Gabe's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 27 Dec 2024 04:09:53 -0800 60 Gabe's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Gabe 0 to-read 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Whistleblower 491804 248 Tess Gerritsen 1551664682 Gabe 1 Unbelievable romance. A forty year old woman thinking about love and emotions like a teenager. And the inking about them in the middle of a mortal situation.
The action was like if I wrote it.
Only likeable character died on the first pages. And there was not much of an anger on the person that has caused that death.
Incorrect scientific facts. ]]> 3.52 1992 Whistleblower
author: Tess Gerritsen
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1992
rating: 1
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves:
review:
One of worst books I’ve ever read.
Unbelievable romance. A forty year old woman thinking about love and emotions like a teenager. And the inking about them in the middle of a mortal situation.
The action was like if I wrote it.
Only likeable character died on the first pages. And there was not much of an anger on the person that has caused that death.
Incorrect scientific facts.
]]> <![CDATA[Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies (Wiley Finance)]]> 53685783 McKinsey & Company's #1 best-selling guide to corporate valuation—the fully updated seventh edition

Valuation has been the foremost resource for measuring company value for nearly three decades. Now in its seventh edition, this acclaimed volume continues to help financial professionals around the world gain a deep understanding of valuation and help their companies create, manage, and maximize economic value for their shareholders.

This latest edition has been carefully revised and updated throughout, and includes new insights on topics such as digital, ESG (environmental, social and governance), and long-term investing, as well as fresh case studies.

Clear, accessible chapters cover the fundamental principles of value creation, analyzing and forecasting performance, capital structure and dividends, valuing high-growth companies, and much more. The Financial Times calls the book “one of the practitioners� best guides to valuation.”�

This

Provides complete, detailed guidance on every crucial aspect of corporate valuation Explains the strategies, techniques, and nuances of valuation every manager needs to know Covers both core and advanced valuation techniques and management strategies Features/Includes a companion website that covers key issues in valuation, including videos, discussions of trending topics, and real-world valuation examples from the capital markets For over 90 years, McKinsey & Company has helped corporations and organizations make substantial and lasting improvements in their performance. Through seven editions and 30 years, Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies, has served as the definitive reference for finance professionals, including investment bankers, financial analysts, CFOs and corporate managers, venture capitalists, and students and instructors in all areas of finance.]]> 845 McKinsey & Company Inc. 1119610923 Gabe 0 to-read 4.68 1990 Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies (Wiley Finance)
author: McKinsey & Company Inc.
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.68
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture]]> 698515 How did powder and paint, once scorned as immoral, become indispensable to millions of respectable women? How did a Victorian "kitchen physic," as homemade cosmetics were called, become a multi-billion-dollar industry? In Hope in a Jar, historian Kathy Peiss gives us a vivid history in which women, far from being pawns and victims, used makeup to declare their freedom, identity, and sexual allure as they flocked to enter public life. She highlights the leading role of black and white women-Helena Rubenstein and Annie Turnbo Malone, Elizabeth Arden and Madame C. J. Walker-in shaping a unique industry that relied less on advertising than on women's customs of visiting ("Avon calling") and conversation. From New York's genteel enameling studios to Memphis's straightening parlors, Peiss depicts the beauty trades that thrived until the 1920s, when corporations run by men entered the lucrative field, creating a mass consumer culture that codified modern femininity. Replete with the voices and experiences of ordinary women, Hope in a Jar is a richly textured account of how women created the cosmetics industry and cosmetics created the modern woman.
]]> 352 Kathy Peiss 0805055517 Gabe 0 to-read 3.88 1998 Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture
author: Kathy Peiss
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat]]> 13587130
Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious - or at least edible. Tools shape what we eat, but they have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food. Technology in the kitchen does not just mean the Pacojets and sous-vide of the modernist kitchen. It can also mean the humbler tools of everyday cooking and eating: a wooden spoon and a skillet, chopsticks and forks.

