Beau

A love letter to those who savour the smell of paperbacks and the act of getting lost in the isles of dimly lit second hand bookstores.

This is as close to an art/design bible as you can get. Empowering, emphatic, challenging, and brutally honest. I'll read this book once a year probably for the rest of my life. It gave clarity to thoughts that have been rattling around my head for years. It gave me hope for things I'd long since considered to be ‘the way things are'. And it spoke confidence into my being as it dwells in an industry and thought world which is often ambiguous and, at it's worst, perilous. I can't wait to dive deeper into some of the parts I underlined and give time to some thoughts I had along the way.

This book is big. It did my head in. It will require a second reading. Nonetheless, Rushkoff does that thing he tends to do best - observe society, ponder technology, consider implications, de-construct reality, and speak to great depths on fundamental parts of humanity's psyche that we often don't prod: time, morality, and everything in between. At it's fundamental best, this book is about technology and time. I particularly enjoyed the first section titled ‘Narrative Collapse' - where he looks at the current ethos of a post-Aristotelian narrative society; where the non-linear rules, and particular (and beautiful) depths of creativity, knowledge, and cognitive exploration are becoming old world attributes amongst humans.

If you're up for a long but absolutely fascinating read on technology, the philosophy of time, and current socio-tech matters, this is your book. It requires commitment, however. Simply skimming over this one is both an injustice to yourself, and hugely ironic once you reach certain areas of the book. You won't put it down and you'll more than likely pick it up for a second read to get your head around some of the huge areas Rushkoff explores. Bravo.

There's so much to say. This was my first John Green book and, according to my reading buddies who fancy his other novels, it's also his most ‘non-textbook John Green' effort (which will be a cool thought to grapple, should I pick up another one of his books in the future) It's an interesting place to start!One of the first things I loved about this book is that the narrative isn't what it seemed. Around six chapters in I began wondering “The ‘story' seems quite plain...I think the real story of this book is Aza's mental journey” - which I believe to be true, for all intensive purposes. I tend to read more non-fiction, and some of those particular book endeavors have covered mental illnesses, many of which we read about in this book. [b:Turtles All the Way Down 35504431 Turtles All the Way Down John Green https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1503002776s/35504431.jpg 21576687] seems like a faithful representation of someone in the darkest of cognitive corners, and there isn't an inch of glorification about such matters, which is refreshing in an age where mental illness terms are thrown around loosely, and cheapened by shallow self-diagnoses and general disregard for the gravity of such conditions.When my thoughts spiraled, I was in the spiral, and of it. And I wanted to tell him that the idea of being in a feeling gave language to something I couldn't describe before, created a form for it, but I couldn't figure out how to say any of that out loud I felt quite emotional at several points in this book, as one would when one reads about the inner dwellings of a lost, confused adolescent in a constant thought spiral. It brought things up; many of which I thought I'd long since buried. The quote above could easily describe the thought worlds of millions of people, regardless of their age - and as Green wrote I felt like the spotlight was on my mind, both how it was ‘back then' and now.I love that he gave Aza the license to entertain often disastrous thoughts, but also managed to push back against any overindulgence (several times throughout the book, really) - perhaps most beautifully when Dr. Singh corrects Aza's mentioning of René Descartes' famous philosophical proposition Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), as she mentions the often ignored precursory statement: I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am - rendering the extensional chaos of the phrase with a layer of ease, humanizing the entire thought experiment (and relieving the burdened mind with temporary surety of existence)Argh. There's so much to unpack. But for now, I shall put this book down and continue to reflect on how it's helped my own thinking about a great many things (had to put a Star Wars quote in there somewhere for Daisy) and how extraordinarily John Green manages to capture the chaos of growing up with some lessons for surviving a world which is just as chaotic as Aza's mind!

I know, 5-stars. That's how good I thought this freakin' book was. Gaiman never ceases to amaze me. Never have I seen such a seamless ability to fuse the real-world and the fantasy-world together. When you can write a 370-page book about the sewers of London, where a protagonist learns to communicate with rats and ultimately becomes a figurehead of ‘London Below' through a series of amazing mishaps; including instances with angels, two assassins who house similar traits to a fox and hound respectively, floating marketplaces, and an existential crisis where one is burdened by visions of people who are actually himself made manifest by the dark powers of the Blackfriars...well, there's something unique and imaginatively superb about it. This is the third Gaiman book I've read and for me this is up there with the prestigious American Gods. Perhaps not as complex in nature as American Gods but equally as magical, mysterious and flat-out bewildering - Neverwhere is a book I'll definitely pick up one day many years into the future. I'll flick the pages, I'll smile, and I'll remember why the world we see isn't the only world that's out there.