I rate it low only because the book is advertised as Hegel but not even half the book is Hegel. More than half is another philosopher. I bought this book to read Hegel, not someone else (one of his students apparently). Will have to buy something else instead.
But the section by Hegel is interesting, although he fails to anticipate innovations in art. for instance, Hegel says music improves upon painting by introducing the concept of time, which is a limitation of painting. but cubism specifically does innovate to introduce time into painting. So I don't think Hegel has in this book captured the progression of art toward it's highest form adequately.
This is the classic sci-fi novel upon which “Blade Runner” is based. It's been a while since I saw the movie, but from what I recall, the film is more noir than the novel. The novel has more androids to “retire,” and the novel also features a religion that doesn't exist in the film (Mercerism). Having sex with androids is illegal in the novel, while one of the androids in the film was built for that purpose IIRC (being a “pleasure model”).
Deckard is also an active police officer rather than a retired one.
The novel ruminates much more on the line between “alive” and “not alive,” and the dignity of the living, with a parallel story about a “chickenhead” (a man mentally deficient due to radioactive fallout), discussion about Mercerism and the worth even of spiders, and the fact that Deckard desperately wants to own a live animal rather than a fake, electronic one. But they're so expensive!
I still need to wrap my head around some of the novel in which consciousnesses seem to fuse via Mercerism, but this is a quick book to read, very interesting, and probably belongs in a modern canon of American (or perhaps Western) literature, as it's a representative work by Philip K. Dick, who wrote a number of famous sci-fi stories that got turned into movies. Everyone knows “Blade Runner,” and everyone should read this book.
A great book about a post-Colonial African village, which experiences political upheaval as part of a national revolution, as told by a foreign merchant who had taken up residence there. Splendidly written, beautiful imagery, with many good character sketches to complement the protagonist's journey. Especially if you're a Westerner with little knowledge of Africa, I highly recommend this book.
The book does not feel out of date. Yes, there are many things about it that place it firmly in the early 1900s, but the characters' behaviors are simultaneously recognizable and surprising for their time. What really jumps out at you is the willingness to engage in casual sex for characters who exist in the late 1800s as written by an author who grew up in that place and time.
You will recognize yourself in one of the characters in this collection of short stories—or is it a novel?
If you like SBTB, it's an easy read, so why not?
But otherwise, it's not great. It's written in a very simple style of Diamond talking directly to you, and probably 10% of the book is him reminding you he has a big penis, 50% is him talking about all the women he had sex with, and 40% telling behind-the-scenes stories of the show. Most of which you can't really believe considering how little credibility the tone lends to the book.
I only give truly unreadable schlock 1/5, and this was at least readable.
For the first time in my life, I think I have some understanding of modern and post-modern art.
This book holds your hand and leads you through a history of modern and contemporary art, beginning with the pre-impressionists (1850s–60s) up through Murakami and Banksy near the end of the first decade of the 21st century. You'll finish the book with a good understanding of major artistic movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.
I wish the book had included pictures of more of the works it discusses. I found myself reading with my cell phone in hand, googling works that were mentioned to see the styles of various artists.
I'd recommend this to anyone who has no idea about visual art or wants to fill in gaps. It's not a reference book for a serious fan of art.
Remarkable to read, especially having been through algebra and analysis courses in which we took similar and slightly different routes to build the same structures/concepts. Took some time to get used to the notation and terminology, but once I got it, it was a breeze to read.
If you haven't had any exposure to abstract math, this begins easy enough and the difficult parts can serve as a (remarkably lucid) demonstration to you of what abstract math entails.
If you have exposure to advanced math like a real analysis, you'll skip over broad swaths of this as elementary review.
Getting the bad out of the way, I think the prose could have been sharpened a bit. Of all my recently read books, I am probably holding up Gatsby as the gold standard in command of language. Darkness at Noon falls short of that, so I cannot rate it 5/5.
