New book about Havel, 9 days after his death

Former Czech president Vaclav Havel died on December 18 at the age of 75. Nine days later, a first book about his life and “career” was published. A very thin book by Jiří Heřman and Michaela Košťálová was in stores today. It is a very thin biography containing mostly photographs from the Czech News Agency and a short high-school level text about Havel’s notable achievements and key points of his presidency. The authors added a short list of sources, just like students do in their term papers. The sources include news servers and other biographies. In other words, it is just a compilation of something other people have written. The interesting thing is that a disclaimer includes a sentence which says that the information in this book has been obtained at “publicly accessible news servers”. It does NOT say, however, that it was used with a prior consent of the respective authors.

More books are expected in the upcoming weeks.