Elizabeth
Well all of my GR people have enjoyed this book and I can see why, but the part most people seem to love (slippery people successfully being slippery through an ever-worsening series of events) is the part I found tedious. The rest, the standard - if well written - fantasy fare, I liked just fine.
So, I could probably go on to the rest, but not in a hurry.
Heavy on the purple prose and hyperbole, but light on the details. The details thing is to be expected in book covering a thousand years or so. The love-letter to Richard I of England was pretty spectacular, though. You could do worse for Baby's First Crusade Overview.
Zero excuses for the lack of referencing, though, even on directly quoted material. Be an academic textbook, or be a short introduction. Don't try and fail at both.
This is my second attempt, and I had the same issues as the first time around.
The Humans of New York vibe didn't work for me. I enjoyed it, but I felt that it was wrong for the story. The first time around, I stopped at the Djinni infodump. It got worse. I felt like Wecker was showing her hand, because only Major Plot characters get a backstory. I honestly felt she could have weaved it all through a little more deftly.
Because, she deftly weaves information throughout the rest of the story, in a delightful way. She tells us obviously the Djinni doesn't need to carry matches. Later, she shows, instead of tells, us why. From 1/3 of the way through, when Things start happening, it is a lovely story. You all know I'm a sucker for religion in a story, and even better they're “real” (as opposed to secondary-world ones). In fact, the biggest disappointment was the end, but I can live with it.
Ok, I can't. Spoilers for literally the last pages: WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE A ROMANCE?? UHGH.
Welp I did have criticisms of this book, but then I read Eco's justification for them and I agree with him.
But still.
The infodumps were tedious, although I recognise it's probably necessary for context if medieval history isn't your thing. They were my main problem with the story.
The indiscriminate Latin? Lovely. I am glad I waited to have a basic grasp of Latin before tackling this book; although it wouldn't have made any difference to my understanding of the story, it was nice to know what was going on without having to stop and look it up.
And the (spoiler-free) ending that makes the whole story slot neatly into could-have-happened historical fiction territory? Nicely done.
As others (including Porter himself) have noted, this is a pared-down version of [b:The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity 340577 The Greatest Benefit to Mankind A Medical History of Humanity Roy Porter https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388321686s/340577.jpg 1963028]. If you wanted to actually learn the history of medicine, I'd start with that one instead. Clocking in at just under 200 pages and spanning over 2000 years, this was not just a highlights reel, it was a greatest hits. There is no discussion of any negative consequences at all, with the exception of a brief extra line for Thalidomide, until the final few pages of ripping into US insurance-based healthcare. Porter seems to expect the reader to know the names of the key players and institutions, although if you knew them already I'd suspect you'd be looking for something with more depth than this one provides.Although Porter doesn't reference the book, he does provide further reading for each chapter, and a general bibliography. This is the greatest strength of the book. Unless it is required reading or something you've picked up for a quick read from your library, I'd pass on this book altogether.
Despite the intimidating page count, this is a fantastic introduction to the whole history of Christianity. It begins well before Jesus, placing the formation of Christianity into its broader world context, and continues right up to Benedict XVI.
For such a huge undertaking the book is thoroughly researched (and referenced!), easy to read, and wryly humorous. It is entirely non-judgemental on what we might now today call mistakes made by the Church (by the same token there was no crowing about successes, either), but MacCulloch doesn't shy away from tackling those hard topics with the same even-handedness he shows the whole topic.
For an academic student of the Church, without a religious affiliation, it has been an invaluable addition to my collection and my brain.
Although this is marketed as an ‘introductory textbook', the lack of citations really annoyed me - it explicitly states that the emphasis is on secondary sources, and even then only a few are made mention of. This made the book good for night-time reading, taking a wide-but-brief look at everything, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to students looking to start out reading in this area. Pick something a bit more meaty.
I stopped listening to WtNV a few years ago, and this book reminded me why. It's a bit like Monty Python: some of the over-the-top-ness is brilliant, and some of it is just firmly in silly territory.
Unlike the podcast, though, it's easier to skim ahead to less-silly parts.
I did enjoy this beyond the silliness though. It was fantastic to have a story about The Man in the Tan Jacket, and I did have a lot of genuine laugh-out-loud moments. If you're a fan of WtNV I don't know why you haven't already read this.
I struggled. I struggled so hard. The first half of the book dragged and dragged and eventually I realised it was because all of the supporting characters, who masked Fitz's incompetence, weren't there. Fitz and his wolf BFF does not make a compelling story (for me). Once Fitz met up with some old cast members again, it was a bloody great story to the end. But that first half dragged so long for me, this only gets an ‘I liked it' review.
On the other hand, Wit-bees. Fucking marvellous.
I really appreciate that I started this book after taking Latin lessons, because now I understand what things like participles and prefixes and even first-person singular verbs are. I appreciate it even further after learning from Bryson that some of the most ridiculous grammar rules and spellings are based on Latin, despite having nothing to do with Latin in the first place.
It's not all about the Latin, though, I'm just focusing on it because I've been learning Latin grammar this past year. In fact, I found a book full of interesting trivia, like most of Bryson's books.
Although I read some reviews from Actual Linguists slamming this book, I find Bryson's style completely readable and enjoyable and I'm happy to go along with it, knowing that if I want to know more detailed information I'm going to have to go digging for it.
This was the Sword and Laser book club pick for August. I feel like this book tried to do too many things and ended up not doing any of them particularly well.
The f-yeah-friends-forever plot line is one that is being heavily praised, and I can see why, but I kept waiting for the shoe to drop on Kasia as well: having been taken and subsequently rescued from the Wood, but with almost zero lasting effects? Ehh. I couldn't trust the friendship at all because I was waiting for Kasia to betray everything.
It was a quick readable tale, but not one I feel the need to reread to get into the minutiae.
This was a pick for Sword & Laser last year and I didn't read it, because I don't like SF all that much. And then it got picked up as a movie. And then someone else loved it. And then here we are.
I really enjoyed this book, and I don't know if I would have liked it more if I understood and/or cared about the science involved. Watney was fun and funny, and it was great to be on his journey to try and not only survive, but escape Mars. RC Bray's narration on the Audible version was fantastic for Watney, but the secondary men (and they were mostly men) felt all a bit generic - the Indian and the Mexican stood out as difficult to distinguish when they were talking in the same scene.
The only part I found entirely unbelievable (yes, I don't care about the science so we're ignoring any flaws there), is that the news media would run a feature on Watney every day for eighteen months. I can believe they would initially be excited, and then if something happened they would get on board again, but certainly not every damn day. I also think maybe the PR manager should maybe know a little more about the science of their organisation, but again, it served the purpose of dumbing-down the explanations for readers.
Overall I heartily recommend this book, and look forward to seeing the movie.