Category Archives: Books/Media

Chess is a funny game: easy to learn but hard to master. The main area where novice chess players get wrong is failing to think in advance. Unlike most games, which emphasize short-term gains, chess forces you to plan things out, to forego instant gratification in favor of long-term victory. An amateur will play chess trying to capture every enemy piece he can, leaving his king open to checkmate and never developing anything close to a winning strategy.

The good news is that learning to win at chess is much easier than you think.

Winning Chess Tactics for Juniors is my favorite resource for learning chess, a handy book that simplifies the game in a manner that anyone can understand. The principle behind Winning Chess Tactics is that pattern recognition is the key to learning the game; if you can recognize certain patterns in chess, you can come out on top pretty easily. To this end, the book provides you a series of problems, challenging you to solve them through repetition and practice:

The discovery is one of the most powerful types of move possible in a game of chess. The term “discovery” simply means that a piece is moved from a rank, file, or diagonal while uncovering an attack by friendly forces behind it on the line, thereby giving both pieces a chance to simultaneously threaten the opponent. Discoveries come in three varieties. The most powerful is the DOUBLE CHECK, in which the moving piece gives check and uncovers a check on the enemy King by another piece. It is easy to analyze the response to double check: The attacked King must move. Interposition or capture of a checking piece are not possible. DISCOVERED CHECK means that the enemy King is attacked only by the piece unleashed along the line (file, rank, or diagonal), while the moving or discovering piece is free to make threats of its own. DISCOVERED ATTACK occurs in the same manner as the others, except that the enemy King is not directly involved. Discovered attacks of any kind are extremely dangerous and even the threat of a discovered check or double check often brings a chess game to a sudden end. Watch for all three types of discovery in this chapter.

Winning Chess Tactics for Juniors features over 500 problems for you to solve, covering everything from pins to forks and back again. While the book’s insistence that you not use a chessboard to work on the problems is annoying, it definitely helps with your visualization. Within a month of buying the book and doing 20 some-odd problems a day, my game improved immensely.

Bottom line: if you’re looking to get better at chess, Winning Chess Tactics for Juniors is a must-buy.

Click here to buy Winning Chess Tactics for Juniors.

Read Next: The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle by Steven Pressfield

Living the life of an international playboy is what many in the ‘sphere aspire to, but what comes after? Let’s get real: few of us are going to be swooping fly twentysomething girls when we’re in our fifties, or even forties. While some guys seem to think they can simply transition to being a husband and father after a life of snorting coke and banging sluts, evidence suggests that coming down from the high of hedonism is a lot harder than it looks.

English Teacher X is living proof of this.

Requiem for a Vagabond, the final book in his “Burnout Trilogy” (following To Travel Hopelessly and Vodkaberg: Nine Years in Russia), is a hilarious and depressing portrait of middle-aged dissolution. After spending the nineties hopping from Bangkok to Prague and the oughts living it up in Russia, ETX finds himself thrust into a life of responsibility. While he finds himself enjoying the lack of action in his life, his is a reality that few if any men would want to have.

If you’re looking for a poignant and comic depiction of middle age, Requiem for a Vagabond is a must-read.

The book picks up where Vodkaberg left off: after nine years of sex, drugs and techno in Russia, ETX flees for the desolate wastes of the Middle East, the metrics of conventional success finally swinging in his favor. He has a well-paying teaching job in “the Kingdom” (it’s fairly obvious which country he’s talking about, but out of his respect for his anonymity, I’m not going to name it), where booze is illegal and women are barred from leaving the house without a niqab. After plowing through countless psycho sluts, he has a cute Russian girlfriend who is responsible and faithful. Despite the sensory deprivation of his surroundings, ETX is downright elated:

He was a local Arab guy in his early 20s, a bit pudgy but all in all unremarkable-looking. First he came up and sat down next to me and said he just wanted to practice his English; it turned out the phrase he wanted to practice was, “You have a beautiful body.”

I stood up and walked away, and rode my bike to the Subway to have a sandwich.

He was gone when I came back.

The next week, he appeared again, and apologized for his comment, and then put his hand on my arm . I told him not to touch me, and got up and rode away on my bike.

