Just Another Book Diary (2023)

2.2.

So far the best book about Dostoevsky I have read. This is brilliant, the author is so on point, he went to study the real environment where the books were written and based on, he took pictures, shows maps, interviewed professionals from different fields to get as accurate information as possible... this is a must read for any Finnish fan of Dostoevsky.

2.2.

The collection I read wasn't necessarily meant to contain the best short stories, but instead represent the author as a whole. From what I got out of it Leskov had hard time expressing himself shortly, but as he got more experience he improved his style and got more subtle and on point. The later short stories are better than the earlier ones.

1.2.

I have tried to get into Henry Miller for a long time. Recently I tried to read a biographical book about him just to get more insight, but still I'm just not into his body of work. I think Miller was more or less a product of his time, back then extremely conservative values were mainstream and sex was more or less a tabu. That's what Miller was all about in my eyes: a man who had all kinds of sexual obsessions that made his inner creativity flourish.

These days sex and themes regarding different kinds of sexualitis and obsessions are so common in popular culture this stuff just doesn't speak to me like it should. Back in the day, however, Millers books must have been a huge revelation for a generation or two.

30.1.

Wonderful collection of essays on Dostoyevsky, this covers a lot of themes, characters and even milieus of his novels, plus Dostoyevsky's influence on other great thinkers.

Another similar book I read was Alex Matson's "Two Masters", which was pretty much the same, but more basic take on Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.

29.1.

One of Tolstoy's early classics and honestly one of his best short novels.

29.1.

29.1.

Early Tolstoy lacked many of his later trademark ideas, but still a good basic Romanticist-era story about a man living with cossacks.

28.1.

These are wonderful and highly inspired short stories, I enjoyed every single one of them. Better than most others I've read in a long, long time.

28.1.

Soviet undergroung literature. This one's about one man's alcoholism and delusional adventures in Moscow. It's a good book, but luckily also very short.

28.1.

An essay on Dostojevsky written by a professional psychiatrist. This is amazing, if you speak Finnish and love Dostojevsky, then this is a must read for you.

28.1.

A decent essay on Tolstoy with lots of good insight, but could have been even more in-depth.

27.1.

Not as good as the first 12 Rules For Life, but good enough for me. I think the most interesting part of this book were the case analyses he gave from real lived experience, especially the one about a man who had lived such a safe life he couldn't understand that adult human beings could be mean and violent, so Jordan gave some of the most traumatizing history and psychology books he could think of to make him understand the darker side of life.

From what I got out from this is that too much safety and comfort is really harmful for mental health.

26.1.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is it: I have finally read every novel and short story Dostoyevsky wrote in his lifetime. And I must say, Dostoyesky was more of an intuitive master of short stories; some of his novels might be hit or miss, but the short stories are most the time great.

26.1.

I loved this novel. It's a realist story about a hunter and all the people and walks of life he meets, very poetic prose. However, the story also has a slight political edge, since Turgenev depicts a world divided to extremely poor serfs and rich landowners, nowadays such nuanses might not be as noticeable as back when it was written, so the story doesn't really need that much knowledge about the context to be enjoyable by everyone.

24.1.

24.1.

Pretty middle of the road Dostoyevsky with decent drama, but not enough interesting content to rank higher on his standards. I remember reading somewhere that this was panned back when it was first released, people hated it.

Now I have read every Dostoyevsky novel, few more short stories and I have fulfilled my life goal having read literally everything that man ever wrote in his life.

22.1.

Wow, this novel is a blast! Vilnius Poker is a story about life in Soviet Lithuania in the 1970's. The main character suffers from PTSD and his story is highly convoluted and paranoid, he often talks about mysterious "them" always stalking him and coming after him, at times minor things launch his anxiety and panic attacks and he starts thinking about dangerous and dark things, etc. I just ate this up.

22.1.

A nice old fashioned drama involving Greco-Christian clergymen and spiritual themes such as morality and change of times.

22.1.

In all honesty, I couldn't really get hold of this one. So many things happening at once, yet the core story is so vague it's really hard to get grasp of.

22.1.

A wonderful story told by an elderly monk on how he found his place in life after years of adventure. Highly recommended.

22.1.

A collection of essays on Leo Tolstoy.

7.1.

A satirical novel about a greedy lower aristocratic family in 19th century Russia. I would think that deeper understanding of the subject matter could help getting more out of this novel, but it's still pretty funny.

7.1.

A collection of short stories involving dogs. The one written by Ivan Bunin was a brilliant story about dreams of a dog pondering about life and death of a man.

7.1.

7.1.

6.1.

An autobiographical novel Tolstoy wrote in his early 20's. I wouldn't call this his most mature work yet, but it does show is incredible talent as a storyteller.

6.1.

Another autobiographical novel, but this time with high nostalgia involved. For some reason the author uses a lot of new and exotic words I had never heard in my life before, but that just made it more interesting to read.