I have always wondered how I keep coming to try these books after DNFing them so regularly and so discouragingly. With this book, I got my answer finaI have always wondered how I keep coming to try these books after DNFing them so regularly and so discouragingly. With this book, I got my answer finally. I have realised that the highs in this series are really high, while the lows are mere grey, and quite insipid. I have taken away jewels of knowledge from this huge nonfiction book. But there was no chance in hell of it getting 5 stars.
The standout conflict, to put it mildly, was the tussle between Phillip II and the entire Dutch Civilisation. People say that Mauritians are not patriotic because they haven't shed blood for the cause of their independence. While this has a kernel of truth in it, it does not tell the entire story. True enough, the most inhuman and most drawn out war, the 80 Year war was mostly about getting rid of foreign and religious oppression. As a result of the peace, the Netherlands were the most emancipated country in Europe. The first free press came from them. For about a century they were the masters in the very crucial science of mapmaking. The Dutch were the first inhabitants of my country's history, Mauritius. To cut to the chase, I would say that the level of savagery achieved in this war was more than what they showed in Game of Thrones. The variety of inflicting defeat and pain was second to most none.
The development of technology and the proliferation of inventions were heartwarming when read about them in the book. The fountain pen, the thermometer and barometer, the invention of the printing press, all changed the game of civilisation. The Bible remained the most published and most read book ever. But the ideas of mortals came to wobble it from its throne. I now fully understand the quote of Isaac Newton:- “If I have seen further,” Isaac Newton wrote in a 1675 letter to fellow scientist Robert Hooke, “it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Now I know the names of those giants. I also know why people don't place any scientist, including Newton, above John von Neumann in terms of raw cerebral power.
Throughout Europe there was the dismantling of feudal power. The 16th and 17th centuries had the kings being under the influence and yoke of the Popes. I hated Henry III more than I liked Henry IV, who sounds like Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark mixed together. This, is neither an exaggeration, nor a joke. Along with the Dutch history, I loved reading about the English and French courts. Shakespeare's chapters gained me new glimpses into the plays I am yet to read of his. I have forgotten a lot already of Spenser, Marlowe, and Sidney. All these writers merged together in one entity in my mind.
The European artists were something! I read avidly about Rembrandt and Rubens, who is my favourite. I began to understand the subtleties of paintings. The play on shadows, colours and light was something I could not get without education. So much that is quotable worthy has been written in this book. The essayist Montaigne was a tough nut to crack. I read about him with excitement. He influenced so many writers. I suspect his effect on future generations was telling. I am almost sure that he influenced Poe, who himself, though a god of literature, is too recent to appear in a volume of Will Durant's. The latter has already been dead by the 80s. I wish he could continue his chronicles indefinitely. I enjoyed his magnum opus a lot and recommend it to people of all ages and abilities....more
The End of Faith is the type of book of which I can say that I am always grateful that it exists. Most philosophy books are obtuse and inaccessible toThe End of Faith is the type of book of which I can say that I am always grateful that it exists. Most philosophy books are obtuse and inaccessible to the layman. I have always had nothing but admiration and gratitude to people who make precious ideas, and structures of thought available. Even this type of public service is rare. In the form of YouTube videos, info about socialism and capitalism is rare. The best kind of prevaricate. That is why I had been very glad that Sam Harris has used his intellect for the benefit of neuroscience, as opposed to say, derivatives.
Sam Harris is a very articulate person. If he has not written a politically charged book about religion recently, it is because he chooses to express his views through podcasts. And I can attest that Harris has no lack of material. Everything that he talks about could be placed in a book. The guy is very intelligent. When you look at the standards of public discourse, and religious speeches, Harris can blow your mind with ideas that seem irrefutable.
The ideas in The End of Faith are limpid. What I found inaccessible previously, I now find fascinating. And what I found accessible on the first read, I now find interesting, but without the sparkle that usually animates Harris' soundbites. Harris has become a person who can make his living by writing. You got to respect that, given that what he has written has been salient. He is not very visible though. A conman like Lex Fridman boasts 20 times the number of subscribers than Harris.
It is very difficult to gain the type of info that you want, that you know will fill some craving in your mind. I am not talking about eschatology and evangelicalism. I am talking about a subject so rare that you cannot order buttloads of books of them. Twitter is like hillbilly land these days, though I cannot claim to be an expert on such levels of time wasting, as I only recently got an account.
Harris is a cool customer. He provides ideas that will either challenge or change you. Hitchens said that what you can accept without evidence, you can also dismiss without evidence. The sometimes simple levers that underpin the human brain, when that brain has been conditioned to accept faith on blind faith, is fascinating to witness. All because of Harris and the rare service that he provided.
The question of Eastern philosophy should not have interested Harris, as that makes him less interesting in my opinion. Meditation is a luxury that has no crucial scientific benefits, though that is a matter of rigour. If meditation can help you combat alcoholism, depression, megalomania, I'm all for it. Should it be part of such a book? I don't think so. It blunts the subject matter, though I have never heard of anyone else complaining that aspect of Harris' disposition.
This book will always be precious to me. It was released before The God Delusion and is the better of the two. I am so interested in what the world is going to be in the upcoming years. I know I am living in a world where science is progressing so fast, yet the hobbled effigy of religion is always trying to hobble science and pay it back for its irrelevancy. This is the problem... we cannot get at the info we want, what we really need.
We have been hindered by a mechanism of camouflage. The vital piece of knowledge that can do things like making your life easy in terms of productivity, help you keep your calm, help you vote in a way that is highly beneficial to you, all of this is exposed. In the end I would say that The End of Faith is a gift of reason. It is a dollop of rationality that is encapsulated in a breath of fresh air. What Harris had been dreading in the opening paragraphs has not happened. There has not been nuclear winter. The situation seems defused. But bad things keep happening in the world. Let me end by saying that The End of Faith is entertaining?? It was a delight to partake of its contents. I would rather reread it than watch the next Batman movie, e.g. Throughout the years so many formerly prized things have become boring to me. Football matches, porn, movies, Shakespeare to an extent, all have become boring. But I can always cheer myself up with the perusal of this timeless book....more
I won't be writing much about this reading experience. I don't have the guts to do so. Something ethereal passed by me when I read it. That something I won't be writing much about this reading experience. I don't have the guts to do so. Something ethereal passed by me when I read it. That something is the sophistication, dry wit, and bravado of Alan Rickman alone with his thoughts. The entries are very honest, and they are private too. Devastatingly so.