English Teacher X stumbles through a series of familiar-sounding escapades while employed in the Kingdom: dealing with moronic bosses, chumming it up with degenerate colleagues, and sneaking off to Dubai for what little debauchery his body can handle. He breaks bread with the usual cast of layabouts, both new (such as Heinrich, a half-German, half-Canadian old guy on the hunt for a foreign wife) and old (such as Crazy Bob from Vodkaberg). Requiem also has ETX sojourning back to his hometown in the “Dirty South” (again, fairly obvious what city he’s referring to) to commiserate with his folks and take survivalist preparation courses:

“You came in our room and were going to poop on the chair. Dad asked you if you were sleepwalking and you said yes, and he took you into the hallway. You went into another room and were going to poop on the chair again.”

“Oh… my… god…”

“They led you into the bathroom and you pooped but you didn’t flush.”

“Oh man…”

While just as dark as ever, Requiem shows ETX continuing to evolve as a writer, his prose bubbling with a calm resignation. In contrast to the jittery nervousness of To Travel Hopelessly and the nauseating crawl of Vodkaberg, ETX displays a sort of sagacity, the wisdom of a professional burnout. He’s approaching old age, he’s unmarried, he’s spent most of his life living paycheck to paycheck, he’s wrecked his body to the point of near-collapse… he just isn’t cool anymore, if he ever was.

And he doesn’t care.

Why is getting drunk and chasing bipolar slags the pinnacle of life? Why is waking up with a hangover and a pile of used condoms on the floor the ideal existence? English Teacher X spent the bulk of his adult life doing precisely that and he’s sick of it. To someone who’s blacked out more often than Manila during a typhoon, a quiet life of working, reading books and having sexy Skype chats with Russian fuckbuddies is a paradise all its own.

Nothing represents this grasping for a normal life better than ETX’s relationship with the Girlfriend. She’s loving, devoted and sane… and indecisive. He tries to get her a visa so she can come to the U.S., but she’s rejected. He offers to move with her abroad, she says no, preferring the safety of her accounting job back home. Requiem gives the impression that both of them would like to settle down—kids, a white picket fence, stable jobs in a first-world country—but deep down, both of them know that it’s not going to happen.

But hey, what they’ve got is pretty good too.

This is why Requiem for a Vagabond is worth reading: it’s a hysterically honest look at what happens when the DJ packs up and the partygoers go home. It’s not a cautionary tale—ETX is smart enough to not ruin a good story with moralizing—but it opens a window on what middle age is like for someone who spent the rest of his life knee-deep in pussy and vodka. From a critical standpoint, it’s also nice to see a writer explore new territory, and it makes me wonder what English Teacher X will be doing next.

Click here to buy Requiem for a Vagabond.

Read Next: To Travel Hopelessly: A TEFL Memoir by English Teacher X

My friend SJ is at it again with another book, easily his best yet. Becoming a Lion Among Sheep is a comprehensive guide on breaking bad habits and building good ones: no small deal, considering that it’s bad habits that are holding most of us back. Whether its their tendency to eat crappy food, waste time on the Internet or jerk off to porn, most men have built up a suite of bad habits that are sapping their money, health and morale.

If you want to train your brain to jettison these habits, Becoming a Lion Among Sheep is a must buy.

SJ’s advice covers the gamut from improving your health to changing your mindset to that of a winner. The book ranges from general advice on building good habits to specific guides on specific actions you should take, such as incorporating exercise into your daily routines:

Becoming overwhelmed because you’ve bitten off more than you can chew? Sounds like it may be time to take a step back and drop some habits for the time being. If you‟re struggling due to the sheer number of habits you’ve picked up, drop a routine or two and focus on wiring the remaining routines into your brain – once these are locked in and you‟re consistently performing these routines with any issues, it will be time to re-introduce the other habits again (slowly).

Becoming a Lion Among Sheep also comes with an audiobook and an Excel-compatible progress tracker to help you along your journey.

Where I would fault the book is the vagueness of some of its advice. While many of the habit-building tips—mainly the ones on diet and exercise—are helpful, a few of them are lacking in specifics. For example, SJ’s advice on eradicating debt has no specific pointers, aside from an admonition on saving money. While I don’t expect each habit to be a mini-book in and of itself, more detailed suggestions would have been nice.

Aside from this, Becoming a Lion Among Sheep is a great buy if you’re looking to improve your physique, fatten your wallet or otherwise kick ass at life.

Click here to buy Becoming a Lion Among Sheep.

Read Next: Conquering Bad Habits by Remy Sheppard

Man, I wish I’d read this book when it first came out.