However, it touches on important themes, and, along with Siddhartha, Things Fall Apart, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, it has made me think a lot about death, its meaning, and how one ought to live his life with the concrete understanding that one day he will, too, grow old and feeble, then cease to exist.
The novel is also an interesting peek into a certain period of Soviet and antebellum history. Remarkable that such control could be exercised over a people, and the philosophy underpinning it all that the ends absolutely justify the means, and that the winner decides ex post facto what the truth is.
If you enjoy Orwell and For Whom the Bell Tolls, you will enjoy Darkness at Noon.
If you like florid language (as I do), this book is not what you're looking for. It is written in a sparse style, almost historical. The story is also relatively simplistic (of course, since it is a short work).
That being said, if you are at all interested in a look at colonial history from the viewpoint of the colonized, this book will interest you. It also raises some interesting questions in its latter third about conflicts between religions and what it means to lose one's history and cultural heritage.
The book begins as a bit of a casual foray into the evolution of man. It really picks up when we get to the aspects of our body we perceive as most important—hands, ears, eyes. I enjoyed reading about how we came to possess these features and when we can learn about ourselves by studying distant relatives (like the fruit fly!).
The book is a strong defense of science research for its own sake. I have my own experiences with abstract mathematics results finding application decades later to analogize. So much “worthless” study of flies, worms, and fossils of ancestors dead an eon has led to wonderful discoveries and improvements in human life. This book is good ammunition for a lay person to prepare for debates with those who rail about research into wombat reproduction and fruit fly digestive tracts.
The book unfortunately ends by shoehorning in jabs at intelligent design. While I am on the same side of the debate as the book, the author could have improved this by either leaving out such talk entirely, or introducing it earlier. It's not really until the final chapter that we get anything about intelligent design, and then it begins really hammering the point. “Our veins make no sense.” “Only an buffoon would have designed us this way.” (My paraphrasings.) From a educational point of view, no harm done. From a readability point of view, this was a little unfortunate.
I recommend it up there with other books like The Trouble with Physics, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, and A Brief History of Time.
I read this once in elementary school, and now I've read it again, twenty years later. I have a different reaction now than as a child (back then, the riddles and the tricksy speaking was what I enjoyed).
I think my favorite part is what sets The Hobbit above others of a similar nature—the end is concerned with returning to one's old life after it has changed irretrievably.
Having had a lengthy year full of adventures in Japan and then returned to the US, I understand something of the feeling Bilbo has after all he's been through. Your friends back home have moved on and changed, and now your new friends from the year-long adventure hasten to do the same. Your two lives are going on without you, and it's a struggle to resume it all. A melancholy remains, diminishing but never disappearing. Only a few people who have shared your journey and your return share the understanding.
That is why The Hobbit means something to me.
The book is exceedingly funny. It is difficult to imagine a teenage girl writing such a delightful satire with such intentionally odd dialog that many hundreds of years ago. And how easily the story slips from the cute and self-aware satire of gothic and romance stories into a good romance story!
This is my first Jane Austen foray, but it shan't be my last.
The title indicates two things: (1) it is a history of the world; and (2) Mental Floss is the responsible party.
The book is indeed a history of the world, and a pretty thorough one at that. On #2, Mental Floss is a noted presenter of information in an irreverent, magazine format. The book delivers on the humor, too.
If you want to read a history of the world in bites and have fun doing it, read this book.
I would not recommend you make this the only book you are reading, though. Reading a history, any history, can get tiresome without other distractions.
A series of essays that bills itself as “an unlikely theory of globalization.” No such theory is actually presented. Instead, you get a series of essays tying soccer into other conceps (“the Jewish question,” Brazil, hooliganism). The essays are interesting, but there is no real takeaway lesson.
If you're looking for an entertaining read with some facts for sustenance, this book will do. But don't be fooled—you will not finish this book with any new theory of globalization. I bought to book expecting something more in depth and was disappointed.
Subtitle should have been “Essays on Global Soccer Phenomena” or something like that.