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| 0679429077
| 9780679429074
| 0679429077
| 4.10
| 1,431
| Nov 1993
| Nov 02, 1993
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it was amazing
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Dickinson is now my favourite poet behind Millay. My favourites are as follows: (The Poems of Art) “The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind Dickinson is now my favourite poet behind Millay. My favourites are as follows: (The Poems of Art) “The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind” “A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day.” “Speech is one symptom of Affection And Silence one - The perfectest communication Is heard of none - Exists and its indorsement Is had within - Behold, said the Apostle, Yet had not seen!” “To tell the Beauty would decrease” “Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the Culprit - Life!” “Me from Myself — to banish — Had I Art — Impregnable my Fortress Unto All Heart — But since Myself — assault Me — How have I peace Except by subjugating Consciousness? And since We're mutual Monarch How this be Except by Abdication — Me — of Me?” (The Works of Love) “There is a solitude of space A solitude of sea A solitude of death, but these Society shall be Compared with that profounder site That polar privacy A soul admitted to itself — Finite infinity.” “How lonesome the Wind must feel Nights - When people have put out the Lights And everything that has an Inn Closes the shutter and goes in — How pompous the Wind must feel Noons Stepping to incorporeal Tunes Correcting errors of the sky And clarifying scenery How mighty the Wind must feel Morns Encamping on a thousand dawns Espousing each and spurning all Then soaring to his Temple Tall — “ “I had no time to Hate - Because The Grave would hinder Me - And Life was not so Ample I Could finish - Enmity - Nor had I time to Love - But since Some Industry must be - The little Toil of Love - I thought Be large enough for Me - “ “You left me - Sire - two Legacies - A Legacy of Love A Heavenly Father would suffice Had He the offer of — You left me Boundaries of Pain — Capacious as the Sea - Between Eternity and Time — Your Consciousness - and Me — “ (Death and Resurrection) “A throe upon the features: A hurry in the breath — An ecstasy of parting Denominated "Death" — An anguish at the mention Which when to patience grown, I've known permission given To rejoin its own.” “Death is a Dialogue between a orit ai disod The Spirit and the Dust. "Dissolve" says Death — The Spirit says “Sir I have another Trust "— Death doubts it - Argues from the Ground - The Spirit turns away Just laying off for evidence An Overcoat of Clay.” “Because that you are going And never coming back And I, however absolute, May overlook your Track — Because that Death is final, However first it be, This instant be suspended Above Mortality — Significance that each has lived The other to detect Discovery not God himself Could now annihilate Eternity, Presumption The instant I perceive That you, who were Existence Yourself forgot to live — The "Life that is" will then have been A thing I never knew — “ As Paradise fictitious Until the Realm of you — “ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 10, 2023
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Jun 19, 2023
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Jun 10, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 1590171225
| 9781590171226
| 1590171225
| 3.94
| 5,297
| 1954
| Jul 31, 2004
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it was amazing
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So good I made a video essay (8 min) titled "Love as Suffering: Exploring Desire in Alberto Moravia's novel" Contempt "Watch here:https://www.youtube
So good I made a video essay (8 min) titled "Love as Suffering: Exploring Desire in Alberto Moravia's novel" Contempt "Watch here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqe8l...