It’s not because I’m particularly interested in Ukrainian or Russian women. I am interested, but I’m also smart enough to know that I were to go to either country right now, it’d be a waste. I enjoyed Bang Ukraine because it goes above and beyond Roosh’s other travel guides to become a truly memorable work in its own right. It forms the missing link between A Dead Bat in Paraguay and Why Can’t I Use a Smiley Face?, a poignant portrait of Roosh’s life abroad.

Part of this is because the book devotes more space to Roosh’s adventures than any of his previous guides. While Bang Ukraine does explain what you need to do in order to swoop Slavic bunnies, the book is much longer than the other Bang guides: it’s over a hundred pages. Close to half of those pages comprise a memoir onto themselves, detailing Roosh’s efforts to crack the Ukrainian code and tales of the girls he beds along the way:

I was less than enthusiastic. I hadn’t bowled in five years and couldn’t imagine it being fun, but I was pleasantly surprised that, for an ass man like myself, bowling is perhaps the best spectator sport there is. For nearly two hours I got to stare at her big ass as she moved, turned, and bent over. I even “helped” her form by positioning myself behind her and showing her the correct way to release the ball. I had many boners during our games.

Ukraine is a place that shatters stereotypes: contrary to Roosh’s expectations, the women are extremely difficult to pick up. While the average Ukrainian girl blows her American counterpart out of the water in terms of beauty and femininity, their icy demeanor and lack of English proficiency keeps them off-limits to all but the most dedicated players. But once you’ve cracked the Ukrainian shell, the reward you get is sweet indeed:

Yuliya’s ass was spectacularly big. She was self-conscious but I complimented it so much that she soon became comfortable cavorting it in my apartment. She had average dimensions for a Ukrainian girl, 110 pounds at a height of 5’4 inches. She had dirty blonde hair, dark eyebrows and her breasts were of average size. Her face was vaguely Slavic face with a slightly large nose and prominent cheekbones. Her eyes were gray or green, depending on how you would look at it.

Roosh’s narrative writing in this book is similar to Why Can’t I Use a Smiley Face?: descriptive without being condescending, he retells his Ukrainian escapades with wit and understatement. The guide part of the book is just as useful and informative as his other Bang guides, so if all you’re interested in laying girls who look like supermodels (but aren’t snobby like supermodels), Bang Ukraine is worth the money for that alone.

If you’re not interested, the book is worth reading for the stories.

Roosh’s perspective in Bang Ukraine is oddly touching. Between the hopefulness of A Dead Bat in Paraguay, the despondency of Smiley Face and the wry resignation of Poosy Paradise, we almost see him grasping towards a different life. The girls he seduces charm him with their easygoing nature and unabashed femininity, melting his heart in a way that we haven’t seen since Bang Poland. You almost wonder if he’s going to give up the booze and the one-night stands to settle down in some quiet little town.

Of course, if he did that, he wouldn’t be Roosh.

The bottom line is that Bang Ukraine is one of those rare books that will satisfy two disparate groups of readers: those looking for practical information and those looking for a good story. If you’re planning a trip to Ukraine, you need this book in order to get the most out of the country’s women. If you just want to read another great series of stories from Roosh, Bang Ukraine is also worth picking up.

Click here to buy Bang Ukraine.

Read Next: Bang Iceland: How to Sleep with Icelandic Women in Iceland by Roosh V

Triage is one of those novels that misses the mark in such spectacular fashion that reading it is almost painful. On paper, it has everything necessary to be a classic. A semi-autobiographical tale of author Scott Anderson’s struggle with PTSD after serving as a war photojournalist in Iraq in the late 1980’s, Triage deals with the protagonist’s attempts to reintegrate into life back home and his eventual coming to terms with his demons. It should have been impossible to screw this book up.

And yet Anderson managed to do it.

Triage’s depiction of PTSD and psychological trauma is marred by Anderson’s narrative inexperience (this was his first novel) and sentimental prose style. Every bit of dramatic tension he builds up is dissipated through his own incompetence. As a result, reading Triage is like taking a ride on a rickety roller coaster that stops and starts up again every other second. If you enjoy war stories, you might find the book worth reading in spite of its flaws; everyone else should skip it.