I have not read more than a couple of memoirs so far in my life. That is by the way something to rectify. The other memoir (so technically this is a diary) I read had more average rating than 'Madly, Deeply'. So do the books of Tom Felton, Matthew Perry (I know!), Richard E. Grant (the guy who quoted Shakespeare's 'To be or not to be' in a rap music video). All of these books outrank Alan Rickman's diaries. How?
Due to the low scores, I nearly refrained from downloading the e-book. But I should have trusted the little things about this book that ultimately made me read it. Rickman's choice of movies, his theatre background, his sparse but voluble interviews, his decision not to go under the surgeon's knife for cosmetic purposes, his intermittent silences, his very persona, all of them urged me to go read his posthumous book.
At first I was enjoying it effortlessly. But then I got irked by the pacing of the stuff in it. It made for choppy reading. After that phase, I settled down and finished the book with much vindication and admiration for it. I am glad to report that though I recognise less than half of the names thrown around by A.R., I had accumulated enough knowledge to recognise some of the friends and acquaintances of his. I also got to get some pretty random knowledge, such as the fact that Ken Follett, a writer of popular literature, has enough money to live it really large.
The book has been edited, but that fact didn't destroy the flavour of Alan Rickman's personality. His words were hard hitting. When he was diagnosed with his last illness, he didn't kick up a fuss. I think he had been quietly preparing for the shuffling of his own mortality. This is how I want to go too. I want to die old enough to outlive my parents, but not old enough to see all my contemporaries dead. I would see my body fail me rather than carry me through my 70s only to fall apart as it almost always must.
Rickman's work in Die Hard made of me a devotee. He is the best villain in cinema for me. What acting chops, what allure. An unfamiliar face, yet a face animated by the hammer of years of theatre work. By the way before reading this diary, I had no idea that Rickman was still doing theatre work, once partnering Helen Mirren in Antony and Cleopatra. He looks happy in the company of friends.
He was cultivated. He knew when to be petty, but his humanity shone through this pettiness. He was fussy and high maintenance, and he was kind, and generous, and humble, and gifted. I have planned to reread his diary next year too. Alan Rickman has not taught me much about life, but he has schooled me about the human condition. It is a pity that not every section of the reading community will take up this book. It is also a blessing that this book is as understated, if not underrated as its author. A man who lived once, who now is no more. Yet we can see him onscreen. His shadow is here. His talent is untouched. The things that made him special are for everyone to sample. I still admire his talent on the page, never mind on the big screen. Yeah? Harry Potter movies suck though....more
I identified with the author immediately, even if I did not know substantially about him. This book, despite being a nonfiction one, has a beginning, I identified with the author immediately, even if I did not know substantially about him. This book, despite being a nonfiction one, has a beginning, a climax, and an end. O'Toole uses the English language with calm and restraint. He does not even think of showing off. His story seems to have existed and been compiled for years without any release of any kind. It is safe to say that O'Toole is not a prolific author. Should we apply the 'death of the author' philosophy to someone so alive?
The Ireland from the author's childhood made the poor pay dearly for their lack of money. The poverty of Ireland is vaster than its shores. It bears kinship with the poorest of India and some parts of Africa. But the slums of Ireland are residences proper. They cannot be called slums. There is a sluggishness about Crumlin, where the writer began living. Though there are few toilets in the developing towns at that time, there was too much concreteness about these poor houses to call them squalid. Urban Ireland was grey, depressing, claustrophobic, and too uniform to call them hellholes. All this back in the 60s.
The impression I got from reading the beginning of the book was that the latter could have been longer. O'Toole gives us a lot, yet the length of his historical, fireside-like chat could have revealed more. This is what I take away from the book. It does not censure itself. It simply makes us understand that it is revealing everything but not going through even a fifth of what was worthy of hearing.
Fintan O'Toole made us side with him easily, even if most of his personal focus was on his childhood. Here too, he does not tell everything worth telling. The swirling traumas of child molesting was all around him. The Catholics' world famous hypocrisy at work. John F. Kennedy visited the country and must have looked on the populace with fantastically concealed pity. The author did not meet the president. That would be too theatrical. But he gave us a glimpse into Ireland's position in the world through that visit.
There is a perversity about the desire to enjoy the plight of a terrorism infested place like Ireland. The IRA was an insane landmark in the pockmarked face of the country. Just as many people seem to follow the war on Ukraine and find excitement in it... so too did I find excitement in this book. On one hand I shouldn't really do so. I ought not to find joy in this violent narration. But if I hadn't enjoyed the book, I could not have finished it. It was a guilty pleasure. Here was I, safe in my humble abode, in a different island where there exists no army, let alone a draft. I could not live in a war torn country. It would have finished me off, regardless of any circumstances.
But I did draw pleasure of a more karmic kind that is the dominion of the endless fight between good and evil. Here at last we have a contextual bookkeeping of Haughey, the Taoiseach of Ireland. The rapacity of the latter person was a foil to the author's telling of the corruption and frozen ability to think of the population at large. We get to see the disadvantages of living in a country where religion is meant to be the natural way of organising society. All of this was very fascinating.
It began to dawn on me that the book has a happy ending, with a look to the future too. The fall of the political troupe and the defeat of the hold of Catholicity on the laws of the land was a rewarding aspect. This was one of the reasons why I think many people still now in the US can read the book with a touch of familiarity about them. If they had not been there they sure will be.
