Bookworm Friday: Five books Recommendations from Krzysztof Sapała

01-10-2021

In this series, we ask our William Hill colleagues to share their favourite book recommendations and tell us what specifically they learned from them. Today we present 5 recommendations from Krzysztof Sapała. Have a good read!

On a daily basis, Krzysztof is a Senior Software Engineer in Core Team, Trading. He says: I enjoy reading short stories as thanks to their condensed form they transform the essentials into a set of few dense meaningful passages. Reading one of them in the evening gives me a nice feeling of satisfaction.

There is a set of short stories collections with amazing language which always change my "brain voice" after reading them.

1. Jorge Luis Borges, The Aleph and Other Stories
Borges is so good! His unique style will make you truly surprised. How can someone imagine such stories! Even now, many years after I read this, I am still under the first impression of how can someone look at such matters as time, self-awareness, or existing in space. His style immediately makes me want to write in the same manner of always telling a story that is bigger than the words which narrate it.

2. John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse 
This is an amazing insight into a brain while it’s in a creative writing process, all put into stories of a boy growing up to a man. Barth puts creative flows on a paper, smoothly coming back and forth to plot parts. I think the book can be useful to find own way of creative process in writing but in general too.

3. Don DeLillo, The Angel Esmeralda 
A set of short stories of the amazingly beautiful style of Don DeLillo will make you want to sit in a Starbucks with coffee looking at passing people and dreaming. With DeLillo’s melodious language, I am keen to look at the things as a distant observer and put their complexities in a two-three words’ hopefully just-in-point sentences.

4. Jerzy Pilch, Moje pierwsze samobójstwo i dziewięć innych opowieści
I don't think it was translated into English. A masterpiece of Polish language rhythm manipulation and flow plus super fancy dialogues by super thinking characters. Will make you rediscover the Polish language and make you want to speak like Pilch.

5. Witold Gombrowicz, Bakakaj (Bacacay) 
And last but not least, Witold Gombrowicz! One of the most entertaining polish writers who raise usage of language to the top heights. It’s an amusing set of short stories with a bit of anxiousness which often hides some darker sides of a soul. Definitely, it’s a unique and influencing one.