The novel begins promisingly enough, with an account of protagonist Mark’s last days covering armed conflict in Kurdistan. Anderson is best when he’s describing scenes of war, and the first chapter of Triage hooks you in with vivid description of gunfire, injury and death:

“Very lucky, Mr. Walsh—a flesh wound, maybe a concussion. Kurdistan isn’t a good place for a skull fracture. You might want to get stitches though.” Reaching into his coat pocket, he withdrew the stack of plastic tags. “As for the rest, it’s difficult to say. Your body took quite a jolt, but you’re not paralyzed and there doesn’t seem to be any broken bones. You have some neural disruption but, God willing, it’s temporary. We’ll know soon enough.”

Unfortunately, Anderson’s prose falls to pieces as soon as Mark is out of the war zone. Returning back to the States, we get to struggle through pages of Mark pouting about his pain, his inexplicably doting Spanish girlfriend Elena, and their pregnant friend Diane, whose husband is missing in action in the exact same part of the world where Mark was going through hell. Much of the second half of the book is dedicated to Mark’s dialogues with Elena’s grandfather Joaquin, who served in the Spanish Civil War and is full of heady anecdotes to give to his soon-to-be grandson-in-law:

And at last, they came to the study. As with Violeta’s parlor, Mark was struck by its contrast to the other rooms, opulence amid such starkness. Atop a great Oriental carpet sat the mahogany desk, so excessively carved with ships and machinery and laurel wreaths it bordered on the gaudy, its gleaming surface bare save for an onyx inkwell from which two silver pens protruded at perfectly symmetrical angles. On the far side of the desk, a high-backed leather armchair, two standing lamps, and, on the wall between them, an old Spanish flag mounted in a glass frame. Directly above the flag, a portrait of a middle-aged and dour Francisco Franco in uniform. Except for the gallery of family photographs along one paneled wall, the study resembled nothing so much as a museum exhibit, a faithful replication of history to be viewed from behind a velveteen rope.

Anderson’s writing is virtually dripping in sentiment, depicting the struggles of Mark and his friends and family in prose as purple as an uncircumcised dick. Mark comes off as a whiny emo kid cutting himself in his parents’ basement instead of a man haunted by witnessing war up close and personal, and Joaquin seems more like a “magical Hispanic” archetype than an old man tortured by his memories. While nothing about Triage is particularly offensive, the book fails to leave any kind of impact; there were no passages or lines that stood out to me while I read it. In fact, the publisher seems to have recognized this, if the study questions at the end of the book are any indication.

It’s almost like the editor was expecting people to forget about Triage as soon as they finished it.

As I said already, there are some flashes of brilliance in Triage, and war buffs might enjoy it (the historical segments involving Joaquin and the Spanish Civil War are well-researched and mildly interesting from a historical standpoint). But casual readers will be left empty by this book. If you want a more gripping depiction of war and PTSD, I recommend Samuel Finlay’s Breakfast with the Dirt Cult: while a flawed book, it’s infinitely better written and more absorbing than Triage.

Click here to buy Triage.

Read Next: Dominate by David de Las Morenas

Another one of John Dolan’s long-forgotten poetry collections, Stuck Up is distinguished from People with Real Lives Don’t Need Landscapes by having a semblance of a plot. Each of its poems are presented as part of the story of “a resentful, defiant, absurd figure sulking in Canada’s North Woods,” presumably Dolan himself. The book’s very title refers to Dolan’s neighbors’ estimation of why he won’t talk to them, oblivious to his antisocial personality and crippling fear of human interaction. He’s left with only his dog Borstal, a gigantic mutt with a predilection for defecating at the worst possible moments:

Fed Borstal, he’s getting very thin, the neighbours said, ‘He’s so thin…’, leaving the predicate ‘…especially considering he belongs to somebody who looks like you’ unsaid. Proletarian tact. Five minutes after I fed him he shat about a gallon of brown liquid all over the deck. Splash marks a foot long, gastrointestinal rocket propulsion, amazing he didn’t go flying off over the lake like a popped balloon. It went right through, you could see the cloud of horrible liquid shit spreading over the clear water, right by the pipe which draws my tea and dishwashing water into the house. Great. Thin or not, no more food for him today. Took him walking many times after that—no more accidents like that or the enraged neighbours, all of whom drink the water right out of the lake, will burn my house to the waterline. God, this cloud of Borstal shit could’ve given the neighbour kids typhus or something if they still drink unboiled lakewater in that house.