As the chronology of the book went on almost linearly, we see the icy façade of orthodoxy and the reality of the society undergo changes. Changes in office, and in law. I give this book 3 stars because simply I reserve 4 or 5 stars for outstanding reads. This book is very revelatory about my own self and the place I live in. For that alone I would reread the book. But I don't think I will. A reread will bring to fore the nasty bits that I have half forgotten in it. Since I cannot reread it, I cannot give it more than 3 stars. I recommend it though. And I wouldn't be surprised if many people like it more than I....more
I give this very short work of nonfiction two stars, very reluctantly. The book is introductory. That determined its rating. It simply was boring to rI give this very short work of nonfiction two stars, very reluctantly. The book is introductory. That determined its rating. It simply was boring to read. The reason for it was that quite a sizable chunk of this book comprised unsurprising anecdotes. The book is well meaning. It is also essential to educating young girls - and boys - about feminism.
I made jokes about Chimamanda Adichie's long name. Did that make me anti-feminist? Or perhaps xenophobic? Surely not racist. I am neither white nor black. I am brown-skinned. A strain of genes from India, living in Mauritius. I have listened to Adichie's witty discourse on YouTube once. The latter was much more interesting than the book.
I give 'We Should All Be Feminists' a second star because of an example of how misogynists who are male harm their own masculine gender by deriding women. When we think of what we do to women daily, really think about it, I mean, it might give us males sleepless nights. How does it often not do so is a small mystery in itself.
I have little to decorticate in this small book. It is a book that is going to remain popular for a long time. Too bad it did not give me more info and more insight into feminism in Nigeria. There was some bravado about Lagos being more vibrant than London or New York, so maybe Adichie touched a nerve with some of these cities' residents.
Adichie is not only a feminist, she is also a black feminist. I'm very glad whenever someone oppressed in life gets a break and becomes a useful celebrity. Adichie is a militant with a functioning brain. She deals her cards well. In the bipartisanship world of politics in the US and the UK, it is refreshing to see someone center our attention on feminism, a word that is still sadly contaminated with negativity.
Feminism is treated like alchemy. An outdated, decorative field, according to well intentioned males in Adichie's life. But when having insisted on bearing the torch, Adichie meets with resistance from both sexes. I am disappointed in this book, but I am also curious about whether other nonfiction books from her can yield something volatile and pertinent and pleasing to the mind. I think Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie can deliver on that front....more
Once upon a time there was a soccer player called Gary Neville. People not having a clue in sports knew him as the best man in David Beckham's weddingOnce upon a time there was a soccer player called Gary Neville. People not having a clue in sports knew him as the best man in David Beckham's wedding. I believe that if Beckham had divorced Victoria Beckham, nee Spice, and had remarried, then Neville would have been David's best man again.
I think I won't do a proper review here. I will just let Nature take its course. I am going to post the definitive companion to this book... a fictitious diary entry not by the man himself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunday I'm so excited about tonight I did a wee in the pool today - mum was wrong about the water going purple :-) But I swam next to Philip just in case. Am missing Sir but hopefully the postcards will stop him missing me too much.
Will update later after our glorious win over the cocky French - I shall wipe that smile off silly Robert Pires' face with his silly facial hair. Bet he wishes he had a proper moustache like me. And bet he wishes he plays for the best club in the whole wide world.
Later: Not fair, not fair, not fair. I hate Scousers and I told Mr Eriksson that there's no way they should be allowed to play for us again. Sir would never allow it. I'm calling a meeting tomorrow to propose a strike until only players from the best club in the whole wide world can play for England. And Wayne Rooney. And Sol Campbell. But that's it. Oh and Owen Hargreaves because he gave me a bite of his Curly Wurly.
Monday Only Philip turned up for the meeting. And that might have been because I had him in an armlock. Everyone else was off with girls - in their rooms kissy-wissing. Yuk. I played ping-pong - but got a bit bored of fetching the ball.
Told the journalists that I wasn't bothered at all about losing to France. Ha. That'll teach them. I'm getting really good at these mind games.
Read Sir's book and felt closer to him somehow.
Tuesday Mr Eriksson seemed pleased I'd ironed the bibs with my travel iron. Just wait until he sees the embroidery :-)
Took Wayne aside today to give him the benefit of my advice - tell him how I've coped with the pressure of fame and being heralded as one of the most gifted players in Europe. He started laughing - think he was nervous about talking to me. Poor lad. He must pinch himself every day that he's playing alongside David and me.
Wednesday Am sick with worry - tried to call Sir again and he didn't answer. I tried about 40 times from my mobile and he never answered so went downstairs and called from the hotel phone. He answered after the first ring this time but was cut off when I said 'Hello Sir'. Called Mum but she said she'd seen him on TV so he definitely hadn't been kidnapped. Phew. But there's definitely something wrong.
A small Portuguese child laughed at my moustache, saying his was thicker and more bushy. I held him down and knuckled his head until he said that Manchester United are the best team in the whole wide world and Paul Scholes' goal against Porto was definitely a goal which means that Porto are poo.
He was right about his moustache though. All the kids here seem to have thicker moustaches than me :-(
Thursday '...And then Gary Neville, with his thick and bushy moutache, caps a man-of-the-match performance with the cross for England's third which is bundled somewhat luckily home by a fortunate Scouser. Can anyone stop Gary Neville? Surely there is no player in Europe to match Neville. We can hear the crowd chanting his name - everyone's hero Gary Neville...'
Can't wait to see the newspapers tomorrow. I can see the headlines now - 'Golden Gary Makes Swiss Roll' or just 'Nev-Mania!'. Sir (and Mum) will be so proud.
Friday Roo-mania, Roon Army, Wayne's World - I shouldn't have had that chat with him on Tuesday.
Saturday It's mine and David's anniversary today! Have been walking around with a big smile all day. I left a little teddy on his bed with a note with the lyrics of 'our' song (Come on you Reds, come on you Reds, Just keep your bottle and use your heads...). David didn't say anything in front of the other lads because they'd get jealous. But he gave me a special smile - though the silly love-sick waitress who was walking in front of me clearly thought it was for her! Loooooser.
I can't believe it's been eight years since he first called me 'Gazza'.
Sunday Father's Day so tried to call Sir. And then tried again. And again. No luck (though I heard Butty call someone 'Alex' on the phone?!) so called Mum and asked her to ask Dad if he would pop round to Sir's with a card.
Played pool this afternoon and I beat Philip 10-0 because I am the greatest. Philip wasn't actually there but I played left-handed every time it was his turn. And he was rubbish! Ha ha ha. Gazza is the greatest.
