non fiction

The Way of the Librarian II

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Last year was a year of reading for me. Specifically non fiction, to learn more about any and all things. Terentius, African slave and later Roman playwright claimed that “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto“, or “I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me.” I’m not quite there, yet, but what better way to ensure that changes than to read? So, without further ado, here are some mini reviews of the (rest of the) books I read last year:

Monuments Men (Edsel) – the story of the men who saved untold treasures from the Nazi looting effort towards the end of World War II. A little fragmented but interesting. (3/5)

Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg) – took a while to get into (very Merkin) but it’s a classic on the topic for obvious reasons. (5/5)

A Life on our Planet (Attenborough) – harrowing and profound, inimitable and joyful. As autobiographies go, they don’t get better. (5/5)

Remarkable trees (Harrison) – a run-through of exotic and astonishing trees with lovely illustrations. (4/5)

The Golden Atlas (Brooke-Hitching) – various stories about maps, map makers and the explorers that filled in the blanks. Very interesting. (4/5)

Human Compatible (Russell) – Artificial intelligence and how to ensure it doesn’t go Skynet on us. (4/5)

Pixar storytelling (Movshovitz) – a schematic of what makes Pixar movies great. (3/5)

Undaunted Courage (Ambrose) – Lewis and Clark’s expedition across the American continent retraced. (3/5)

All of the Marvels (Wolk) – The entire Marvel universe analyzed – all 200 gazillion pages. 2/5 unless you are a super fan, then 4/5.

Citizen Soldiers (Ambrose) – Band of Brothers but covering many more people – and a little less interesting for it. (4/5)

Life 3.0 (Tegmark) A.I. and humanity and how to make them compatible, take 2. (4/5)

How the world really works (Smil) – a cold, hard look at the world. A good companion piece to Attenborough. (5/5)

Map stories (Matteoli) – similar to the Golden Atlas, but suffers from poor translation. (3/5)

T Pratchett: a life with footnotes (Wilkins) – the P.A. of Pratchett tells of the latter’s sad demise. 4/5 if you’re a fan – and otherwise, what’s the point?

Quid Pro Quo (Jones) – erudite run-through of how much Latin still influences modern languages. (5/5)

Eureka! (Jones) – ditto for Greek (4.5/5)

Learn like a pro (Oakley/Schewe) – tips and trick to get better at studying. (4/5)

The secret lives of garden bees (Vernon) – cute book about all those other bees that also need protecting. (3/5)

Discipline is destiny (Holiday) – very good book on how to structure your life in order to achieve more. (5/5)

Playing with FIRE (Rieckens) – one couple’s quest to get financially independent and retire early. (3/5)

Veni Vidi Vici (Jones) – how the Roman world still influences us. (4/5)

The world of ice and fire (Martin) – not strictly non fiction, but written like a history of Westeros. Monumental. 4/5 if you’re a big fan, otherwise maybe don’t.

Fabric (Finlay) – the cultural history of various kinds of cloth. More interesting than it sounds. (4/5)

And there you have it. I hope there’s something of interest there, and if not, feel free to point me in the direction of books you think I should read. I have every intention of keeping up this habit, so tips are always welcome!

Bookends

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As one of my resolutions for this year I set out to read more non-fiction, and I did – even though many of the books in the original pile didn’t get read for some reason. Amongst the books I did read, the following stand out (in the order my eyes happened to fall on them on the bookshelf):

Recovery (Brand): Russell lends his own mix of philosophy and humour to the AA brand of addiction overcoming.

Homo Deus (Harari): a mind-boggling exposé of the past, present and future of the human race.

Prisoners of geography (Marshall): How landscapes determine the political efforts of nations. An eye opener.

Through a window (Goodall): chimps, and what they teach us about humanity.

Hjärnstark (Hansen): On the paramount importance of ensuring a healthy body to accommodate a healthy brain.

Bird by bird (Lamott): lessons in writing and life, drawn from a life of writing.

Thinking, fast and slow (Kahneman): possibly the best book this year; how rational are we, really? Mind: boggled.

Underland (Macfarlane): this man has written several books I wish I had written. This is probably his best.

Touching cloudbase (Currer): not necessarily the best book I’ve read, but essential if you want to learn paragliding.

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So there. Something in there for everyone, I hope. For every one of these I have probably acquired two more, so I will keep this challenge for next year, too. Join me, maybe? #onenonfictionbookpermonth

Taking bookings

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One of my intentions for this year is to read more non-fiction. Fiction is a different matter – if one of my favourite authors publishes a new book I will read it, simple as that – but non-fiction I have to make a concerted effort to take on.

And yet I find reading non-fiction is the best way of educating yourself, so it tallies well with my ambition to improve intellectually. To quote a colleague who is something of a renaissance man: “I just want to make sense of the world”.

To this end I have a number of books that I’ve ordered (as seen above), on religion, personal efficiency, investment philosophy, human society and contemporary politics, plus a book on rhetorics (in the shape of famous speeches). That should see me through most of the year, but if you have any must-reads that you want to recommend, don’t be shy! I look forward to your suggestions, and will come back with reviews in due time.

Having the time of my life

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“People’s life do flash before their eyes right before they die. The process is know as ‘living’.”  – Terry Pratchett

I don’t want to come to the end of my life feeling I haven’t accomplished and experienced as much as I might have. In a way, that realisation is the main reason for this blog; by charting my adventures and self-imposed challenges I can look back and see how well I’m doing in this regard. 

This year, I set out to achieve measurable progress in a number of specific areas, and I determined I would go about it differently from what I have done previously.

Whereas in the past I set lofty goals for how many books I should read, how many irregular verbs or piano pieces I should learn – and then not doing it – I now avoid such targets and focus instead on ensuring there are slots in my day for the activities in question. 

This means I plan as much of my time as I can in advance to ensure I get everything I want done, writing a schedule for the day; one half hour is devoted to reading non-fiction, the next to studying French, the one after that to playing the piano, et cetera. 

In fact, it’s the same principle I’ve been applying to travelling; by planning trips in advance – giving them an allotted time – I ensure they get done. I just never thought of using the same principle in my day-to-day life before. 

Now, three months isn’t a long time, but I’m really pleased to report the method of structuring my time is bearing fruit already. I’m not a machine, so the actual time I spend on these activities often doesn’t correspond exactly to the schedule, but even so the results are better than I dared hope for: in the last three months I have logged over 50 hours each of reading, piano playing and French studies, plus 150 hours of workouts. This works. 

In fact it works so well that I have decided to add another activity to the list: chess. I hadn’t played for a long time when a colleague challenged me to a match in February. This rekindled my love of the game, and I haven’t looked back since. In Pemba, I even played a Danish national champion and won 2-0 (he was a national kite-surfing champion, but never mind…).

If you want to play me, I’m on chess.com – improving my game for half an hour every day, as per schedule.