sergek94's reviews
146 reviews

 This book is a collection of short essays written by Vaclav Smil that explore various unrelated topics. From a brief exploration of the history of bicycles, the consequences of some countries having increasingly older populations, and showing us how electricity costs us much less than it did decades ago, and some opinions such as the importance of dairy consumption and moderate meat eating not having any adverse health effects, this book has a little bit of everything.However, after having finished it, I was left without retaining much information, because the delivery was extremely dry.I should've known better before picking up a book called "Numbers Don't Lie...", and in hindsight, it isn't that surprising, but I was hoping the information would be delivered in a more digestible and interesting way. Instead, we get endless pages of facts and statistics being listed, and I was quite honestly bored.A lot of topics were simply not that interesting, especially the section regarding fuels and electricity which was an absolute slog to get through, and the ones that were of slight interest to me didn't offer any new insights, simply regurgitating facts and figures in a robotic tone. Definitely not what I like reading, so perhaps I shouldn't have picked this up to begin with.However, if facts and numbers being delivered in a relatively dry and straightforward way would not bore you, this book might be an interesting read. Bill Gates states that this book is one of his favourites, which isn't what drew me to read this, but I thought I should mention it if it is at all relevant. As for me, I will be making sure to avoid these types of books in the future, and I prefer consuming this type of information through visual media.


 “Numbers may not lie, but individual perceptions of them differ.” 

 “Good men want only the power to make things right. Great men seek to make things right and gather the power to do so. Great leaders find those who are worthy of wielding power and set them to the task of making things right.”

Rezkin grew up in extremely brutal conditions, being trained at a very young age to withstand all forms of physical pressure. His trainers were ruthless, putting him through various trials that tested and surpassed his limits. He grew up being part of an organization that enforces the king's will upon the realm. The members of this organization, due to the vigorous training they receive, are extremely powerful. Rezkin was the product of this environment, so he's obviously not someone to be trifled with. In fact, due to some bizarre reason, Rezkin is the strongest man out of all of these people, and once he gets the "chance" to leave this fort and go out into the real world, he has to discover what his purpose in life is, since he's pretty clueless when it comes to knowing why he even exists.

When I read the blurb of this book, I was left pretty intrigued with the story. A man who is a sturdy, disciplined fighter, being thrust into the world after years of living in a secluded environment, having to discover his purpose while facing danger and conspiracies that threaten the stability of the entire realm, all story aspects that quickly drew me into this book. However, a few chapters in, and I was already rolling my eyes. Characterization wise, Rezkin is extremely one-dimensional, with pretty much 0 vulnerabilities. He is the definition of an "OP" character. You can throw Rezkin into an army of 100 fully armed men, and all it takes is a page or two for him to kill them all while remaining unscathed. There are no consequences or high stakes in this story, because even if all hell is breaking loose, Rezkin can pretty much annihilate all danger while probably eating a sandwich at the same time. This leaves 0 room for suspense, because we aren't truly afraid of anything, since we can pretty much guess where the story will go.

 Rezkin is pretty much some sort of high functioning sociopath, or maybe close to one, since he has no true ability to feel any emotion. His entire moral compass revolves around following the set of rules he had hammered into his brain while growing up. For example, one of his golden rules is to always protect and honour his friends. That sounds nice on paper, but he has no emotional capacity to even understand what a friend even means, so if you somehow end up coming across Rezkin in your daily forest stroll, and declare yourself as his friend, he will quickly assume he must honour and protect you, which is how he met his "friends" in this story to begin with. He has no emotional awareness whatsoever, so when one of his friends ends up falling in love with him, and once it is brought to his attention that she is now his girl friend, he quickly assumes that is some subdivision of the category of friend as designated by the rules he has to follow.

All this is honestly quite funny to read, which is probably the only strong aspect of this book for me.Writing wise, this book was another pile of frustrations. It was overly heavy with descriptions, going into endless details about every step Rezkin takes and every tree branch he moves in the process of annihilating his enemies. I assure you, dear reader, you can pretty much skim about 60-75% of each chapter and still understand everything that's happening, since the writing is full of so much detail, without actually having much story in the detail. The constant shifting of perspectives from one sentence to another without prior warning got pretty confusing as well.

