Lukáš Kucharczyk
A well-written introduction to several scientific theories that you might have heard of but didn't understand before. I liked all of it except Spiritual Universe which I don't necessarily agree with it, though I do think that spirituality is important, just without religion.
It contains the most basic facts about Japan, its history, food, culture and even some more or less useful phrases at the back, which you'll probably mispronounce horribly if this is your only experience with the Japanese language. Pretty good if you're starved for time, otherwise look for something more meaty.
Includes what is probably the best time travel story I had the honour to read so far. Logical and coming a full circle in the end, it is a very safistying reading from one of the greatest authors of sci-fi.
Very suitable as a primer into text analysis that doesn't get bogged down in theory, and actually helps newcomers understand how to apply it to their own needs. Each chapter is equipped with a useful list of checkpoints and the final chapter consists of examples of Nord using her method to analyze text samples of not only English texts. Recommended first reading for anyone wanting to know about the subject.
One of the things the author wrote about in this book that I feel to be correct even without having evidence for it myself yet, is that reading too much without thinking can make you dumb. Reading can give you the necessary kick when you need to “think with someone else's head”, as Schopenhauer writes, but you need to make time to think about what you read and adopt it within yourself, otherwise you're just a poorly tossed salad of other people's thoughts.
Alright for big fans of Warcraft.
The book's potential is incredibly hampered by Blizzard because they don't want fans to feel like books are mandatory to experience the whole story. Literally nothing happens in the book that you won't find out by playing Battle for Azeroth for 2 hours.
Overall enjoyed it but the story was predictable and you could see the main twist coming from a mile away. Ending felt very anti-climactic and unsatisfying.
A very short book with an extremely long-lasting message. My favorite tidbits of knowledge:
There are many circumstances in life in which false encouragement can be very costly to another person (...) [because] it is a kind of theft: it steals time, energy, and motivation a person could put toward some other purpose.
I continue to find that a willingness to be honest – especially about truths that one might be expected to conceal – often leads to much more gratifying exchanges with other human beings.
It seems that in protecting their egos, and interpreting their own behavior as justified, liars tend to deprecate the people they lie to.
Lying is the lifeblood of addiction.
A commitment to telling the truth requires that one pay attention to what the truth is in every moment.
Not an easy read for someone who like me who is probably just a surface reader at best.
Although the surreal feeling of his writing is probably what I like the most about it, sometimes in can lean into incomprehensible stream-of-consciousness style that is almost impossible to follow. This is especially true about the whole first part (called Contemplation, or Betrachtung in German) and the four stories united under the theme of a starving artist: A Hunger Artist (Ein Hungerkünstler), A Little Woman (Eine kleine Frau), Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk or Josefine (die Sängerin, oder Das Volk der Mäuse), and First Sorrow (Erstes Leid).
It should come as no surprise, then, that I like Kafka's more narrative-driven works better. In this collection, that would be:
(longer ones)
* In the Penal Colony (In der Strafkolonie)
* The Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung)
* The Stoker (Der Heizer)
(shorter ones)
* Before the Law (Vor dem Gesetz, amazing!)
* The Dream (Ein Traum)
* The Bucket Rider (Der Kübelreiter)
The first part — semi-historically accurate tale of war between the Taira and Minamoto clans in the 12th century Japan — was interesting; however, I liked the second a lot more. It introduced me to John Manjiro, a poor Japanese boy who likes fishing above all and on his journey manages to connect with a different culture and unpredictably ends up playing an important role in the modern Japanese-American relations. On a less positive note, both tales highlight how your own people can sometimes be worse than your “enemies”.
Continuing where the first book left off in the exact same style, I have no qualms about calling it one of the best resources for learners of kanji.
The book was OK. I think some of the previous entries were much better. The ending was also OK. If this doesn't sound like I'm too enthused about it, it's because I really am not. However, I appreciate Erikson managing to finish such a huge undertaking even if the journey was more interesting than its actual end.
Heart-wrenchinly well written book that everyone should read as a clear statement that war should never be a solution to anything. A glimpse of exactly how terrible war can be on a person and what it does to their sense of living and feeling for another person in general.
Concise overview of what is wrong with religion, the most common arguments, their deconstruction and more. Pretty useful little book for those who are on the fence, believers who want put their faith to test or atheists who will probably nod their head throughout.
Even though this play written almost a hundred years ago might become even more relevant in the future when due to scientific advancements we are able to live longer than 100 years on average, the urgent message it carries between the lines is to live your life fully no matter how long or short it is, and I think that's a life motto that will hardly ever become irrelevant.
The beginning was rough and the whole character of Kamele being one big exposition dump is not good. But the story and the world are intriguing enough to make it worth reading for fans of sci-fi.
The book presents kanji in a number of doable chunks, all complete with readings, meanings, examples and follow-up exercises that will help you ingrain them in your mind. I recommend to combine it with a SRS software like Anki to get the most out of it - there are even premade decks for both volumes!
This seemed to me like an interesting opinion on the subjectivity of beauty and value of impurity before we got to full-blown “old man yelling at the cloud”-moments with an unhealthy dose of sexism and racism, and some completely confused views on science.
All while reading I tried to refrain from being too judgmental but in the end there were too many things that I can't easily gloss over. Someone called it a tongue-in-cheek work but I honestly couldn't see it as such. Even when Tanizaki was describing the poetic qualities of toilets (confusingly, this I actually felt the most agreeable of his opinions).
My main takeaway from the book (though there is plenty of other good advice, too) is that if you want to be something more than a robotic worker doing boring work, you have to connect with people and do more than what's in your job description: be human. His ultimate thesis that art is something that needs to be given freely and without expectation of recompense is something that is probably not an obvious answer to the problem of being unsatisfied with your job.
An interesting, I'd daresay even good collection of three stories that were published back in 1953, before even the first trip to the Moon, yet they talk about interstellar travel and discovering other planets that is not out of place even now, almost 70 years later.
The stories are laser-focused on the science side of things, the characters are simply mouthpieces for the author to explain how stuff works. As someone who likes this, I didn't much too much, but it's definitely the biggest weakness of this book.
This book is horrifying and amazing at the same time because unless you're one of the very few people with regular 7—9 hour sleep, you will get to find out exactly how you're literally shortening your lifespan, destroying your immunity, lowering your attention span and forgetting half of the stuff you wanted to learn! On the other hand, it is great motivation to think long and hard about your shitty sleeping habit and finally fix it which is what I did.
There is a lot of worth quoting but I liked this one because it is so unexpected:
“After four hours of sleep for six nights, participants' performance was just as bad as those who had not slept for twenty-four hours straight—that is, a 400% increase in the number of microsleeps.”