Excited about tomorrow. But annoyed that Mr Eriksson says Butty's injury means that he can't replace Frank Lamppost. He said something in Swedish. Think it must have been 'Good luck'.
Monday David was brilliant tonight against Croatia. I bet everyone back home is so proud of him. And me. I was brilliant too. Portugal must have been scared watching us together. Beckham and Neville. David and Gary (how cool does that sound? Much better than 'David and Victoria' anyway). Scholesy was also great but I bet Roonaldo (yeah right, as if he's as good as our Ronaldo) gets all the headlines again for two lucky finishes. It's only because everyone hates Man United. And we all know why they hate Man United don't we? J-E-A-L-O-U-S-Y.
The only thing that spoiled tonight was that Philip came on for the last six minutes. Somehow he managed not to ruin everything completely.
Tuesday Boring day - everyone went to play golf and forgot to tell me (again) - so have put together Gary Neville's Team Of Euro 2004. Here we go...
GK: Fabien Barthez. RB: Gary Neville (he's been brilliant) CB: Jaap Stam (I won't show this to Sir) CB: Sol Campbell LB: Mikael Silvestre (solid) RM: David Beckham (brilliant) CM: Paul Scholes CM: Nicky Butt (looked excellent in training) LM: The Real Ronaldo CF: Louis Saha CF: Ruud van Nistelrooy (brilliant)
Am happy with this apart from Sol. He's the weak link and is only there because of the FA's victimisation of Rio. But I still think this team would win the whole thing.
Wednesday Sent another postcard to Sir as I'm sure I won't see him for another 12 days - and by then we will be European champions again ;-) Is not the same without the other guys and am still a bit angry with Mr Eriksson that he did not bring Giggsy. But he says I can't threaten another strike after I got my way about the lumpy beds. And the supposed Branston's pickle that was just a cheap imitation. Still fuming about that now.
Am trying to spare a thought for little Ronaldo though. He will no doubt be brilliant against us but will be on the losing side. I will make a special effort to find him after the game and console him.
Thursday Up Urs Meier - you cheating, weaselly nincompoop. This Swiss cuckoo (ha) got the biggest decision of his life absolutely wrong and we lost because of him. Because we - and especially me and David and excepting Phil - were absolutely brilliant against Portugal and deserved to win by miles. But he got it all wrong. I still can't believe he booked me. There'll be a fuss about that in the papers tomorrow.
Gave Darius Vaseline (ha) a Chinese burn after the match. He said David missed too but everyone could see that was the fault of the pitch and anyway, David is brilliant, so there.
There's only one good thing to come out of all this: I'll see Sir soon....more
'Range' is a crowd pleaser, first of all. I have always wondered what my life would be if I had lived up to my early academic promise. I would be a be'Range' is a crowd pleaser, first of all. I have always wondered what my life would be if I had lived up to my early academic promise. I would be a believer in God. I would be married, have kids. Go abroad for holidays probably. Most of these things are not reflective of me nowadays. I am living a life that seems to fit the mantra of Range's assumption, but is that a truth, or is the fact that I am trying to learn a few skills, merely being a Jack of few trades?
This is a wonderful nonfiction book. I am almost 100 % convinced of its claims. It makes sense. At one point, one of the scientists, Arturo Casadevall, gives us a hypothetical scenario where a weirdly self folding protein molecule in a cucumber might be of value. This reminded me of Michael Crichton's The Lost World. The Lost World for me is better than Jurassic Park. I love the science disseminated in it. Crichton himself is mentioned as a subject in Range. He tried to study medicine in his youth. The knowledge gathered there helped him become a writer and a showrunner in ER, a TV show.
Range tries to show us that specializing in a domain leads to lack of success generally. Budding musicians fare far better when they are learning more than two instruments. This is shown in the example of Maria Del Pieta and her 'group', way back in the tail end of the Renaissance. Being specialized means being deep, while being a generalist means being broad in the field one is affiliated with. This latter concept is explained a few times in the book, and the subject stayed fresh for me because the topic is one I have been wondering all my life. I surmise that this is the case with other readers.
The Beatles were generalists. They did not specialise in one genre. They grew up with rock and roll music. They were inspired by myriad gifted black musicians. They combined their idols' styles to create a poppy sounding music that they galvanised in their own songwriting talent. Still in music, when one of the members of Radiohead was interviewed about why there are not enough innovative and creative guitarists in the US, he replied that there, guitar magazines sell really well. This means that learners try to get technical too early and too fast. Parents who want their children to succeed in sports want their offsprings to do what the Olympians are doing right now, instead of what the latter have done when they themselves were kids.
There is a former reviewer called J.G. Keely on Goodreads who held the most unpopular opinions. He is the most intellectual person I have engaged in conversation with. So, e.g. he gave 1 star to Game of Thrones. He gave 3 stars to LoTR and thrashed talked Harry Potter. It is clear to everyone that by most metrics, Game of Thrones is not a 1 star book. Yet Keely was able to defend himself - successfully - against the fans of that book. He could do so because he had so many weapons to choose from, so many types of rhetoric, and he displayed such a superior reasoning capacity that none of his detractors could 'unsaddle' him, so to speak. Keely was able to defend his stance because he was a specialist. He wielded language like a whip. If one has so much knowledge of a particular area, one will often be able to fit any opinion in that area of expertise.
This happened to people who were asked to predict the future. Predicting, say, next week's stock exchange's numbers is almost as hard as guessing about the future in national events that would form history. Not only that, but the specialists who got their predictions wrong doubled downed on their input and insisted that they will be right next week. They never even get close. Parents who want super achiever kids too reacted strongly to Range's tenet. Informed that generalists do better than specialists, these adults meet this info with disbelief. They had been taught that to keep on trying, relentlessly, in one field, is a sign of progress.
Range is a great book. But my puny achievements in art and life are far removed from the types of musicians who are readily mentioned here. This book can help me learn languages. I only need to mix it up a bit and multitask. Whenever an innovative idea is met with resistance in a few disciplines, we see cracks appearing in our worldview. This aspect is not covered by the book. It is my opinion. Take the example of NASA's failure with the Challenger launch disaster. When the entire body of scientists got upended, cracks started to appear and we finally get to know that even the pursuit of discovery and scientific knowledge is an ideology.