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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May 24, 2023
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Jun 2023
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May 21, 2023
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Paperback
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| 0521713803
| 9780521713801
| 0521713803
| 3.87
| 117
| Aug 2008
| Jun 02, 2008
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it was amazing
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Who knew a book on LOGIC would be so fascinating and at times addictive to get through? I think it's down to the fact that every piece of information
Who knew a book on LOGIC would be so fascinating and at times addictive to get through? I think it's down to the fact that every piece of information in this is not only worth remembering, but applying. It's written brilliantly with examples on nearly every page and perfectly recaps information from previous chapters so the reader is on the same *page* as the author. Honestly, this book is a must-read for everyone on the earth. If we all became more logical and consistent in our thinking, the world would be a better place... or would it? (we won't get into that here). In any case, it's an incredibly easy read (for the most part) and what is written within is fundamental in retaining and applying in everyday life. I will now use this as an intellectual guide when revising critical thinking skills and of course, specifically, the laws and correct application of logic. If you care about critical thinking and not being fallacious in reasoning... fret no more - buy this book. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 14, 2022
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Jul 17, 2022
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Jul 14, 2022
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Paperback
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| 3.97
| 81,786
| May 1963
| Oct 21, 1998
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it was amazing
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'The Collector' was a difficult book to put down. We enter the mind of a man with an obsession - one that is not just idealised, but embodied. He abdu
'The Collector' was a difficult book to put down. We enter the mind of a man with an obsession - one that is not just idealised, but embodied. He abducts a 20-year old woman and holds her prisoner in a uniquely specified basement. We observe his slow, meticulous process of justification and planning. Nearly 200 pages in, we finally acquire the woman's perspective. The format of the book is genius in that we don't just enter the mind of the captor, but eventually the captive, too. John Fowles 'captures' the psychology of the premise exceptionally. What would this kind of man think? What may his background be? And, for his prisoner; what would she be thinking? How are her thoughts different to his? Additionally, one detail I especially liked was Fowles' implicit depiction of love versus ownership - how idealisation of a thing or a person in this case, is vastly estranged from its reality in the world external to the idealiser's fantastical mind. The captor was not sexually motivated, instead, he merely desired to own her - and, delusionally, for her to eventually 'love' him. Through both of their accounts, but directly through her own, she (and subsequently the author) reveals the crudeness of such a delusion, its utter poison, its betrayal of what 'love' truly is. His perception of love reflects its absolute antithesis - "He is not human; he's an empty space disguised as a human." I will not get into spoilers. The ending is a masterpiece, tying beautifully with the letters aspect of the book. Fowles achieved something truly great here. He, through Miranda (the captive), evidenced that either God does not exist, or that he simply does not care. As a concentration camp prisoner carved into a wall: "If there is a God, he will have to beg for my forgiveness". ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 18, 2024
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Jan 20, 2024
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May 23, 2022
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| 052557574X
| 9780525575740
| 052557574X
| 4.02
| 1,072,528
| Sep 26, 2006
| Jun 12, 2018
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it was amazing
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I was genuinely surprised at how great this book was. After watching the HBO show with Amy Adams I became fixated on the story and Camille as a charac
I was genuinely surprised at how great this book was. After watching the HBO show with Amy Adams I became fixated on the story and Camille as a character, and whilst I prefer the show - the book is a great, riveting, deep, often disturbing, and solid psychological thriller. Watch my in-depth review of the piece here:https://youtu.be/x9ud7CZYAXo ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 11, 2022
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May 20, 2022
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Apr 19, 2022
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| 0141978619
| 9780141978611
| 0141978619
| 4.39
| 197,891
| Jun 12, 2014
| Jan 01, 2015
|
it was amazing
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An incredible book focusing on the origins of trauma and what we can do about it individually and as a collective society. Watch my breakdown and disc
