When I picked up this long forgotten little novel from the warehouse of our local library I didn't expect anything spectacular at first: there are billions of similar semi-religious fictional novel around that are mostly just boring and disrespectful towards their characters to say the least.

Saint Francis, however, is neither of them. The novel is about the St. Francis, whose love of life was closer to madness than just a feeling, as he struggled to find God he faced series of incredible hardships and suffering, at the end he even lost his sight, saw horrific visions and had bloody stigmas all over his body. There is a deep and genuine beauty in his story, Kazantzakis makes it feel nothing short of poetic.

The beautiful epilogue really did touch me.

29.6.

A first book from a trilogy that probably was never translated into Finnish.

27.6.

The first half is about two Indian brothers and their childhood in poor parts of India, revolutionary politics etc. other good stuff. At one point the thing just completely falls apart and it's a chore to read til the end, nothing interesting happens. You'll know when you read it.

27.6.

A very typical Peter Hoeg novel: smart use of words with little to no substance.

25.6.

Utterly pointless novel about nothing at all. The premise is supposed to be a kind of mystery novel, but at the end of the day there's nothing interesting going on and the mystery is quickly forgotten after few pages.

If it wasn't for the playful language this could've been complete waste of my time.

25.6.

I don't get it. Nearly every time I start reading one of Auster's novels, I get hyped and expect something extraordinarily great but ultimately get disappointed. These novels are so overhyped it's not even funny, out of gazillion I've only really enjoyed maybe two of them, which were indeed great.

25.6.

Kalervo Palsa was something of an eccentric and radical artist whose grand obsession was painting surreal, grotesque and pornographic imagery. This book is a collection of his diaries, and even though I have never seen his art, I found this utterly fascinating look at his creative mind. The man was a very deep and introspective thinker and a boheme, so this book is like a must-read list for anybody interested in literary art, people who just want something extraordinary hiqh quality novels to read or curious folk who are interested in creative lunacy.

12.6.

An old classic non-fiction book about the use of mathematics and natural sciences in social sciences. The premise is that traditionally European and Finnish social sciences have been very vague with their use of hard sciences, the authors talk and analyze certain basic issues and tell about the history of the statistical methods they're using. If you're like me and you really know your mathematics and stuff then this won't probably change your worldview.

6.6.

Books like this are far too rare these days. This is historical non-fiction about ancient Mesopotamian cultures and Christianity. The history part I was already familiar with, but all the biblical references were extremely fascinating, like how Christian view of Jesus and his role was influenced by Assyrian and Babylonian cultural legacy. Is that interesting or frigging what?