Eva
My edition of Limits to Growth has a 2020 preface written for a new printing of the 30-Year Update that followed the 20-Year Update of the 1972 original publication. And here we are, 52 years after that moment, where a group of young enthusiastic scientists and system thinkers handed out their meticulously researched and built predictions to politicians and policy makers worldwide. I heard on a podcast about how optimistic they were and I can't stop thinking about. They had computed realistic numbers that prove that our economies and societies are operating in overshoot mode. Exploiting and polluting the sources and sinks of our environment. They were convinced showing those graphs to the right people would results in an awakening and a sustainability revolution. And here we are, more than half a decade later ...
A classic! Indirectly demonstrating how bad humanity is at long-term planning when they have short-term gains on their minds. And yet, the writing is still positive. A chapter is dedicated to the Ozone Story, as encouraging example of the world collaborating to remove chemicals damaging our world. The story includes a twenty year delay between the initial warnings-calls and world-wide applied restriction laws. And yet we're still decades out from the damage on the ozone layer being unmade.
Humans and the planet run on different time scales. We fail at the delay parameters. We're slow at making decisions. We're slow at implementing efficient technologies world-wide. And we're too ignorant to understand that the earth will make us repay our sins for decades and centuries to come.
Damn, Kim Stanley Robinson writes long books. But even though they are always meticulously researched stories of scifi nature, they mostly seem to be grounded in the human experiment. The struggles and politics of human progress, the passions and grand visions, the many ways we strive and fail, collaborate and disagree, in the constant cycle of creation and destruction.
At one point in the Martian adventure, scientists come up with a gene therapy that extends human life. If you're potentially living longer, do you have different opinions on environmental decisions with long-term effects? How many generations are you planing ahead for? We could use some of that right now.
Frank's bitterness and constant anger at everyone's stupidity .. I felt that in my bones.
Kehlmann at it again, masterfully weaving a big story, building it from the bottom up, patiently giving us the hints that then will pay off in the end. And constantly upping the unease that comes with the main premise: what are artists willing to do in order to accomplish their visions. Famous film director G.W. Pabst (he comes fourth, after Lang, Murnau and Lubitsch!) leaves pre-WWII Europe, only to fail at his first gig in Hollywood. Pride and despair drive him back to Austria, where he and his family get stuck when the borders are closed. Despite privately opposing the Nazis and all they stand for, he is pressured into making movies for them. Like [b:Tyll 36130507 Tyll Daniel Kehlmann https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1503797313l/36130507.SY75.jpg 57727239] Lichtspiel is full of historical facts and characters, the basic outlines factually correct, with lots of fictional interpretations in the details. I find it very enjoyable in this perfect sweet spot where I recognise a little but not all about the actual history. Feels ideal for going on this black and white journey, of cinematic expressionist scenes, with editing effects that make you question what actually happened. Will have to go search out Schloss Fünfturm on my next visit to Austria.
My favorite chapter was the first one, where the narration sweeps in a gods-eye view across a world where human-made artifacts slowly crumble, buildings collapse, pipes leak, asphalt breaks, and where nature reclaims its rightful space. There is something so haunting and breath-taking in this vision of us and our artifacts and our toxic and invasive remnants slowly being erased from the planet. Gladly would have stayed in this detached meditative vision.
But then Weisman gets more practical, we learn from experts how our chemicals, our gardens, our tunnels and radio waves will fare in this thought experiment of a world, where all humanity will suddenly go poof.
All in on awe and this book. At first I was a bit hesitative as the author is a hippie-offspring from California hiking Joshua Tree and trying ayahuasca, using his brother's death as a red string throughout the book, but, in the end, I loved it.
The chills, the tingles, the amazement, that causes our body to release oxytocin and dopamine, that causes us to be open, to connect, to explore. Biology wants us to be amazed by the vastness and beauty of life, in order to be better humans.
He structures awe experiences into 8 main groups:
- moral beauty
- collective effervescence
- nature
- religious experiences
- art
- music
- birth
- death
I am of two minds on this. Firstly, this needs to be edited down. It's not a 3-4 generation saga like [b:The Eighth Life 41071389 The Eighth Life Nino Haratischwili https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1541145402l/41071389.SY75.jpg 42466516] so maybe it doesn't need to be as long. I would edit down the melodramatic and occasionally repetitive narrative style, the plot can stay. And I would absolutely not insert clunky bracketed “she told me this word for word” statements in detailed descriptions of events that the first person narrator absolutely did not attend. So, during a large portion of the book I was distracted by being annoyed at the narrative voice. But, and that's point two, by the end I was still hooked on the story. Of growing up in Georgia's tumultuous 80ies and 90ies, of the youth's lack of hope and their urge to combat society's corruption with violence and crime.
I love this, for its ideas and the idealism. Rutger Bregman is mentioned in the end notes, and Hans Rosling in the text. Pantopia is a nerdy utopia for optimists. Let's beat them with a true form of capitalism, and make everyone pay the ‘world prize' for their purchases. It includes all the environmental and social costs that usually are forgotten or wishfully ignored. I would be so down. Not even sure we'd need Einbug to do all those computations. But clearly we need money to start that revolution. Only language that talks.
