Jack
A truly great book.
Although the topic is fairly scientific and covers an area I have little knowledge in, Geology, the book gives a fantastic illustration of humanity's time and impact on the earth. The span and depth of the geological and anthropological insight was fascinating and I feel like my knowledge on the important subject of human impact on Earth has been hugely enriched.
Towards the end some of the points do start to grate a little, namely the complaints with geological society process and reiterations on what is needed for the Earth to continue being a home for humanity and the nature we share it with. There is an inkling of politics and what starts to feel like preachiness when compared to the much more scientific explanation towards the start of the book, but I think it is important for opinions to be raised and shared, especially from experts in the relevant field.
Overall a great book, I would highly recommend to anyone wanting to learn more about the state of our planet.
A really enjoyable read. Very much in the vein of “A Cruel Bird...” the setting is ambiguous and the plot largely character driven. For me the plot wasn't quite as developed and I felt a little like I was left hanging at the end. That said I think it is a fun and effectively written story. It explores in a roundabout way the differences between cultures and their behaviours and leaves you wondering if this is all an allegory and if so for what and then whether that even matters.
A quick read I would recommend.
Really interesting stuff. A very in depth look at investment and money management with some useful advice and counsel throughout. Be prepared for being thrown directly into more technical descriptions and explanations, they are mostly covered very thoroughly however I was still left with the odd confusion.
Definitely a book I will be checking back in with and rereading in the future, and a must read for anyone who wants to learn more about managing their savings.
Incorporating deWitt humour this book sheds a twisted look on a sad story of addiction and downfall. At times both horrible and heart wrenching. A little darker than the authors more recent work but an absorbing read all the same.
Though I enjoyed it in parts, this was definitely a tough read. Tracing the emotional and mental turmoil of loss the author really imparts on the reader the unsettling and bewildered state of their character's, almost to the point of the reader themselves screaming for help. I think this is what compelled to push through some of the more challenging scenes despite the ever increasing darkness and listlessness of the narrator's story, desperately wanting them to find some hope to cling on to.
Powerful and jarring, this is an interesting book but one to be approached with an expectation of discomfort.
While I did find the overall message and studies (though interesting) to get very repetitive towards the end of the book I would still recommend this to anyone interested in the link between specialism, growth and curiosity. A lot of the examples are framed in scientific or research based environments but even so it paints a clear image of how breadth of interest can have an impact.
The concept was interesting and fairly novel, but the story lacked a lot of the exploration in directions the author could have chosen to take it in.
The story started strong and fairly thrilling before waning into a fairly boring a repetitive middle section which picked up again with some more interesting ideas about the dreamers themselves in the final few chapters. Between the heavily clichéd group of characters, from anti pharma college kid to paranoid prepper, I didn't find myself particularly drawn to any individual or rooting for them in any way. I would have liked less blurb of characters going about the town, this middle of the section lacked any thrill or mystery and just kind of dragged on. Delving into the dreams themselves and what the sick were experiencing could have helped spark some interesting ideas here which were briefly touched upon in the lackluster conclusion.
An excellent guide through the history of British council and social housing. While the focus is largely on London it does a good job to touch on the key themes and challenges taking place, including themes from Europe. I agree with a lot of the points made by the author though did find the tendency to decry conservative policy and push his own left wing ideologies a bit grating. This is not to say the book doesn't offer factual balance and state the benefits and successes of such policies but a ‘yearning' for the ways of old is consistently returned to, as an opinion I have no issue with this but I feel it tends to sideline some of the needed budgetary transformations of local government it has already outlined as critical and of importance.
The research and summarisation is overall excellent, I particularly enjoyed the final chapter which was written in a much more prosaic style and drew conclusions and weighed up the current and future situation wonderfully.
If I could I'd have given it 4.5 stars.
Good coverage of high level ideas and concepts however I would have loved more concrete examples and comparisons of different techniques such as composition and inheritance that didn't really add anything extra to my knowledge of these in Javascript. A good introductory book, but don't expect anything too in depth.
Overall I enjoyed this book and the in depth look it takes on technologies of the present and future. While it does adopt a fairly doomsday tone throughout with a bleak picture accumulating via the authors opinions it is scattered with silver linings and possibilities that lift it just enough. I took issue with the heavy use of academic language which presented quite a barrier to accessibility and enjoyment but this grew familiar and less jarring as I progressed.
A good book with some powerful ideas and insight that definitely increased my perception of how we can expect technologies to impact the human experience.