To summarise, Range is a book whose contents I have never stopped wondering about. Range shows us that the best CEO of the last 3 decades was a woman who had no training in management. She worked till at least when she was 101 years old. I like her most of all. It has been a pleasure and a privilege reading this book. It is what I thought Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and what Degrasse Tyson's book, Starry Messenger would be like. My first book of the year, and it is a 5 star one....more
I wonder what motive will it take for Neil deGrasse Tyson to motivate him to write a really thick book about the most interesting things he has seen, I wonder what motive will it take for Neil deGrasse Tyson to motivate him to write a really thick book about the most interesting things he has seen, studied, and analysed in his life. Maybe he has such a project in mind. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt, shall we? If his magnum opus will be mind blowing, supposedly, then Starry Messenger is a scant offering that casts shadows over how people more dumb, more cruel, more narcissistic, than Tyson can write books that outstrip his 20 or so books, regularly.
I mean, is this all? Are the musings of a gifted mind this stuffy? Is there a shallow end to the depth of Tyson's mind? Or, as I have hazarded in the opening paragraph, is it only the tip of the iceberg? I am left totally unimpressed by this book that will at most enrapture kids and teens. I am left scratching my chin, wondering who is the target audience of this book. And by the way, I refuse to believe the astrophysicist's words in the Acknowledgements section. a) I refuse to believe that this is a work that took a lot of energy to write and b) that it needed the collaboration of a team of well meaning and hard working sympathisers and colleagues for it (this book) to see the light of the day.
The best thing that can be said about this book is that its data is very fresh. The stats don't lie until they do, or until they are updated and their numbers and data, superseded. This book was edited as 'recently' as April 2022. I appreciated some of the answers to my inquisitiveness. Beyond that, there is not a lot of positive stuff to be said about Starry Messenger.
The moral laziness of this book is what is salient. E.g. when Tyson is pro-'let's remove the offending southern based statues'. For someone who is capable of so much more scientific thought than I, his lack of justification for upending Confederate statues is bewildering. It is so bewildering that I began to think that Tyson is either lazy, or dishonest, or takes pleasure in bamboozling his audience with Sokal-like demonstrations. I am not an inhabitant of Republican states, let alone anywhere in the Western hemisphere. Yet I do call out the nonsense rhetoric in Starry Messenger's pages.
In a fetid desire to pay back lip service to his right leaning chums, Tyson went to contortionist lengths. This is not more apparent than when he tries to confuse the differences between Democrats and the GOP. While I agree that racists abound in blue states, red ones really take the cake in intellectual dishonesty and fearmongering. Tyson stops when it is politically convenient to do so. When analysing divorces and cheating, he did not go the whole hog. He ought to have briefed his audience on single mothers, tax evasions, perjuries etc. He is loyal to George W. Bush, who is an even bigger military chieftain than the drone-using Obama.
Someone please tell Tyson that eating plants is not even close to eating meat. Plants are without brains and a nervous system. This simple fact was surreptitiously ignored, leaving a gaping hole in the scientist's efforts to pardon the sins of the meat eaters. Perhaps Tyson is playing a political game now that his limits have reached in terms of his presence, his appeal, and his influence. I fully expect Tyson to keep churning out diplomatic mushy books like Starry Messenger for the rest of his life.
Apart from the above, I was just, underwhelmed by what was in the book. I wanted to know more about who got predicting the 'future' right, any time in history. I wanted to know about the percolating experiments that are, soon, to translate to concrete and wonderful inventions. I wanted Tyson to tell us the geopolitical and historical underpinnings of why Africa is often poor. Tell us why all the oil operations in Africa are privately owned, while Norway's oil industry is nationalised. Can you do that, Tyson?
All of the facts that can ruffle the mighty further are left half hanging, e.g. the many complex moral issues of abortion in the US. This book could have been written by a YouTuber like Rationality Rules, and I would not have known the difference. Where is the communication of the wonders of life, which Tyson touched on only in his epilogue? Where is the dissecting, the analysing, the invoking, of extensive biological and chemical, and even physical realms?
To summarise, I have benefited but little through reading this book. Yet its sales not exceeding A Brief History of Time (among other science books) comes as no surprise. Tyson is preaching to the converted. His colleagues would not gasp with realisation on reading his book, which is unfortunate. Tyson did not try to reach the college students, the housewives, the crowd reading nothing but romance. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I expected knowledge from this book. Maybe that is my problem. I expected something that would not crop up in Tyson's podcasts. Maybe that was asking for the moon. The only active change in me is that the book increased my desire to learn Latin. It's just slightly worrying that Tyson will probably - judging from his current trajectory - pass on receiving the torch when the likes of Richard Dawkins fade in time....more
**spoiler alert** One of the first things I did when I read Ice Bound was to check on Nielsen's wiki page. I thought she would not have one. But she h**spoiler alert** One of the first things I did when I read Ice Bound was to check on Nielsen's wiki page. I thought she would not have one. But she had a wiki entry. And though I was temporarily monumentally gutted about Nielsen dying as far back as in 2009, I was glad because she beat her cancer the first time around, and was ready for the cruel and fated rematch where the cancer took her on her terms. She and death went from this mortal world hand in hand.
I took my time reading Jerri Nielsen's memoir. It is a superb book. It is a direct, touching, and humane story of a self imposed exile to the South Pole for a woman who was a tough customer and who was adventurous to her bones. Antarctica is the remotest, coldest, and loneliest place on earth. The continent thought, " well, I can't count on malaria and dengue to discourage visitors, let's mess with their minds directly through cold". Cold like the South Pole is beyond cold such as what is found in your freezer. Cold in the South Pole is probably - and I am relying on my imagination here - like fire and knives combined.
I was sad that Nielsen did not survive, but I thought that I would rather die at the age of 57, the age when the cancer in the doctor metastasised to her brain, rather than die at the age of 85, with all my kin (or almost) dead before me. How sweet would it be, to have my parents and brother surrounding my deathbed, while I drifted to a morphine induced unconsciousness, safe in the knowledge that my sight had transferred the most comforting and perfect image from my life to my dying brain.