Much like Landscapes, Stuck Up concerns Dolan’s usual oeuvre: the conflict between his grandiose dreams of battle and glory and the pathetic reality of his existence. Poems such as “How I Came to Be Born Into Late Twentieth-Century California” and “Poetics of Cowardice” poke fun at his upbringing, while others such as “Tannenberg, Stalingrad, Pleasant Hill” and “Waterloo” explore his suicidal Catholic impulses.

It’s relatively typical stuff if you’ve read any of Dolan’s other books.

Stuck Up, while still worth reading, is considerably more flawed than Landscapes due to Dolan’s comparative inexperience (this was one of his first poetry collections). Despite the presence of a loose story, many of the poems in this collection seem to meander too much and didn’t grip me like the ones in Landscapes. In particular, Dolan’s ability to write a poem longer than two pages is still weak, and too much of the verse in Stuck Up goes on for entirely too long.

John Dolan is one of those writers who is so talented that even his crummier writing is worth checking out. If you’re a serious Dolanophile, Stuck Up is a worthy addition to your collection; if you haven’t read any of his other books, you should buy those first.

Click here to buy Stuck Up.

Read Next: People with Real Lives Don’t Need Landscapes by John Dolan

This is one of the most deceptive books I’ve ever read.

Not in a bad way, mind you: Strange Creations more or less fulfills what it sets out to do. Another book of extreme weirdness from the catalog of Feral House, Donna Kossy’s tome purports to explore the various alternative views of humanity’s origins, the sort of stuff that atheistards turn their noses up at. However, the actual “aberrant ideas of human origins” comprise maybe a third of the book; the bulk of Strange Creations is focused on dissecting pre-WWII eugenics theories, late 19th-century anthropology, and other semi-related topics.

It’s not a bad thing, just unexpected.

Nonetheless, Strange Creations is a pretty well-research bit of left-field history. The intro kicks off the book pretty well, discussing the “ancient astronaut” theories of kooks like Madame Blavatsky and her successors:

Madame Blavatsky lived in a grand style, well-suited to her persona as “Oriental Mystic.” As detailed in Washington’s account, she furnished her rooms in New York in the Victorian manner, filling them with foreign tchotchkes of every description. She amazed her guests with an impressive collection of stuffed animals, which included a lioness’ head over the door, monkeys “peeping out of nooks,” birds, lizards, a grey owl and a snake. As her own little joke on her nemesis Darwin, she displayed—as the centerpiece of her collection—a “large bespectacled baboon, standing upright, dressed in wing-collar, morning-coat and tie, and carrying under its arm the manuscript of a lecture on The Origin of Species.” She named it “Professor Fiske” after John Fiske, a prominent Darwinian of the time.

The middle section of the book, however, is where Kossy’s focus goes off-script. Focusing on Nazi eugenics, as well as the once-fashionable Nordicist and white supremacist ideals of scientists like Madison Grant and Francis Galton, Strange Creations loses focus. While I personally enjoyed her analyses of these theories (as well as how they became popular), I felt slightly misled by their presence vis-a-vis the way the book was initially presented. Additionally, Kossy’s digression in Chapter Two on the band Devo, while sort of relevant (as the chapter is about theories on how humanity is de-evolving), felt like a waste:

But what did the former art students who made up the band DEVO (Gerald “Jerry” Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Mothers-baugh and Jim Mothersbaugh from 1974-early 1976; Jerry Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Mothersbaugh, Bob Casale and Alan Myers from late 1976–1985) mean by “de-evolution”? The images in their movies and collages featured apes, degenerate humans, and a kind of mentally deficient mascot, Booji Boy. De-evolution obviously meant some kind of reverse evolution, in which humanity degenerates through the years, rather than improves. It seemed like heresy at the time, but little did I know that this loose idea of human degeneration had a long history that could be traced through the eugenics movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s, early scientific theories of race, Theosophy, and back to ancient times. I’m not sure that DEVO themselves knew of de-evolutions universality or its antiquity.

Kossy’s prose style is academic and simple; she’s not much for fancy flourishes or flights of fancy. While she is mostly impartial when it comes to her subjects, every so often she will slip into mawkish moralizing, particularly during the Nazi sections. Admittedly, some of this editorializing is amusing, such as during the section where she shows how white supremacist and black supremacist accounts of the origin of man are nearly identical.

