We did it, man

Anthony Hopkins

Publisher: Alpina

It’s unlikely that there’s a person who doesn’t know this actor. And within these pages lies the autobiography of a great talent, and once a boy from a Welsh town who was considered hopeless. Loneliness. Trauma. Alcoholism. And the path to the top. Anthony Hopkins writes his life without the Hollywood gloss. And the “scandalous” details are so painfully truthful that they don’t make you want to “gossip.” He talks about his childhood. About his father, who taught him: “Don’t whine.” About his mother, who didn’t understand him. About how “Hamlet” changed his life. He talks about addictions. About how alcohol destroyed his relationships. About how he found the strength to stop. Almost 50 years of sobriety. He shares his creative vision. Where did Hannibal Lecter come from? Who inspired him to write King Lear? And at the end of the book, there’s poetry. Shakespeare, Auden – his favorite lines, like an additional key to the master’s soul.

Hacking

Ishai Sarid

Publisher: Knizhniki

A hacker gets his dream job. He doesn’t just hack smartphones anymore – he fights terrorism. Or does he? Computer genius Ziv receives an offer from a cyber espionage company – it’s a chance to help his family pay off their debts and prove how cool he is. But what if the company’s goals aren’t so noble? What if his talent works against people? Ziv keeps telling himself: it’s none of his business. He’s just an executor. But is that true? Where is that fine line that must not be crossed? Yishai Sarid is a lawyer, and it is no coincidence that he raises questions of law and justice, ethics and morality. His novel is not about hackers. It is about each of us. About choice, about responsibility and about self-deception.

Golden Dust

Tatiana de Ronay

Publisher: Sindbad

Summer 1960. The Mapes Hotel, Reno, Nevada. Marilyn Monroe’s last film, The Misfits, is being filmed here. A young maid, Pauline, enters room 614, the most luxurious room in the hotel. She has been told there are no guests. But there she finds a naked woman in a semi-conscious state. This is Marilyn Monroe. Exhausted by filming, drinking, antidepressants and the collapse of yet another marriage. This chance meeting turns Pauline’s life upside down. An unusual friendship develops between the actress and the maid. Tatiana de Ronay shows Marilyn not as an icon. But as a living person. Fragile. Vulnerable. Lonely. She rips off the glossy wrapper of a Hollywood legend. And thereby brings her closer to everyone.

The Decline of the Plantagenets

Helen Carr

Publisher: Azbuka

14th century. England on the verge of exhaustion in every sense. War with Scotland. Hundred Years’ War with France. Black Death. Social unrest. Helen Carr takes the dry facts of history and turns them into a gripping novel. Three kings – Edward II, Edward III, Richard II – are presented as living people with their weaknesses and ambitions, resulting in love affairs and political games. The author shows not events, but people in history. And how their decisions influenced the fate of the country. How their mistakes changed the course of events. History textbooks don’t hold a candle to this: as they say, drama, intrigue, tragedy.

Reasons to Live

Matt Haig

Publisher: Livebook

Depression is not a weakness. It is an illness. And it is curable. Matt was 24. His world had collapsed. He was afraid of everything. He couldn’t leave the house. Thoughts of death haunted him.

This book is his diary, artistically reimagined. Here he tells without embellishment how he ended up at the bottom. And how he found his way back. Haig doesn’t give advice. He doesn’t teach how to live. He simply shares his experience. He shows that even in the darkest times there is light. That simple things—a walk, a conversation, a book—can save you. His style is like a conversation with a friend. Short chapters. Sincere intonations. A sense of humor where it would seem hardest to find.

Not a Place

Natasha Grin

Publisher: New Literary Observer

The heroine goes to Meudon (a suburb of Paris where Marina Tsvetaeva spent 14 years in exile) and looks for traces of the poetess. Listens to the memories of old-timers. Peers at old photographs. Through Tsvetaeva’s story, she tries to understand herself. Her separations. Her search for a place in a foreign land. The second storyline is Paris in the late 1980s. Two documentarians save the archive of Konstantin Rodzevich. A Soviet spy. A participant in the Spanish Civil War. Tsvetaeva’s lover. The archive is real. Natasha Grin found it in Paris: photographs, documents, letters. All of this comes to life on the pages of this hybrid book, an autofiction and a documentary essay. Her prose is so poetic that it breaks down genre boundaries.

Into the Wild

Jon Krakauer

Publisher: Bombora

22-year-old Christopher McCandless gives up everything, donates money to charity, and sets out on a journey. Two years hitchhiking across America and Mexico. And then — Alaska. An old bus in the forest. An attempt to survive in the wild. A tragic ending. For many, this story is familiar from the film of the same name, but it’s all the more interesting to read this original nonfiction prose. Jon Krakauer investigates this true story. He talks to people who met Christopher. Reads his diaries. Retraces his route. He doesn’t judge. He tries to understand. What drives a person who renounces everything? Freedom? Ideals? Youthful maximalism? The book is more than just a journalistic investigation. It is a reflection on the meaning of life. On the price of freedom. About what we leave for the sake of our beliefs.