After I had started reading the book, I found that I was getting affected by it. I felt numb as if I was getting cold. I felt solitude like I was in a slum or a cell or a maze. I decided to read the book only when there was someone in my room. This way the book lasted longer and I was pitched into the thoughts of Doctor Jerri Nielsen and Big John, and Roo, and Lisa the woman who for April Fool raided the store of their base at Antarctica with a fellow female (excuse the contradiction).
There was no bugs or animals of any kind in the bottom of the world. The elements and the Circadian rhythm of the inhabitants there though, got messed up. Though there was law active on the continent, there were only the customs that the Polies (as they called themselves) made up on the spot. There was the regression of Jerri and Big to a more primitive state. They became closer to their neighbours. They became feral, and they didn't mind not speaking for hours. The group of well drilled and physically and mentally tough people, all of them carrying experience and skills such as medicine (for Jerri only, the sole doctor in that group) engineering, science, and astronomy among many other skills such as polymathy, multilingualism, and artistry, turned into a stone age tribe.
The group of Polies had to contend with loneliness, yet Jerri had been looking forward to the temp workers leaving the place so as to winter during the ultimate of all winters. For the companion of Jerri was to be the Dark, and the Cold, where the Sun would not appear for months. No wonder the group became like cave dwellers. No wonder Jerri felt reluctant to return to civilisation as we know it. For Nielsen has tasted the loneliness and the silence of a bare world. She could not get enough of it yet.
So you see, the taught and received ideas of comfort, safety, and communication that seemed so natural in the here and the now, vanished there. Nielsen had realised the blinding thought that by domesticating animals and cultivating grain, humanity had domesticated itself. By refraining from nomad status, humanity has farmed out intellectuals and labourers alike. Humanity had made a social ladder to climb. And Nielsen was not eager to return to the rat race, to the corporate ladder and all that it meant. Who can blame her?
So Jerri Nielsen, after a clean bill of health from her clinic, got waylaid by breast cancer in a place and at a time cut off from the rest of the human population. She had not the personnel nor even the tools to cure her. She had to be evacuated. She performed a biopsy on herself and underwent chemotherapy while the US was corralling a couple of high tech planes to reach and rescue her. The book, apart from the experience that it sprang upon you, was an account of adventure and hope. Jerri survived for enough time to make her life a success. I have so much more to say on this book, but it will have to suffice that the memoir changed me. Death has fear over me but no longer holds thrall over me. That has changed for the better....more
The Second Sex has a hyper refined language in some places in the book. This, I could barely follow. Fortunately Simone de Beauvoir was a woman flowerThe Second Sex has a hyper refined language in some places in the book. This, I could barely follow. Fortunately Simone de Beauvoir was a woman flowering in her vital youth in the 1940s. She had access to modern amenities that were denied to her gender throughout 99.99% of human history. Let that sink in.
De Beauvoir had a great mind. It is of no surprise that she had Sartre as one of her lovers. De Beauvoir is a feminist, always will be. Her accessible ideas in this book of hers are what catch fire symbolically. She is one of the giantesses of Philosophy. I consider her higher than Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Aristotle, and Sartre himself! I am smitten. I think women should have a crack at ruling the world. It is a shame that Monarchies were ditched in Modernist times just as women were given quasi equal rights in enlightened societies. Is there causation? I wonder.
This book was so well written that I have some quibbles with it. My puny mind could not seize the portent of the initial chapters, which dealt with the biology of the 'inferior' creatures that de Beauvoir took for examples. The reason for the absence of a female gaze is rooted in the biology of creatures that are not close to being human.
Patriarchy is a trap so cunningly disguised that it does not look like one. I despair when I see online, women going against super achievers who are themselves women. I see people saying that de Beauvoir's work was understandable at her time and is now not so pat on the topic! As if women everywhere are treated similarly. De Beauvoir is sadly still relevant today. It was the same for Marx. People who do not know better keep saying that Marx's ideas were written at a time where people were being repressed in their workers's rights. That now Marxism is redundant. It is not. And Feminism is not. It is still needed.
Men and women need to see in women beyond a baby cranking machine. In Hindu mythology, the goddess of wealth is Lakshmi, but the male god Vishnu was the one who took her as his bride. She was subordinate to him. We still see in depictions the goddess pressing the feet of the god while he lies reposed. As if he were a peasant. As if this imagery was not aimed at the poorest and the least informed and the least educated. Goddesses were created so as to subjugate women even further in Vedic and other societies.
Like I said, women in our times look down on other women who are career-oriented. I remember a comment on Goodreads where a woman was berating Julie Andrews for feeling sorry for herself when jetlagged (in her memoir) while her biological child was left behind in the US. One is not born a woman, one is born a female.
There seems, every 5 years or so, and now, where fashion peddlers market the cheapness of designer clothes. This is possible because of the slave wages which girls enjoy in developing countries. Girls are paid slave wages to work themselves to the bone. They incur the contempt of women on the other side of the world, who do not want to know how their gear was so cheap compared to the rising costs of other unrelated goods. Women are exploiting other women, but men who own the means of production pit these two classes of women agaisnt each other in a merciless and grotesque dance of exploitation.
De Beauvoir seems relevant. I have seen a few comments on a certain group on Goodreads address her as Madame de Beauvoir, repeatedly so. She was not a matron. She had no fixed significant other, she knew she was the other sex, the second sex. I love Simone de Beauvoir in the same vein that I hate Arthur Schopenhauer et al.
The serf who owned nothing used to own a wife. The slave who was whipped goes to his hovel and beats his woman. The boy is embarrassed by being seen with his mother. The unfaithful husband dreads seeing his death in the shrivelling body of his wife even as he cuts up the golden jubilee cake of his wedding anniversary. The rich cover their women with silks and gems. The middle class man praises the resourcefulness of his wife. The working class man boasts on the grounds that his wife worships the ground he walks on. I hope Feminism is taken for what it has always striven to be, namely that it asks only that women are treated as the equal of men in all ways.