A sad and yet very sweet story about a mother daughter duo with Hungarian roots who live a happy life in Germany despite just about scraping by. Until a surprise visit and an unlucky accident cause everything to tumble down. What's next? Of course to go find that father you mother never told you about.
I enjoyed my time with Billie, who with her naivete and resilience make for a good heroine. She's also quite the grifter, and the author's choice of sometimes simply not revealing how Billie manages to escape tricky situations was a cop-out so blunt that it was quite funny.
Berest raconte l'histoire de ses ancetres et en meme temps l'histoire d'antisemitism en Europe de 20eme siecle. De pogroms en Russia qui fait fuir ses grand-grand-grand-parents a l'invasion de la France par l'Allemagne nazie jusqu'a des commentaires discriminatoires entre enfants de l'ecole de sa fille. Toutes emballe dans un mystere centre sur une carte postale, quel Berest et sa mere on decide de resoudre.
Quelle histoire! Et quelle facon interessante de le presenter. La narration est en part etapes de l'enquete de Berest, et en partie des histoires semi-fictionelles sur ses ancetres. Dans la seconde moitie du livre, les parties fictionelles semblent prendre le dessus, et le livre perd un peu de cet equilibire passionnant que j'aimais bien plus tot.
Entertaining and so elegant in how it examines ingrained traditions, authority and rebellion at a much-lauded Viennese school. A coming of age story about education that reads like a classic, even though it's very much grounded in the here and now.
Whatever revolution Feli is starting in her future, I will take part!
There's something attractive about the claim that a nation's prosperity and geopolitical history can be explained by its geography. The characteristics of our coasts, rivers and mountains define how successful we are at trading and how eager we are to wage war with our neighbours. And why straight borders drawn in colonial past are meant to fail.
Illuminating how important and political shipping routes still are. Channels are are being built, the melting of arctic ice is welcome, and all to allow us to cut transportation routes short.
An excellent geopolitical history primer.
Another one for my women-in-finance(male-dominated-workplaces) series, and it's doing a good job. Bonus point for sticking out by being set in the 80ies. I also appreciated how even though the misogynist/feminist angle was present it wasn't given top billing. The protagonist rather floats through this world of money and markets, while figuring out her life. Lightweight and fun, entertaining.
Not as bewitching as [b:When We Cease to Understand the World 62069739 When We Cease to Understand the World Benjamín Labatut https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1661332705l/62069739.SX50.jpg 84341168], especially not if you've read [b:Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe 12625589 Turing's Cathedral The Origins of the Digital Universe George Dyson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1322700777l/12625589.SX50.jpg 17677574] and watched the AlphaGo documentary. But the writing is still great, and Labatut gives his unique haunting touch to von Neumann's life and legacy.
Perfect holiday read. The talented protagonist who had to grow up too fast, a young sister who is her one and all, a mother who is the problem, a mysterious and enigmatic love interest, a future on the horizon but too much responsibility in the present. Wonderfully immersive despite the short length and the sometimes sparse narration. Wahl's technique of interposing what Tilda wants to say with what she ends up saying out loud, was done very effectively. I connected with all the elements and had fun reading this.
What it's like to be a kid during war. Suddenly you're constantly hungry, your biggest wish is a set of batteries for your radio, you wear your skisuit nonstop because there's no electricity and heat, and you go on adventures scavenging for dirty magazines that you can trade for candy with the UN soldiers. There's a lightness in the anecdotes, showing how children can live through hardness without remembering just the pain. But the novel's somber undertone talks of war never ending, and that the true hardships are the demons that remain.
I loved a lot about this.
Stuff happens in this book, some are surprising (a stroke!), some are just part of the rollercoaster that comes from having a best friend that likes to live on the edge. At its heart this is about a friendship that is also a work partnership, two artists who just love their work and love creating. Which is the element I liked the most about the book. The rest was entertaining. The moral dilemma of artists going biographical and what this means for those around them, was interesting, but if it felt a little doctored onto the story. All in all, a fun listen. Despite the narrator already had quite a “broken-glass” voice, so she had to max is up for Mel's voice lol.
I rushed towards this book after finishing the first, and it's a very good continuation of the story. Even committing the same sins, first boring us endlessly by focusing on small details (I really wish Jordan had never slipped Justin that card!) before finishing with a high-stakes high-adrenalin ending.
So, will young Ari succeed in avoiding her predecessor's faults? It feels early to tell, because here we've only seen such a small slice of her 18 year old life. But she's clearly making better life decisions. Surrounding herself with friends and family and beauty, while creating her kingdom of nepotism.
A climate fiction told through 3 perspectives set in Canada's cold north, where the oil embargo left previous digging sites sitting empty. The world is ravaged by climate catastrophes, while the super wealthy huddle in smart cities floating in the ocean. But that life of luxury still needs rare earth metals.
A story about power dynamics and exploitation. A secret mission to infiltrate an architect's building sites of a new utopia in the north. Tech billionaires and visionaries who can buy everything including their women. A survivalist commune of women finding peace within yet who stop at nothing to get their necessary supplies.
I loved the White Alice parts, and how it all tied together. Rose has played too many roles and felt a bit empty. And there could have been less of Grant.