My final gripe with this story is the female representation. Every single girl in this story somehow fawns over Rezkin, and his beautifully muscular body and his calm demeanor. Girls even get into brutal physical fights over this man, which again, is quite hilarious to read but also quite ridiculous. This is how I imagined every female character in this book:


And of course, this is how I imagined them every time they warred over Rezkin's affections:


I have to admit, this book would make an excellent anime, and I would hope to see it adapted as one in the future. As an adult fantasy novel though, this was not what I was looking for.The writing was very frustrating to get through, the pacing was uneven and the story was very repetitive. It followed the very strict formula of:

1) Rezkin goes out into the world.
2) Rezkin conquers people he deems to be enemies.
3) Rezkin protects his friends and his girl friend.
4) Girls fight over Rezkin.
5) Repeat all this throughout 483 pages.


I only give this 2 stars for the comedic aspects of the story which had me chuckling. Read this fantasy novel at your own risk.

Thank you to Nicole and Milica for the buddy read.


“As in the wild there were predators and prey, so, too, did they exist among men in towns and cities. The hardworking peasants were the grazers, and the thieves were the starving coyotes.”
 

 

If you ask most people what they think of lying, they will very likely say that it is something they avoid as much as they can, since it's considered to be a very frowned upon act that is bound to ruin anyone's reputation if they're caught in the act. We as a society claim to treasure honesty and transparency as sacred values we should all live by, and no one wants to be branded as a liar. However, like so many other aspects of life, this book claims that our self-proclaimed virtues of honesty are nothing more than illusions, since, in fact, most of us lie much more often than we tell the truth throughout the day.The author goes as far as to claim that we actually tend to prefer liars over people who tell us the truth. If you go to work one day and smile at your colleague, wishing them a good morning and asking how they are, you will likely not appreciate it if they end up telling you how irritating it is for them to have to see your face everyday and fake liking you and having to make small talk with you before their morning coffee right before spending another 8 hours slaving away at work, instead of being with people they actually care about at some resort in Hawaii.Lying, in fact, has its useful sides as well, and is a good lubricant to make social situations pass by more smoothly. The author goes one step further, making the point that we not only lie to others, but we often lie to ourselves quite regularly as well, and this self-deception is necessary for our survival.

 “one reason people cling to false beliefs is because self-deception can sometimes be functional—it enables us to accomplish useful social, psychological or biological goals. Holding false beliefs is not always the mark of idiocy, pathology or villainy.”

This is a light and fun read, where the author uses many anecdotes from real life, such as the infamous Church of Love scandal, where a con-artist managed to make hundreds of men fall in love with fictional women who send them letters, telling them how much they cherish them and the deep connection they built together, asking for regular "love offerings" in the form of money to meet their needs, to prove that human beings tend to relish in fantasies that help them feel better in life. Many victims of this scam actually defended the con-artist at court, since he made them feel loved and cherished during the most difficult moments of their lives.The author proceeds to say that believing in lies and fantasy is actually a process encouraged by evolution, citing statistics which show that people who engage in fantastical thinking (including religion) tend to live longer than those who don't. He cites examples which show that depressed people tend to see life more clearly for what it truly is, while healthy people tend to add their own subjective spin to their perception. Veiled criticisms aimed at hardcore realists are to be found in various chapters in this book, showing that most people who claim to be realists tend to be privileged. He notes that the world's most impoverished locations tend to have the highest numbers of religious people, as well as the existence of very brutal and physically and mentally taxing rituals such as walking on burning coal or crucifixion. Bizarre rituals even exist in the comparatively accessible western world, such as rituals right before a football game or those done in military school. The fascinating thing is that people who engage in such rituals tend to be happier and perform better at various tasks, showing that people who believe in something greater than themselves, whether it's a deity or some cause or a social or group cause, tend to excel more.


 “Delusional overconfidence is very bad for many men as individuals, but the researchers found that as a group, it helps men succeed.”