An incredible book focusing on the origins of trauma and what we can do about it individually and as a collective society. Watch my breakdown and discussion of the book here:https://youtu.be/Eej0cVygc3Y Below are personal highlights I took from the book, passages I found particularly interesting or at least worthy of keeping in mind: Part 1: The Rediscovery of Trauma “We learned from these Rorschach tests that traumatised people have a tendency to superimpose their trauma on everything around them and have trouble deciphering whatever is going on around them. There appeared to be little in between. We also learned that trauma affects the imagination. The five men who saw nothing in the blots had lost the capacity to let their minds play. But so, too, had the other sixteen men, for in viewing scenes from the past in those blots they were not displaying the mental flexibility that is the hallmark of imagination. They simply kept replaying an old reel.” // Pg.18-19 “Whether the trauma had occurred ten years in the past or more than forty, my patients could not bridge the gap between their wartime experiences and their current lives. Somehow the very event that caused them so much pain had also become their sole source of meaning. They felt fully alive only when they were revisiting their traumatic past.” // Pg.21 “Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think. We have discovered that helping victims of trauma find the words to describe what has happened to them is profoundly meaningful, but usually it is not enough. The act of telling the story doesn't necessarily alter the automatic physical and hormonal responses of bodies that remain hypervigilant, prepared to be assaulted or violated at any time. For real change to take place, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present. Our search to understand trauma has led us to think differently not only about the structure of the mind but also about the processes by which it heals.” // Pg.24 “If you do something to a patient that you would not do to your friends or children, consider whether you are unwittingly replicating trauma from the patient’s past.” // Pg.29 “Just as with drug addiction, we start to crave the activity and experience withdrawal when it’s not available. In the long run people become more preoccupied with the pain of withdrawal than the activity itself. The theory could explain why some people hire someone to beat them, or burn themselves with cigarettes, or why they are only attracted to people who hurt them. Fear and aversion, in some perverse way, can be transformed into pleasure.” // Pg.37 “We concluded that Beecher’s speculation that ‘strong emotions can block pain’ was the result of the released of morphinelike substances manufactured in the brain. This suggested that for many traumatised people, re-exposure to stress might provide a similar relief from anxiety.” // Pg.38 “Over the past three decades psychiatric medications have become a mainstay in our culture, with dubious consequences. Consider the case of antidepressants. If they were indeed as effective as we have been led to believe, depression should by now have become a minor issue in our society. Instead, even as antidepressants use continues to increase, it has not made a dent in hospital admissions for depression. The number of people treated for depression has tripled over the past two decades, and one in ten Americans now take antidepressants.” // Pg.43 “For a hundred years or more, every textbook of psychology and psychotherapy has advised that some method of talking about distressing feelings can resolve them. However, as we’ve seen, the experience of trauma itself gets in the way of being able to do that. No matter how much insight and understanding we develop, the rational brain is basically impotent to talk the emotional brain out of its own reality. I am continually impressed by how difficult it is for people who have gone through the unspeakable to convey the essence of their experience. It is so much easier for them to talk about what has been done to them – to tell a story of victimisation and revenge – than to notice, feel, and put into words the reality of their internal experience.” // Pg.55 Part 2: This is Your Brain on Trauma “The frontal lobes are responsible for the qualities that make us unique within the animal kingdom. They enable us to use language and abstract thought. They give us our ability to absorb and integrate vast amounts of information and attach meaning to it. Despite our excitement about the linguistic feats of chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys, only human beings command the words and symbols necessary to create the communal, spiritual, and historical contexts that shape our lives. The frontal lobes allow us to plan and reflect, to imagine and play out future scenarios. They help us predict what will happen if we take one action (like applying for a new job) or neglect another (not paying the rent). They make choice possible and underlie our astonishing creativity. Generations of frontal loves, working in close collaboration, have created culture, which got us from dug-out canoes, horse-drawn carriages, and letters to jet planes, hybrid cars, and email.” // Pg.67 “The more intense the visceral, sensory input from the emotional brain, the less capacity the rational brain has to put a damper on it.” // Pg.69 “The challenge of trauma treatment is not only dealing with the past but, even more, enhancing the quality of day-to-day experience. One reason that traumatic memories became dominant in PTSD is that it’s so difficult to feel truly alive right now. When you can’t be fully here, you go to the places where you did feel alive – even if those places are filled with horror and misery. Many treatment approaches for traumatic stress focus on desensitising patients to their past, with the expectation that reexposure to their trauma will reduce emotional outbursts and flashbacks. I believe that this is based on a misunderstanding of what happens in traumatic stress. We must most of all help our patients to live fully and securely in the present. In order to do that, we need to help bring those brain structures that deserted them when they were overwhelmed by trauma back. Desensitisation may make you less reactive, but if you cannot feel satisfaction in ordinary everyday things like taking a walk, cooking a meal, or playing with your kids, life will pass you by.” // Pg.85 “[In Darwin’s ‘The Expression of the Emotions’ he notes the] physical organisations common to all mammals, including human beings – the lungs, kidneys, brains, digestive organs, and sexual organs that sustain and continue life. Although many scientists today would accuse him of anthropomorphism, Darwin stands with animal lovers when he proclaims ‘Man and the higher animals [also] have instincts in common. All have the same senses, intuition, sensation, passions, affections, and emotions, even the more complex ones such as jealousy, suspicion, emulation, gratitude, and magnanimity.’ He observes that we humans share some of the physical signs of animal emotion. Feeling the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you’re frightened or baring your teeth when you’re enraged can only be understood as vestiges of a long evolutionary process.” // Pg.86-7 “The disappearance of medical prefrontal activation could explain why so many traumatised people lose their sense of purpose and direction. I used to be surprised by how often my patients asked me for advice about the most ordinary things, and then by how rarely they followed it. Now I understood that their relationship with their own inner reality was impaired. How could they make decisions, or put any plan into action, if they couldn’t define what they wanted to, to be more precise, what the sensations in their bodies, the basis of all emotions, were trying to tell them?” // Pg.108 “Agency starts with what scientists call interoception, our awareness of our subtle sensory, body-based feelings: the greater that awareness, the greater our potential to control our lives. Knowing what we feel is the first step to knowing why we feel that way. If we are aware of the constant changes in our inner and outer environment, we can mobilise to manage them. But we can’t do this unless our watchtower, the MPFC, learns to observe what is going on inside of us. This is why mindfulness practice, which strengthens the MPFC, is a cornerstone of recovery from trauma.” // Pg.112 “Because traumatised people often have trouble sensing what is going on in their bodies, they lack a nuanced response to frustration. They either react to stress by becoming ‘spaced out’ or with excessive anger. Whatever their response, they often can’t tell what is upsetting them. This failure to be in touch with their bodies contributes to their well-documented lack of self-protection and high rates of revictimization and also to their remarkable difficulties feeling pleasure, sensuality, and having a sense of meaning.” // Pg.117 Part 3: The Minds of Children “Bowlby saw attachment as the secure base from which a child moves out into the world. Over the subsequent five decades research has firmly established that having a safe haven promotes self-reliance and instils a sense of sympathy and helpfulness to others in distress. From the intimate give-and-take of the attachment bond children learn that other people have feelings and thoughts that are both similar to and different from theirs. In other words, they get ‘in sync’ with their environment and with the people around them and develop the self-awareness, empathy, impulse control, and self-motivation that make it possible to become contributing members of the larger social culture.” // Pg.132 “If you have no internal sense of security, it is difficult to distinguish between safety and danger. If you feel chronically numbed out, potentially dangerous situations may make you feel alive. If you conclude that you must be a terrible person (because why else would your parents have you treated that way?), you start expecting other people to treat you horribly. You probably deserve it, and anyway, there is nothing you can do about it. When disorganised people carry self-perceptions like these, they are set up to be traumatised by subsequent experiences.” // Pg.142 “Our relationship maps are implicit, etched into the emotional brain and not reversible simply by understanding how they were created. You may realise that your fear of intimacy has something to do with your mother’s postpartum depression or with the fact that she herself was molested as a child, but that alone is unlikely to open you to happy, trusting engagement with others. However, that realisation may help you to start exploring other ways to connect in relationships – both for your own sake and in order to not pass on an insecure attachment to your own children.” // Pg.145 “In patients with histories of incest, the proportion of RA cells that are ready to pounce is larger than normal. This makes the immune system oversensitive to threat, so that it is prone to mount a defence when none is needed, even when this means attacking the body’s own cells. Our study showed that, on a deep level, the bodies incest victims have trouble distinguishing between danger and safety. This means that the imprint of past trauma does not consist only of distorted perceptions of information coming from the outside; the organism itself also has a problem knowing how to feel safe. The past is impressed not only on their minds, and in misinterpretations of innocuous events, but also on the very core of their beings: in the safety of their bodies.” // Pg.151-2 “Rage that has nowhere to go is redirected against the self, in the form of depression, self-hatred, and self-destructive actions. One of my patients told me, ‘It is like hating your home, your kitchen and pots and pans, your bed, your chairs, your table, your rugs.’ Nothing feels safe – least of all in your own body.” // Pg.160 “The ACE study revealed that traumatic life experiences during childhood and adolescence are far more common than expected. The study respondents were mostly white, middle class, middle aged, well educated, and financially secure enough to have good medical insurance, and yet only one-third of the respondents reported no adverse childhood experiences.” // Pg.173 “The ACE study group concluded: ‘Although widely understood to be harmful to health, each adaptation [such as smoking, drinking, drugs, obesity] is notably difficult to give up. Little consideration is given to the possibility that many long-term health risks might also be personally beneficial in the short term. We repeatedly hear from patients of the benefits of these ‘health risks’ The idea of the problem being a solution, while understandably disturbing to many, is certainly in keeping with the fact that opposing forces routinely coexist in biological systems… what one sees, the presenting problem, is often only the marker for the real problem, which lies buried in time, concealed by patient shame, secrecy and sometimes amnesia – and frequently clinician discomfort.’” // Pg.177 “Recent research has swept away the simple idea that ‘having’ a particular gene produces a particular result. It turns out that many genes work together to influence a single outcome. Even more important, genes are not fixed; life events can trigger biochemical messages that turn them on or off by attacking methyl groups, a cluster of carbon and hydrogen atoms, to the outside of the gene (a process called methylation), making it more or less sensitive to messages from the body. While life events can change the behaviour of the gene, they do not alter its fundamental structure. Methylation patterns, however, can be passed on to offspring - a phenomenon known as epigenetics. Once again, the body keeps the score, at the deepest levels of the organism.” // Pg.182 Part 4: The Imprint of Trauma “Traumatised people simultaneously remember too little and too much.” // Pg.215 “Denial of the consequences of trauma can wreak havoc with the social fabric of society. The refusal to face the damage caused by the war and the intolerance of ‘weakness’ played an important role in the rise of fascism and militarism around the world in the 1930s. The extortionate war reparations of the Treaty of Versailles further humiliated an already disgraced Germany. German society, in turn, dealt ruthlessly with its own traumatised war veterans, who were treated as inferior creatures. This cascade of humiliations of the powerless set the stage for the ultimate debasement of human rights under the Nazi regime: the moral justification for the strong to vanquish the inferior – the rationale for the ensueing war.” // Pg.224 “One of the most interesting studies of repressed memory was conducted by Dr Linda Meyer Williams, which began when she was a graduate student in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1970s. Williams interviewed 306 girls between the ages of ten and twelve who had been admitted to a hospital emergency following sexual abuse. Their laboratory tests, as well as the interviews with the children and their parents, were kept in the hospital’s medical records. Seventeen years later Williams was able to track down 136 of the children, now adults, witch whom she conducted extensive follow-up interviews. More than a third of the women (8 percent) did not recall the abuse that was documented in their medical records, while only fifteen women (12 percent) said that they had never been abused as children. More than two-thirds (68 per cent) reported other incidents of childhood sexual abuse. Women who were younger at the time of the incident and those who were molested by someone they knew were more likely to have forgotten their abuse.” // Pg.229 “Traumatic memories are fundamentally different from the stories we tell about the past. They are dissociated: The different sensations that entered the brain at the time of the trauma are not properly assembled into a story, a piece of autobiography. Perhaps the most important finding in our study was that remembering the trauma with all its associated affects, does not, as Breuer and Freud claimed back in 1893, necessarily resolve it. Our research did not support the idea that language can substitute for action. Most of our study participants could tell a coherent story and also experience the pain associated with those stories, but they kept being haunted by unbearable images and physical sensations. Research in contemporary exposure treatment, a staple of cognitive behavioural therapy, has similarly disappointing results: The majority of patients treated with that method continue to have serious PTSD symptoms three months after the end of treatment. As we will see, finding words to describe what has happened to you can be transformative, but it does not always abolish flashbacks or improve concentration, stimulate vital involvement in your life or reduce hypersensitivity to disappointments and perceived injuries.” // Pg.233 ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 30, 2022
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Dec 09, 2022
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Dec 05, 2021
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Paperback
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| 0141396318
| 9780141396316
| 0141396318
| 3.89
| 915,145
| 1606
| Oct 29, 2015
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it was amazing
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A deeply complex and versatile text, better read aloud than kept within thee. Absolutely adore this piece.
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 27, 2021
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Jun 27, 2021
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Jun 27, 2021
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1421903679
| 9781421903675
| 1421903679
| 3.91
| 16,675
| 1912
| Apr 15, 2005
|
it was amazing
|
One of my favourite philosophical texts. Watch my review/analysis herehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZX7l...