Man encroaches on the woman in all ways imaginable. When the Western man calls his kith and kin to announce that his wife is pregnant, he cries, 'We are pregnant!' Go do one, Man. Your body is far less beautiful than women's. Women's body is the aesthetic of the creative force of nature, not a rib taken from Adam's body. My, oh my, I'd better end this review here....more
The book is a masterpiece, of that I don't doubt. It rings so true too. It feels lifelike, even if a few of the people - real people - are both largerThe book is a masterpiece, of that I don't doubt. It rings so true too. It feels lifelike, even if a few of the people - real people - are both larger than life and also dead, giving the story told a marvellous hue. The book is almost a standalone. The Path to Power is too good to overlook. But if push comes to shove, then do your bookish self a favour and read this biography.
Unlike a sizeable % of the books I'm fond of, this is not a forgotten but remembered book from my childhood. Neither it is a book that is a beloved Fantasy, a sequel a la Harry Potter. Robert A. Caro, the chronicler, has done his country and the Western (and Eastern) civilisation a favour. Of course, the book is not for everyone. But I say that only in terms of the likelihood the book will fall in the lap of a twenty-something reader. And that is a damn shame.
The book starts from chaos. Lyndon Baines Johnson's political plans are foiled by WW2, and by the removal of the shade provided by Roosevelt. I still don't know how exactly Johnson goes about charming the stalwarts of Washington, that bastion that radiates power and prestige. Washington DC might be the only capital city in developed countries that, outside of its museums and memorials, has little to offer to the tourist. But it is the root of every senatorial and every presidential existence.
For someone who doesn't like congenital liars and shysters, I was not surprised to find myself aloof from LBJ's narrative. But the book made me curious about his life. This book was written with so much detail yet one is never in doubt about its sources and its veracity. This is the first nonfiction book that made me cry aloud in excitement ((view spoiler)[when Stevenson gets to be the nemesis of Johnson (hide spoiler)]).
Johnson's characterisation has a familiar sound and look and feel to it. You can imagine how often people of varying origins have a mind like his. A mind thirsty for power, recognition, respect, awe. The mind that dominates is no fun to be made a show of, but Caro gives it his all. Johnson's last book looks like it won't be completed, but the third book in the series has a reputation for being the best of the known four. I don't know if I will rank among its hailers. Means of Ascent provides sinister stories but also stories reeking with humanism.
Stevenson's life was very interesting to go through. You know that, when you read his feats of struggle, then of study, then of valour, that his is a life that doesn't, simply doesn't, grow on trees. He was my preferred person in the book. In context, he was probably a racist, but compared to that Johnson, he was a better man. Both Johnson and Stevenson have passions. The former for power, and the latter for amenableness and love of the land. The difference that really overshadows the quality in Stevenson gave him the last laugh. Coke Stevenson was born at a time when cowboys were passing into legend. He would add his epitaph to even that bygone era. But he lived for his ranch, dearly but honestly bought. He lived for the loves of his life. He was 20 years Johnson's senior and he outlived the latter. Both got what they were looking for, and while one sold his soul to do it, the other enriched his, to do it.
I beseech you, if you are looking for a tl;dr section in this review, here it is. Don't overlook this book. Give your romance/mystery/horror book of the month a rest for a few weeks, and give this book an opportunity to open your eyes to a world that was perhaps your country, but in which you, the native, was a stranger to.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It is the type of book that I thought certain history and philosophy books would turn out to be. This book should never make a cynic out of you. Evil things happen, but so do fair ones. I am very relieved to venture out of my well trampled trails. This particular trample leads you to... something unequivocal. Maybe the lesson to be learnt from this book is that everyone is a child of the earth, and under the skull of anyone, has a fixed potential, and also, that everyone born in the 19th century, seemed to have lead a brief life. We can only imagine....more
Schopenhauer is a name in philosophy that cannot be brushed under the rug. Reading this book was a task I procrastinated too much. At 96 pages, it is Schopenhauer is a name in philosophy that cannot be brushed under the rug. Reading this book was a task I procrastinated too much. At 96 pages, it is written, in the translation, with elegance of style and utilitarian in words.
The style reminded me of a writer who shall remain unnamed here. Suffice to say that the heightened prose lent a touch of prosody to the crystal clear flow of words that sparkled like fish in a koi pond.
Schopenhauer was a writer of his time. He almost succeeded in being as timeless as Homer, Virgil, Milton, or Byron have remained. His reason betrayed his judgement in a way that puts him in mostly ordinary and grounded company.
Women are the oldest group to be persecuted in society. It, of course, started when God decided to make a companion for Adam out of one of his ribs. The Bible for me, is a book that has a sequel that is a rehash (the Koran).
The Bible also has a fanfic which some say surpasses the original (Paradise Lost). Back to this book... is it so difficult to see with clarity that women are the intellectual equal of men? Only Socrates is the most modern man from the antiquity up to our times.
Chauvinistic as the chapter on honor was, it was not that the topic was distasteful, it was that the topic was boring, and reasoned in a lazy manner. I admit to skimming, but the last chapter, about fame made up for it....more
I began reading this book in January the 10th 0f 2021 and finished reading it on the 13th of April of the same year. This means that I blitzed my way I began reading this book in January the 10th 0f 2021 and finished reading it on the 13th of April of the same year. This means that I blitzed my way through this book. For you see, this book was enormous, both in its physicality and its scope.
There is only one book above 1000 pages of my knowledge that has FUN stamped all over it in each page, and that book, is not LoTR. LoTR doesn't count because it is not a genuinely single work.
Back to The Age of Faith. The words in it are meant to be absorbed over a longer time than it took me. I hurried my way through it, but if it worked for The Way of Kings, it ought to be good enough for any chunky book. By the way The Way of Kings is that book that is perfect in each of its page. Until a reread dethrones it that is. Been having awful rereads recently.
I was most interested in England, France, Ireland, Italy and the Middle East mainly. I kind of got my answer to the age old question as to why the Italians are so refined in their culture but also are so Mesozoic in some of their ways. By the way, I've followed a few recipes from top chefs based in Italy and I came away with the feeling that I was being punked. Italian cooking is marginally inferior to English cooking. Just my opinion.