This book does a nice job showing us biases that cloud our perception of life, but instead of treating it as a problem that must be solved, it pushes the narrative that this approach has proved quite effective at helping us survive as a species. Around the end of the book, the author borrows some ideas from Yuval Noah Harari's book "Sapiens", showing us how mass-delusions such as the belief in the existence of intangible things like culture and nations have succeeded in uniting millions of people under shared causes, and this unity and strength in numbers has led to groundbreaking achievements in humanity. Although I also enjoyed this part of the book, it felt like a regurgitation of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, which I really enjoyed and reviewed here.

This is an interesting perspective on the necessity of fantasy in life, and draws a clear distinction between what is true and what works.Some examples of how far certain lies can influence people's behaviour are comical, such as the fact that people who drink two cups of the same type of wine but think one is a more expensive brand claim to enjoy it more, and people even having the same reaction to tap water being given to them under the name of a luxurious brand.

In conclusion, let's not judge lies and delusions too harshly, sometimes, they're what get us through seemingly insurmountable difficulties, both on a micro and macro scale.


 “We need hope in order to function, but the world gives us endless reasons not to be hopeful. For most people on the planet, to forswear self-deception is to invite despair and dysfunction.” 

  

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.


It is true that human beings delight in the wonderful act of discovery. Uncovering new horizons and always learning more are the primary motivations of human growth. Despite discovery being a huge motivator, the true driving force that pushes human beings forward is the unknown, in other words, mystery; and it is the beauty of mystery that is explored in this work, the irresistible pull the unknown has, its gravity and its ability to drive people insane, wanting to find out the truth.

Alice Young, a tough minded and headstrong woman, visits her old estate, Evertell, with her blooming daughter Penn, after the death of Alice's father, and the subsequent realization that she still owns the home and lands at Evertell. Alice is a widow, her husband having been the victim of the second world war, still taking place during this story. His body has never been recovered, and he lies in a grave far away from his family, preventing them from getting the closure they so desperately need, especially little Penn, who has been left numb and broken ever since her father's demise.Alice hopes that this trip to their old home can help heal her daughter, giving her back the spark of life that has been snuffed out for a while now. However, Alice has her own shadows to confront at Evertell, where she witnessed her mother's tragic breakdown that led to her death years ago, profoundly scarring her. During this trip to Evertell, she attempts to find closure by digging deep into her family's past, a past that her mother was also obsessed with. the story of Eleanor Dare, their ancestor who was the first woman to birth a child in the New World. Alice's daughter Penn gets subsequently involved in this investigation of the past, which reinvigorates her previously lost drive for life.


This book is a very slow and reflective piece of work. Kimberly Brock is a lush writer, expertly bringing the Evertell estate to life.This book is definitely not a fast paced plot driven story. Instead, it is a quiet and patient and slow exploration of Evertell, full of centuries of history that is much greater than the characters who are experiencing it in the present day of the story.The land is ancient, its soul primordial, predating the present culture that dominates it, and the author does a great job infusing this ancientness into the story. The setting and the way it was written is definitely one of the essential aspects this book leans on, and by the end of the story, Evertell grows on the reader and the house, alongside its grounds, and the little island in the middle of the lake, with its ancient graveyard, begin to feel like home.

The driving theme of this story is our desire to know where our roots come from, in order to firmly establish our place in this world and solidify our identities, to have a solid footing on which we can begin paving our path towards our future. Alice and Penn feel stagnated in their lives, due to debilitating grief they can't move on from. Penn feels broken after the loss of her father, and Alice is traumatized due to believing that she was the cause of her mother's demise. The women in their family are known to have a seemingly genetic predisposition to madness, Alice's mother being the last unfortunate example. According to lore passed down throughout the generations in their family, each woman, at some point in her life, will have a vision that will reveal profound insight regarding her past and her roots, dating back to Eleanor Dare. Despite the lack of direct magic in this book, there is always that lingering feeling that the supernatural is just a step away, hidden behind the nearest bush, and all we need is belief to gain access to the magic hidden in the land, and coursing through our character's veins.This subtle implied presence of a possibly magical reality further adds to the intrigue that makes this book enjoyable.

