@luuk

@luuk

Luuk

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Joined 3 years ago

Luuk's Books by Status

82 Books

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Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains
Shook
An Island to Oneself
The Montessori Child
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Activeer je nervus vagus
Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World

Luuk's Most Popular Reviews

There's obviously a lot wrong with this book and its condescending tone. But, if you can focus on the parts about attention and ignore the spiritual gibberish (energy fields, inner light, vibration frequencies, quantum jumps, resonance, captured life energy etc), there's some solid advice in here - especially in the first half. Afterwards it all kind of derails.

Five stars for the writing. Especially her descriptions of the effects a vast desert can have on a person traversing it slowly, and her criticism of the abuse and racism towards the indigenous population.

There is a big downside to this book though: the treatment of animals. It actually makes it hard to read sometimes. You keep wondering how she's able to, since she obviously cherishes them a lot. Some examples as a warning:

"He brought out all those instruments of torture. A cattle prod throws a huge number of volts, and this I pressed into [the camel]'s snapping lips while I beat him as hard as I could across the back of the head with the hobble chain."

"I had him tied to the tree by the legs now and I only hoped that all of it would hold. I then proceeded to bash that creature over the back of the neck with the wood, until it snapped, and then with the iron bar."

"[the camel]'s eyes had rolled with fear and I had to talk to him and pacify him until I knew he trusted me and wouldn't kick. [...] I found a tree a little further on, and beat the living daylights out of him."