It seems even in so-called “alternative” histories, writers feel the need to keep reminding us of how evil and backwards those bad, bad men they’re writing about are.

The other issue with Strange Creations is the aforementioned shifting of subject matter. The book doesn’t pick up again with true “aberrant ideas” until near the end, when it discusses the “aquatic ape” theory (notoriously promulgated by feminists) and the Urantia Book. In particular, the chapter on creationism is just depressing; this stuff isn’t fun anymore when we have to actually live it.

Aside from these issues, Strange Creations is an intriguing look at some bizarre, if not entirely wrong views on human evolution. If you go into it with an open mind, you won’t be disappointed.

Click here to buy Strange Creations.

Read Next: Are Feminists and Leftists Less Than Human?

Bang Iceland was one of the two Bang travel guides of Roosh’s that I had not read up to this point (Bang Ukraine is the other) and has inadvertently become one of his most controversial. According to pantshitters, Bang Iceland is the book where Roosh confessed to “raping” an Icelandic woman, with this being the offending passage:

While walking to my place, I realized how drunk she was. In America, having sex with her would have been rape, since she couldn’t legally give her consent. It didn’t help matters that I was relatively sober, but I can’t say I cared or even hesitated.

Here’s my question. According to Bang Iceland, Icelandic bar culture revolves around getting excessively drunk and hooking up with no rhyme, reason or attempts at plausible deniability. According to the SJWs’ doctrine of cultural relativism, each culture on Earth has its own social norms, and no one culture is superior to another. It’s clear that what Roosh did was not considered “rape” in Iceland, so why condemn him based on America’s ridiculous, nonsensical cultural norms? Why are feminists imposing American cultural beliefs on other countries?

What are they, racists?

All joking aside, Bang Iceland is an entertaining read and at the same level of quality of Roosh’s other releases. The book is a detailed deconstruction of Icelandic society, an isolated island where everyone knows everyone else and alcohol is the only thing keeping the nightlife going. Roosh paints a picture of a culture that is booze-soaked, incestuous, and weirdly fascinating, a far cry from Denmark and other Scandinavian countries:

If you like Latina women with dark hair, olive skin, and big asses (I’m thinking of Brazil right now), Iceland won’t have what you’re looking for. I will say, though, that fucking a pale, hairless girl gives a great “beauty and the beast” contrast to my darker skin color and hairy body. I felt like a wolf from the woods coming into the city to rape a fair-skinned woman, then escaping back into the darkness before the townspeople could find out what happened.

Bang Iceland goes over just about everything you could possibly want to know, from language issues (everyone in Iceland speaks English, so it doesn’t matter), cost of living (sky-high) to actually getting the women into bed. Like his other Bang guides, Roosh also shares some stories of girls he hooked up with over there: while still interesting, the stories lack the bite and comedy of his escapades in Denmark and Poland.

Overall, if you’re looking to visit Iceland or you’re just interested in a bit of social commentary, Bang Iceland is a worthy buy.

Click here to buy Bang Iceland.

Read Next: Bang Colombia: How to Sleep with Colombian Women in Colombia by Roosh V

Novels written by young people typically have a short shelf life. The basis of good fiction is being able to craft interesting and believable characters and stories, which requires both maturity and life experience. An 18-year old, drowning in her own self-absorption, has neither the wisdom nor the patience to be able to craft a truly memorable novel. At best she can retell events in her own life with some minor details fudged, and while the result might be entertaining, it’s not going to be compelling to anyone outside of her age group.

Am I saying that Bonjour Tristesse is a bad novel? Hell no. In fact, it’s far better than any novel written by a teenager has the right to be. The problem with Françoise Sagan’s masterpiece is the same problem that On the Road and other novels by young people have: there’s no depth. Barely old enough to smoke equals barely aware of the world, of human emotion and suffering, and it shows in Bonjour Tristesse.

It’s a book that teenagers will love; everyone else will be wondering what the fuss was all about.