The only aspect that sometimes felt a bit frustrating to get through in this book is the relative lack of plot. This can make the book feel quite long, since the relative slow pace and the reflective nature of the book might seem to drag on a bit if one is not in the mood for such a slow work. In order to enjoy this book, the reader should appreciate it for what it is meant to be, a cozy stay in the ancient Evertell. The characterization isn't as profound either, with most characters being relatively simple, but I hardly noticed or took issue with that, since the beautiful world building was more than enough to make this book stand on its feet.

This story is inspired by the true events relating to the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony, and Eleanor Dare is a real person who has lived during that time. The author has done impressive research and has linked that reality into this story, filling in the unknown pieces with her imagination. Even the characters themselves don't fully know what happened, and through their voices, Kimberly Brock makes it clear that it is not necessary to know the entire facts in all cases, because as long as a story is told, it has its own spirit that is worth acknowledging.

 My sincere thanks to NetGalley and Harper Muse and the author Kimberly Brock for this advanced review copy in exchange for an honest review.


"A story matters not because it's true, but because it's been told."

 The human mind is like a sponge, absorbing all sorts of events that it is exposed to, and these events shape our perception and behaviour, and if these events are traumatic, our minds are unfortunately distorted, twisted into deranged chambers the soul is trapped in, unable to find a way out from the sadness and grief and fear entrenched so deeply within.In these situations, the seemingly only way out is death.

This short story by J.D. Salinger explores a portion of a day in the life of a man who is suffering from PTSD after war. It starts with his wife's perspective, who is on a phone call, listening to her mother warn her about the mental instability of her husband. We then shift point of views and meet this man, and are unable to guess what his next move will be, and who he will be harming on his way to the point of no return.

This story, despite being sad, is written in a surprisingly light tone, and the reader will be caught off guard when the dark subject matter finally hits. Despite the depth of the story, this didn't really do much for me personally, and my 2-star rating is an "it was ok", since it isn't memorable enough to be more. I still recommend it to people who would enjoy delving into this subject matter more and seeing a short glimpse of life through the lens of a former soldier with PTSD.


"Here comes a wave," Sybil said nervously.
"We'll ignore it. We'll snub it," said the young man. "Two snobs. 

 

It is no secret that our population is growing at an increasingly faster rate. Some might argue that the human growth rate is unnatural, and that we were never meant to reproduce in such big amounts, unnaturally dominating all other species in the world. Having said this, knowing the vast amount of people who exist in the world, one might think that it is quite impossible to truly control all these people, and that chaos is the rule of law. However, as with other species, humans have developed the ability to bring order to a large group of people through various ways, and one of these ways is mindless group-think.

Shirley Jackson cleverly explores this phenomenon in this short story. In a small American town, the community living there participates in an annual lottery. Participation is obligatory for every family in town, and the best case scenario for every person involved is to not be the unlucky person who ends up winning.

The narrative tone in this work starts off as quite sunny and serene, describing the trivial details of how the town prepares for this annual ritual. Everything is done casually, and one would think the people are preparing nothing more than a fruit market. As the story progresses, the true extent of how disturbed this community is begins to unravel,since they're willingly participating in an event that is horrifying, and no one really questions why they partake in it in the first place, scoffing at other towns for slowly abandoning this event.

This is a short exploration of how easy it can be to brainwash people into doing horrifying deeds, many times simply because it's accepted as a norm. Sometimes, all it takes is one rebellious mind to question why things happen, for an entire system to fall apart.

This was an interesting read, though nothing extraordinary. I was expecting the dark turn the story would take, since everything felt too serene, foreshadowing a storm after the eerie calm. As she has done in The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson does a good job in gradually dissolving a calm atmosphere and bringing about a tense one. If you are a fan of the author's atmospheric creativity, you will most likely enjoy this short work.


 “It's not the way it used to be... people ain't the way they used to be.” 