One of my favourite philosophical texts. Watch my review/analysis herehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZX7l...
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 16, 2021
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Jan 18, 2021
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Jan 16, 2021
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0099595737
| 9780099595731
| 0099595737
| 4.17
| 42,472
| 1949
| Mar 05, 2015
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it was amazing
|
An outstanding book on not just feminism but history, psychology, philosophy, and science. Check out my review for an in-depth look:https://www.youtu
An outstanding book on not just feminism but history, psychology, philosophy, and science. Check out my review for an in-depth look:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzX2O...
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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May 02, 2022
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May 08, 2022
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Nov 09, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0141031824
| 9780141031828
| 0141031824
| 4.14
| 22,651
| Feb 12, 2008
| Jan 01, 2009
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it was amazing
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One of the best fiction books I've ever read. - Check out my philosophical analysis of the piece on my YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/watch?
One of the best fiction books I've ever read. - Check out my philosophical analysis of the piece on my YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp0yF...
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 05, 2020
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Nov 12, 2020
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Nov 05, 2020
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Paperback
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| 4.20
| 5,038
| 1949
| Aug 02, 2018
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it was amazing
|
A nihilistic existential literary gem every edgelord ought to read. Expect a life crisis whilst and after reading this one. Watch my review/discussion
A nihilistic existential literary gem every edgelord ought to read. Expect a life crisis whilst and after reading this one. Watch my review/discussion of the book here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STNGz...
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 08, 2021
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Jun 13, 2021
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Oct 16, 2020
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Paperback
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| 000100039X
| 9780001000391
| 000100039X
| 4.23
| 303,411
| 1923
| Apr 13, 2003
|
it was amazing
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An instant favourite. A must read. Mesmerising language and prose.
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Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 27, 2021
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Nov 27, 2021
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Sep 10, 2020
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0679405437
| 9780679405436
| 0679405437
| 3.89
| 1,838,586
| Dec 1847
| Oct 15, 1991
|
it was amazing
|
( My Video Review & Analysis:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyrBz...) I don't really know what to say about this book that hasn't already been unani ( My Video Review & Analysis:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyrBz...) I don't really know what to say about this book that hasn't already been unanimously declared. Wuthering Heights is a literary masterpiece. I admit I was taken aback by how difficult it is to read at first (changes of perspectives, various characters to remember with the addition of some sharing the same sounding or half identical). I submit this as a frequent reader of classical literature and Dostoyevsky in particular (of whom shares a vaguely similar style to Brontë, I feel). This book is often confusing, I will confess, but in the best of ways; it incentives multiple re-readings, it's an enigma to be investigated, not solved. That's where its beauty truly lies. In conclusion, this piece earns its legendary reputation. Brontë didn't need to write any more books than this one, for she shook the world enough with herWuthering Heights. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 06, 2022
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Feb 22, 2022
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Sep 10, 2020
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 4.13
| 189,387
| 1927
| 2012
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it was amazing
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I review and analyse this classic existential piece on my YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJeKq...
I review and analyse this classic existential piece on my YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJeKq...
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 23, 2021
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Jan 26, 2021
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Jun 05, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0141195398
| 9780141195391
| 0141195398
| 4.26
| 18,216
| Apr 01, 1882
| Mar 12, 2019
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it was amazing
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Watch me review this monumental work of philosophy in my YouTube video review:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fErc_...
Watch me review this monumental work of philosophy in my YouTube video review:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fErc_...
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 21, 2021
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Feb 27, 2021
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Jun 02, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0140449248
| 9780140449242
| 0140449248
| 4.37
| 339,983
| 1880
| Apr 29, 2003
|
it was amazing
|
When this book is good it is the best literature out there, but when it drags it drags like nothing else in literature. Watch my critical and in-depth
When this book is good it is the best literature out there, but when it drags it drags like nothing else in literature. Watch my critical and in-depth review and analysis of the piece here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df_Ps...