What I take from the Age of Faith is that history is different from popular culture. I was always bummed by the adage of calling our worldview theory... postmodernism. In fact we're proud of this word. This book made me realise how myopic so many current theologians, tech gurus, sociologists, historians and journalists are. News Flash people! we are never going to be postmodernists. That will happen when and only when people are enlightened enough when they expect a G7 summit gathering dress up their leaders in what I wear around the house. Boxer shorts and wife beater....more
Lois Tyson poured her everything in this book. It's the work of a genius mind. I loved reading this book several times. It changed me for the better.
ILois Tyson poured her everything in this book. It's the work of a genius mind. I loved reading this book several times. It changed me for the better.
It was required for my courses, but the book became a friend who was urging me to study while having some fun. Compared to all of the other recommended reading (all men), this book was a ray of sunshine.
Knowledge and wisdom along with insight were distilled in the pages of this book. Complex ideas presented with such simplicity made for a terrific read. I'm a bit disappointed that the author, well, authored just this one book, but the glass is completely full....more
A kind of cloying vibe adorned almost every sentence in the memoir. Every director in Julie Andrews's career is nice, even those that aren't. Still. IA kind of cloying vibe adorned almost every sentence in the memoir. Every director in Julie Andrews's career is nice, even those that aren't. Still. I kind of enjoyed this experience.
How ironic it is, that Julie Andrews, who didn't want to be typecast as Mary Poppins, is just that character in her autobiography. Dozens of spoonfuls of sugar are involved in her recording.
But she remains relatable. She remains human. I just don't think she has escaped her insecurities. All those psychoanalytic sessions might have made her knowledgeable on the topic, but it was all a waste. She grew old oh so gracefully, but she never grew up....more
I got irked with this book and maybe the fault lies in my limitations, but just like with Roman history, there's a lot of guesswork going on. Is that I got irked with this book and maybe the fault lies in my limitations, but just like with Roman history, there's a lot of guesswork going on. Is that science?
In this book it's written that it's probable that our ancestors don't come from Africa. But I remember a YouTube video where Dawkins approves that we're all Africans. Politically correct but stably not as much.
I got fed up with a book that's either too brainy for me or because it is simply has a not interesting a finale enough. It could have been better. But I dislike it for now and forever....more
Robert A. Caro is the best biographer in the history of the world. That's not hyperbole, that's using GPS to locate the author's credentials. This booRobert A. Caro is the best biographer in the history of the world. That's not hyperbole, that's using GPS to locate the author's credentials. This book is an intellectual tour de force by a tireless researcher who has enough flair to magisterially concoct a view into his subject in astounding details.
This book was written in 4k and beyond. I'm grateful that I had the ripening wherewithal to know about the project that was this biography. The topic was so fascinating that the historical figures look airbrushed in their narration. Such is the color imprinted and injected into the life of greats and lesser participants in this nonfiction book.
I won't urge you to read this. You'll count your blessings if you do. But this is not a romance, not a cozy, not a thriller, not a horror, not a historical mystery. This is what unites us non scholar readers and reading this book makes one an intellectual for the duration of the book. Whether you stay so is up to the life that you lead. I myself, frankly my dear, am not one....more
This book was quite the ticket. Everything written here was crystal clear, graspable, progressive. I've never read Dawkins shifting from atheism to biThis book was quite the ticket. Everything written here was crystal clear, graspable, progressive. I've never read Dawkins shifting from atheism to biology, to chemistry and physics before.
I gave the book 5 stars, as you see. I think it's better than the God Delusion. It's less provocative (which I don't mind) and it's gently coaxing the reader in the desired direction, that of understanding.
I gave many books this year a perfect score, yet is there such a book as a perfect one? Outgrowing God is perfect in the way it settles into our minds and grabs the remote, to be metaphorical. What a great book to read on Christmas....more
I read this incredibly glued together account of history. It was a privilege to read a history book from the eyes of a deceased scholar. I mean, when I read this incredibly glued together account of history. It was a privilege to read a history book from the eyes of a deceased scholar. I mean, when discussing India, Will Durant mentions Gandhi and includes him in his book when the latter is still alive!
This was a fascinating read. It was my longest slog. I began reading in early 2019 and finished it after what seemed a long time of shifting from civilization to civilisation.
I have never read a book like this. Nor will anyone. This tome lies alone as a work of science rendered into everyday language. I am giving it only 3 stars for petulant and childish reasons. My impatience with some repetitions have something to do with it. It doesn't matter. I loved reading about the lost and earliest civilisations with awe. What a show this was....more
Shirley Williams was born in 1930. She is in fact The Baroness Williams of Crosby. She was also Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords,Shirley Williams was born in 1930. She is in fact The Baroness Williams of Crosby. She was also Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, from 2001 and 2004. From 2007 to 2010, she acted as Adviser on Nuclear Proliferation to Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The above quote was written to show how progressive women's rights have become. More pertinently, Shirley is the daughter of Vera Brittain, who is the author of Testament of Youth. What Shirley enjoyed in her academic life, Vera had to fight for hers tooth and nail.
Vera Brittain was born in 1893. She witnessed the coming of the British Empire, and lived long enough to see the fall of the Empire. She lived long enough to experience the existence of The Beatles. It's no surprise then, that Vera Brittain had enough material to fill a book, wall to wall.
Vera's use of the English language is rich, smooth, and candid. It's impossible to guess who her influences are. That's because the preceding generation of authors and poets wrote so differently. Vera's writing style is so hypnotic. And what she has to say is equally evocative.
Testament of Youth is an account of her sojourn as a nurse on the battlefields of The Great War. While Vera's tone is down-to-earth, she knows how to trust to her instincts as a rebel. That's why her handling of Death is so artistic. I hope that didn't sound too nihilistic. Calamities do befall her. The book covers her life up to 1930.
The day to day events of the war is uncannily seen through her eyes. When the deaths come, Vera's emotions are so laden with restraint, that we might be forgiven for thinking we are watching a movie. Testament of Youth is a great book. When Vera stipulates that her ashes be released over a certain dear's grave, you know that this is a woman who has lived life to the fullest....more
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