Reading
Russian Literature
Beside Russian classics, novels „The White Guard“ (Белая гвардия), „Heart of a Dog“ (Собачье сердце) and „Notes of a Young Doctor“ (Записки юного врача) by Mikhail Bulgakov (Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков) shaped my views on history of Russia and Ukraine.
History of Culture
Lion Feuchtwanger's novel „Success“ (Erfolg) is impressive. The „Success“ describes social and cultural changes in the life of Bavaria in 1930s.
Contemporary Literature
Philosophy and literature are influence each other. Postmodern literature develops and use means of contemporary philosophy. My favorite books in this genre are: „Foucault's Pendulum“ (Il pendolo di Foucault) by Umberto Eco, „Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel“ by Milorad Pavić. In these novels real life and fantasy coexisted are interweaved. A completely different but still intriguing play with consciousness in Haruki Murakami's novels: „Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World“ and „A Wild Sheep Chase“.
Multiverse Theory
Idea elaborated in fiction literature about co-existence of many Universes has in common with the contemporary scientific theory of parallel universes. There are many interesting relations between literature and science. The theory of mltiverses—parallel universes described by David Deutsch, in his book „Fabric of Reality“ (1997) was anticipated in Jorge Luis Borges story „The Garden of Forking Paths“ („El Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan“, 1941). This story and other ideas of state-of-the-art science are nicely discussed in „Computing The Universe“ book by Seth Lloyd.
Cyberpunk
Computer programming is both a part of my work and a hobby. Thus, it is not surprising that I like science fiction. William Gibson and Bruce Sterling wrote perfect books: „Neuromancer“, „Pattern Recognition“ or „The Difference Engine“—the last novel about the world where computer science was developed in XIX century without any electronics.I would like also to mention trilogy of novels „Labyrinth“ and especially its first part „Labyrinth of Reflections“ (Лабиринт Отражений) by Russian science fiction writer Sergey Lukyanenko (Сергей Лукьяненко).