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 12, 2021
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Jul 21, 2021
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May 18, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0679433139
| 9780679433132
| 0679433139
| 4.08
| 155,599
| 1320
| Aug 01, 1995
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 2023
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not set
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May 18, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 0306816083
| 9780306816086
| 0306816083
| 4.03
| 18,513
| Nov 06, 2007
| Nov 06, 2007
|
it was amazing
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This book pretty much does what it says on the cover - a great starter piece for those wishing to familiarise with the debate between religion and ath
This book pretty much does what it says on the cover - a great starter piece for those wishing to familiarise with the debate between religion and atheism. Some entries are better than others, but overall it's a great collection of works to own, ready to read and revise. Some sections are more philosophical than anecdotal, some more poetic than substantial, but that's the beauty of this book; it's a mixed bag and different writings and arguments which appeals to different readers. Hitchens' introduction is *obviously* brilliant, as are his small introductory anecdotes before each entry begins. I'd recommend this to the disbeliever and the believer - for it is better to know thy enemy in both regards. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 22, 2021
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Jun 07, 2021
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May 04, 2020
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Paperback
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| 4.34
| 175,326
| 1965
| Jul 05, 2012
|
it was amazing
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A story of an ordinary man, told rather extraordinarily... Watch my review and discussion of the masterful book here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
A story of an ordinary man, told rather extraordinarily... Watch my review and discussion of the masterful book here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UffXj...
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 21, 2022
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Mar 25, 2022
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Apr 26, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0140280197
| 9780140280197
| 0140280197
| 4.12
| 166,260
| 1998
| Sep 01, 2000
|
it was amazing
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48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene is, practically speaking, a manual on how to be a successful cutthroat ruler of men and state. It is a modern and mo
48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene is, practically speaking, a manual on how to be a successful cutthroat ruler of men and state. It is a modern and more fleshed out version of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince, which is a favourite book of mine as it happens. 48 Laws, now that I have finished it, is an instant favourite of mine now too. This book is concise and relatively easy to follow which is a rather refreshing trait of books these days since we now have Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life and Beyond Order on the same public pedestal, somehow. Whilst reading this piece I couldn't help think how much better Peterson's books would have been if they cut out the religious tangents and long-winded writing style for Greene's to-the-point prose that is in his 48 Laws of Power. Peterson didn't even need to write two books covering 24 Rules when Greene can write one book covering 48 Laws, it's slightly embarrassing really. This is a book that does take a while to get through if you are really trying to take in what it is trying to say, but it is completely and utterly worth it provided the execution of the laws serve our lives infinite advantage if applied appropriately, of course. 48 Laws of Power is savage at times but also approximate to what one must conduct in order to escape the troubles they may find themselves in, whether at their job or in a medieval battlefield - the same principles apply (more or less). The format of using historical examples to illustrate the points or laws being stated within the piece is executed brilliantly and succinctly. It draws the reader in, not only intellectually but out of sheer curiosity concerning our historical ancestors and how they dealt with social feuds. Matched with said historical case studies, quotes from various rulers and philosophers, and Greene's insightful analyses, this is without a doubt a triumph of a book. Indeed, some laws can seem to contradict one another but I see it as a case of context. In certain situations one law will take authority over another and it is in this way that the reader who applies such principles can discern when which law is applicable or not. It's a minor issue with the book and its structure, but not one that makes or breaks it like some other reviewers seem to imply it does. Books like these are read by two kinds of people. Readers who read and do not bother to apply what they have learned, or readers who read a book like this and make the time they spent on it worth it by practising what they have picked up within the text. I, for one, do not plan to use most of the laws in here (as I'm not currently planning a bloodthirsty siege upon a castle or plotting a political revolution) but I am living in a world where people are cutthroat and out to get me, and that's where the laws come in handy. So, where I can (and within reason), I will do my best to utilise this book. This book is worth revisiting again and again, and again. It is a reference piece, it ought to be studied and applied whenever applicable. Otherwise, how can we claim, let alone justify, why we read in the first place? Read to change, not to be idle. Do not bother reading it if you're not willing to respect yourself enough to manifest its fundamental lessons where they can possibly improve your life. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 09, 2022
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Jan 19, 2022
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Apr 26, 2020
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Paperback
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JCJBergman
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