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This is not just a book about rulers but about fear, ambition, loyalty, betrayal, and the dangerous people who believe they are born to command others.

Do you remember your first favorite book?

I don’t remember the first book I ever read. I don’t even remember much of what filled my childhood shelves. Sometimes I wish I had the kind of memory that can hold onto those tiny early moments.

But I do remember the first book I truly loved: the fairy-tale trilogy The Golden Ball, published in 1986. I can’t really retell the plot now. What stayed with me was the feeling, that old magic of a story where goodness stands against dark, cunning evil and somehow keeps going.

Today I looked up the author and was surprised to learn that he is still alive. He’s a scholar, a professor, the author of serious academic work on propaganda, totalitarianism, information policy, and hybrid wars. I’m not sure I’ll read those books. But I know I want to return to the one that once meant so much to me.

There’s something deeply moving about intelligent, busy, serious people who still find room in their lives to write for children.

Today is Jack Kerouac birthday.

Before he became the voice of the Beat Generation, Kerouac was a promising college football player. A broken leg ended his sports career — but the long recovery gave him time to read obsessively and begin writing the stories that would change American literature.

He later wrote On the Road in a burst of energy that became legendary: typing day and night on a single 120-foot scroll of paper so he wouldn’t have to stop and change pages. The book captured the restless spirit of a generation searching for freedom, friendship, and meaning on endless American highways. 🚗📚

Did you think of Dean Moriarty?