 

 What is the meaning of life? What happens after we die? How are we connected to the universe, and on a smaller scale, how are we connected to all the people around us? These are profound questions we as human beings might continuously be asking ourselves, and Andy Weir takes these ideas and and presents them in a very interesting way in this very short short story.

This is my first Andy Weir read, and despite the simplistic nature of this story, and the very short length, I was quite hooked to it from the very first sentence. There is an interesting dose of suspense when the story first starts, as we discover what is going on and where we are, which instantly gripped me. As the story progresses, we see an interesting mental exploration on what is the nature of life, which puts things into perspective, a perspective we often lose while dealing with the nitty-gritty frustrations of everyday living.As for the ending, which was my favourite part, it did a great job in giving me that "wow" moment, since it can be taken in a literal sense, if you are into that branch of spirituality, or a metaphorical sense, which, in my opinion, holds so much truth regarding the human experience that we all share.

This is as much as I could say regarding this short story without spoiling it. It's a very quick read, so I do recommend everyone to give it a try. The link to the story is under the book description. This definitely made me want to read more by Andy Weir.


“It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.” 

 

A commonly accepted historical terminology for the very tumultuous period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and 1520 AD is "The Dark Ages", since during that time, Europe, and the rest of the known world, were dealing with the aftermath of the fall of Rome, which was considered to be that one "civilized entity" that kept the fabric of the known world together. When Rome fell, that fabric was torn apart, and Europe fell into the chaos of the feuding "barbarians" who brought upon wars after wars. No significant economic or cultural growth is considered to have come out during this stage, and the Western world was overshadowed by the comparatively advanced civilizations of Arabia and China. This is the narrative that has been widely accepted by most historians, however, Matthew Gabriele challenges this view, seeing this period as a unique transformative phase which changed Roman Europe into the Europe we know today.

He has renamed this period as "The Bright Ages", showing the reader how a simple change in terminology can change one's perspective on a certain area in drastic ways.During these Bright Ages, Europe became a melting pot of different cultures. Once the Germanic tribes crossed the sacred border dividing the lands of the Romans from the lands of the barbarians a century before the Empire fell, the demographics of Europe changed quite drastically. A particularity on this take of this time period is that the author claims that the fall of the Roman Empire was not truly the case, and in some sense, this is true, since the eastern half of the Roman Empire did continue existing during this period, and they did in many instances reclaim land that once belonged to the Western Empire.As for the people who ruled Europe during those times, they also pulled from the legacy of the Roman Empire, many of them claiming to be legitimate descendants of the lost empire. So theoretically speaking, one can claim that Rome never "truly" disappeared during this time period, its influences still being a driving force in this chaos.


The author shows the reader how current narratives framed by white supremacists to justify certain political choices go back to these so called Dark Ages, and he successfully makes the case that religious dogma can be potentially used as a fuel to commit mass atrocities.The crusades that took place during that period are the clearest example, since the message of liberating Jerusalem from its "Muslim oppressors" has led to a literal massacre, where the crusaders stormed into Jerusalem and covered the city in blood, butchering people they don't even know driven solely by an abstract cause.Those same Christian factions eventually committed a similar atrocity against their fellow Christians, when they sacked Constantinople in 1204, the capital of the Christian Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. Why? Because the Pope claimed that those Christians are not true Christians but are enemies of the religion. We see this brainwashing repeating itself time and time again throughout history, with many innocent lives being cruelly taken away as a result.

Like any history book, this book can drown one in the details regarding dates and names and very specific information that can be exhausting to keep up with, but the relatively short length of the book and the large time span it covered did satisfy my curiosity to learn about this period. My next reading endeavours when it comes to history will focus on different regions in the world outside the orbit of Europe during these times. I do recommend this book if you want to have a different take on The Dark Ages, and to see how certain narratives relating to that time period push political agendas to this very day.


“Scientists can measure the oxygen isotopes in dental enamel to determine where in the world long-dead people were born. From the Bronze Age through to the medieval period, we’re finding people buried in British graves who were born in Asia and Africa. That number peaked, unsurprisingly, during the Roman period, but never falls to zero throughout the Middle Ages.”