Bonjour Tristesse concerns two months in the life of 17-year old Cécile, Sagan’s unsubtle literary surrogate, as she deals with both her transition into adulthood and the fragmentation of her life. Her father Raymond, a cad known for the long string of women he’s bedded, has chosen to settle down with Anne, a friend of Cécile’s late mother and a dedicated buzzkill:

He sat down next to Anne and put an arm around her shoulders. She turned toward him in a way that made me lower my eyes. She was no doubt marrying him for just that; for his laughter, for the firm reassurance of his arm, for his vitality, his warmth. At forty there could be the fear of solitude, or perhaps a final upsurge of the senses… I had never thought of Anne as a woman, but as a personality. I had seen her as a self-assured, elegant, and clever person, but never as weak or sensual. I quite understood that my father felt proud—the proud, reserved Anne Larsen was going to marry him. But did he love her, and if so, was he capable of loving her for long? Was there any difference between this new feeling for her and the feeling he had had for Elsa? The sun was making my head spin, and I shut my eyes. We were all three on the terrace, full of unspoken thoughts, of secret fears, and of happiness.

Jealous of the attention Anne gets from Raymond and not wanting her carefree lifestyle to be disrupted, Cécile and her older paramour Cyril hatch a plot to drive a wedge between the two. It’s not a terribly complex plot, and Sagan’s constant whining doesn’t add to it in any way. Cécile’s ennui-fueled laments about life are about as deep as you’d expect a teenager to spout. If you’re in the same age bracket as Sagan was when she wrote Bonjour Tristesse, you’ll no doubt love the book’s philosophy; grown-ups will shake their heads in exasperation.

Despite Sagan’s immaturity, Bonjour Tristesse still succeeds as a portrait of both teenage life and France in the 1950’s. Cécile is an immensely conflicted character; while she desperately wants to emulate her father’s dissolute lifestyle, she still harbors a childish naivete about the world. Her attempts to forge a relationship with Cyril and to break up Raymond and Anne’s relationship are fueled by this naive-yet-mature approach to life:

He glanced once more at Elsa, who lay there in all her youthful beauty, all golden, with her red hair and with a half smile on her lips. She seemed indeed a young nymph trapped at last by love. Then he turned on his heel and walked on at a brisk pace. I could hear him muttering: “The bitch! The bitch!”

I should mentioned that Sagan’s immaturity is in relation to other novelists; in terms of depth, Bonjour Tristesse is miles beyond anything that a teenage girl today could come up with.

Decline of civilization, anyone?

Put simply, if you’re a teenager, Bonjour Tristesse is worth reading as its message of listlessness and adolescent conflict will resonate with you. If you’re older, the book is worth reading provided you lower your standards and take it for what it is: a first-time novel from a teenage girl who was a bit wiser than her peers. As an examination of a transitional period in world history (the rise of adolescence as an independent stage of life), Bonjour Tristesse is a true classic.

Click here to buy Bonjour Tristesse.

Read Next: The Refugee by Robert Donlak

The Saint Closes the Case (also known as The Last Hero) is the third book in Leslie Charteris’ Saint series, and the first in which things start to go off the rails. Departing from the Robin Hood meets Sherlock Holmes tone of the previous books, The Saint Closes the Case is a thriller with elements of science fiction, also departing from its predecessors in terms of tone. The story concerns Simon Templar and his agents’ efforts to stop a mad scientist from creating a doomsday weapon capable of starting a new world war. Yes, it’s something of a trite storyline, particularly eighty years after it was first published, but The Saint Closes the Case excels through its sharp dialogue and well-defined characters:

It occurred to him afterwards that there was something that Norman could have done. He could have tied up the fat man and the lean man, both of whom were now conscious and free to move as much as they dared. That ought to have been done before Simon left. They ought to have thought of it—or Simon ought to have thought of it. But the Saint couldn’t, reasonably, have been expected to think of it, or anything else like it, at such a time. Roger knew both the Saint and Pat too well to be able to blame Simon for the omission. Simon had been mad when he left. The madness had been there all the time, since half-past nine, boiling up in fiercer and fiercer waves behind all the masks of calmness and flippancy and patience that the Saint had assumed at intervals, and it had been at its whitest heat behind that last gay smile and gesture from the door.

The Saint Closes the Case is defined by its focus on Norman Kent, one of the Saint’s underlings, rather than the Saint himself. This focus helps to humanize the story by moving the center of attention from the near-superhuman Templar to one of his flawed lieutenants, making the novel’s story and conclusion all the more poignant. In contrast to the hackmeisters of today who write novels with an eye to keep the series alive (and generating money) for as long as possible, Charteris places the story first and foremost.

If you enjoy adventure stories, The Saint Closes the Case is worth a read.

Click here to buy The Saint Closes the Case.

Read Next: Enter the Saint by Leslie Charteris