Laura

A fantastical tale, set in the 12th century, of a regular man finding himself in extraordinary circumstances.

I listened to a Librovox recording of this on Youtube without any context because it's on the “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die” list. Little did I know, I'd be listening to an old man read a female POV smut book from the 18th century. I guess I assumed it would be more of a ‘Memoirs of a Geisha' type book.

Obviously there's little substance in the story other than women's vaginas (often described as slits) getting demolished by penises described as battering rams, wonderful machines, stiff staring truncheons, and engines of love-assaults. Super creative choices, to be sure.

The book is definitely on the list due to its cultural significance (as a banned book and first example of pornographic prose) rather than its allure or quality of writing.

A great collection of anecdotes from Lynch, discussing his life, creativity, and TM. You're not really going to learn anything about how YOU can harness your creativity or how to meditate, you're just going to learn how Lynch does and his journey. It's a fun, light read if you love hearing Lynch talk (which I do).

Structure: ★★ Prose: ★★★★ Pacing: ★★ Intrigue: ★★★ Logic: ★★★★ Enjoyment: ★★★Overall Rating: ★★★A food-focused history of one of the world's most infamous minerals.I love the idea of looking at history through the lens of a particular subject or commodity, but with specific subject matter comes the risk of becoming repetitive or dull. Salt: A World History unfortunately suffers from this. While Kurlansky offers fascinating historical data surrounding salt and its uses around the globe, there's only so many ways you can make preserving food (particularly several types of fish) interesting.The book does provide some intriguing information on cultural uses of salt, like the preservation of bodies in Egypt and the currency of salarium for Roman soldiers. I was, however, hoping to see more of that type of information. Why is salt part of so many superstitions for instance?The structure of the book was a little all over the place, literally. We jump through time and venture different regions of the world somewhat randomly, only to learn how they also used salt to preserve various food. Kurlansky also provides several recipes throughout the book, which is another thing that is interesting until you've read a few, and then they tend to blend into each other.In conclusion, there were some grains of interesting information in a mine of mundane.

Going to give this one a big YIKES. I'm sure this book was really groundbreaking in 1880, with the rudimentary explanation of alternate dimensions being before its time. That's the only merit I can give this book; it hasn't aged well.

There's no real story, let alone the so-called “Romance of Many Dimensions.” The promised humour was nowhere to be found and the scientific and mathematic logic was lacking, even for a layman of the 21st century. When I wasn't scratching my head at inconsistencies and broken logic, I was rolling my eyes at the misogyny, classism and racism (shapism?)

The author took barely any time explaining the mathematical or scientific rules of the world and instead focused solely on the society of Flatland. He went out of his way to tell readers that he wasn't about to explain how the world works; how they can walk or communicate, what they eat or how their language works. However the author found it important to spend chapters (yes, chapters) explaining that the women in Flatland are mindless, yet somehow overly emotional, beings that could accidentally kill you by walking into you at the wrong angle, and who must use separate doors and hum while they walk.

Promised to be a fun, humourous science fiction classic, got a 2-dimensional dystopian with heavy incel vibes. If you're interested in learning about spatial dimensions, find a 10 minute Youtube video on it and skip this tragedy.