While I don't agree with some of the author's opinions and did find some of the rhetoric and language use verging on the cusp of being too much, there are still some interesting and thought through ideas in here. It's definitely interesting to broaden your horizons and investigate the views of others you don't necessarily share, and I think overall this book provides a generally complete picture of some of the issues and causes of mass immigration, waning culture and government policy. There are some clear failings of existing systems and these concerns are shown to be both valid and solvable while not being radical or extreme.
An eye opening read on some possible futures for Europe as a whole and definitely one to reflect on going forward.
Obviously a controversial topic, I felt the core themes of this book were very interestingly and entertainingly handled.
Firstly I wouldn't consider this book comedic, it is funny but it's much deeper than jokes. Secondly the books focus is much more on modern life and culture than it is about Adolf Hitler.
Seeing the modern world through the eyes of Hitler was enjoyable and clever, constantly reminding you of what he stood for but also delving into other ideological aspects not so widely known.
The modern world however seems to have a set view on this ‘Hitler', immediately branding him as a comedian or artist. He gains fame and support for being ‘Hitler', and standing against and making a mockery of the once Fuhrer. The book shines here as we know that truthfully this Hitler actually believes everything he says and is consistent and serious in his approach and beliefs. Ultimately this is the books biggest success, portraying the aspects of modern culture, celebrity and consumption, that allows characters to make excuses for and validate their own opinions of ‘Hitler' while never really trying to confirm or understand the person behind the performance.
I enjoyed the book, it really gives some food for thought. The writing style following Hitler's stream of consciousness was effective at first and while I did find it dragging by the end of the book, I was still hooked to the end.
While it does explain some technical concepts and more importantly some of the big ideas in the Blockchain space, it does it while seeming to convey very little information. Incredibly bloated, it felt like the same thing was said every 5 pages about the brilliance of bitcoin from someone running a bitcoin startup. I would have preferred some more in depth approaches to how some of these things could be achieved and how they work. Blockchain voting, for example, is a very interesting use case but incredibly lacking in details. Iot and smart contracting is well explained but no discussion is given to the practical limitations of every piece of your car needing to have an internet connection. The book was written before NFTs really boomed so their omission is fair enough. Overall I feel my understanding of Blockchain has only been slightly improved by this book. Useful if you need to understand why your company is pivoting to Blockchain but you don't actually need to know anything specific about the Blockchain itself.
I really enjoyed this book.
Tim Marshall does not attempt to analyse the given scenarios in too much depth but does paint a strong socio-political-historically-geographic background for each of the world maps he investigates. The geography aspect does get a little repetitive but I feel this book has so much information to supply from all of the above four areas of study that there was something interesting and new on almost every page.
Sensibly, the author has avoided offering solutions beyond explaining the situations how they arise and what persists them. But I feel he also fails to address some bigger issues that are landed on again and again such as climate change, with fossil fuel extraction and trade playing a major role throughout but more as a technical footnote than as altering forces. This may have again been a smart choice however to remove political opinion and bias from what is largely a factual book.
That said the approach taken is clearly from the western point of view, though there is an effort made to explain national ideas and goals through the eyes of the subjects.
Overall I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a general interest in our planet, it's geography, the nations of the world, politics, history or economics as this book is an eye opener and really pieces together the vast aspects of the globalised world.
A little late to the party here but it still holds up. A very strong start and interesting insight into early human and societal developments which unfortunately wanes in the final chapters as the target shifts to the present and future. While the conjecture of historical evidence provided interesting insight and opinion I found this to be slightly overbearing to the actual points being made.
Overall still a strong recommendation, “If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going.”
It took a while for me to warm up to this book. The writing style is fun and inclusive but I felt like I was getting ghosted when it came to any hard maths with things being teased but ultimately left unknown. I know realistically most proofs are absolutely meaningless to most readers but I felt like I was being short-changed. However, I found as I got further in and the chapters were able to reference each other and the previous content many loose ends started to get tied off nicely and build what ended up being a completeness to the topics covered.
Obviously it's not exhaustive or massively comprehensive in its covering of this subject but I think the book and the author do a great job of making abstract topics not only accessible to readers, but also kind of fun. It's certainly an interesting read with a lot of new ideas and concepts for me, and a extended my knowledge of things I thought I was familiar with.
Overall I think the book achieves its goal of making obscure mathematics enjoyable and absorbing.
Although there is a main focus on American sprawl, this book does a great job of explaining why and how city life is as it is and provides some small things everyone can do to change their city.