In Consider the Fork, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson provides a wonderful and witty tour of the evolution of cooking around the world, revealing the hidden history of everyday objects we often take for granted. Knives - perhaps our most important gastronomic tool - predate the discovery of fire, whereas the fork endured centuries of ridicule before gaining widespread acceptance; pots and pans have been around for millennia, while plates are a relatively recent invention. Many once-new technologies have become essential elements of any well-stocked kitchen - mortars and pestles, serrated knives, stainless steel pots, refrigerators. Others have proved only passing fancies, or were supplanted by better technologies; one would be hard pressed now to find a water-powered egg whisk, a magnet-operated spit roaster, a cider owl, or a turnspit dog. Although many tools have disappeared from the modern kitchen, they have left us with traditions, tastes, and even physical characteristics that we would never have possessed otherwise.

Blending history, science, and anthropology, Wilson reveals how our culinary tools and tricks came to be, and how their influence has shaped modern food culture. The story of how we have tamed fire and ice and wielded whisks, spoons, and graters, all for the sake of putting food in our mouths, Consider the Fork is truly a book to savor.]]> 327 Bee Wilson 046502176X Gabe 0 to-read 3.83 2012 Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat
author: Bee Wilson
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/27
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]]> Silk: A World History 181110043 304 Aarathi Prasad 0063160250 Gabe 0 to-read 3.61 Silk: A World History
author: Aarathi Prasad
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.61
book published:
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]]> <![CDATA[Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food]]> 7347759 Four Fish, award-winning writer and lifelong fisherman Paul Greenberg takes us on a culinary journey, exploring the history of the fish that dominate our menus � salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna � and investigating where each stands at this critical moment in time.

He visits Norwegian megafarms that use genetic techniques once pioneered on sheep to grow millions of pounds of salmon a year. He travels to the ancestral river of the Yupik Eskimos to see the only Fair Trade–certified fishing company in the world. He makes clear how PCBs and mercury find their way into seafood; discovers how Mediterranean sea bass went global; challenges the author of Cod to taste the difference between a farmed and a wild cod; and almost sinks to the bottom of the South Pacific while searching for an alternative to endangered bluefin tuna.

Fish, Greenberg reveals, are the last truly wild food � for now. By examining the forces that get fish to our dinner tables, he shows how we can start to heal the oceans and fight for a world where healthy and sustainable seafood is the rule rather than the exception.]]> 284 Paul Greenberg 1594202567 Gabe 0 to-read 4.04 2010 Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food
author: Paul Greenberg
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World]]> 64895 294 Mark Kurlansky 0099268701 Gabe 0 to-read 3.92 1997 Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
author: Mark Kurlansky
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Cooks, and Good Food]]> 25770528
Cooking for Geeks is more than just a cookbook. Author and cooking geek Jeff Potter helps you apply curiosity, inspiration, and invention to the food you prepare. Why do we bake some things at 350°F / 175°C and others at 375°F / 190°C? Why is medium-rare steak so popular? And just how quickly does a pizza cook if you “overclock� an oven to 1,000°F / 540°C? This expanded new edition provides in-depth answers, and lets you experiment with several labs and more than 100 recipes� from the sweet (a patent-violating chocolate chip cookie) to the savory (pulled pork under pressure).

When you step into the kitchen, you’re unwittingly turned into a physicist and a chemist. This excellent and intriguing resource is for inquisitive people who want to increase their knowledge and ability to cook.

� Discover what type of cook you are and learn how to think about flavor
� Understand how protein denaturation, Maillard reactions, caramelization, and other
reactions impact the foods we cook
� Gain firsthand insights from interviews with researchers, food scientists, knife experts, chefs, and writers—including science enthusiast Adam Savage, chef Jaques Pépin, and chemist Hervé This]]> 483 Jeff Potter 1491928050 Gabe 0 to-read 4.02 2007 Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Cooks, and Good Food
author: Jeff Potter
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Blindsight (Firefall, #1) 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown.

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,� recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist � an informational topologist with half his mind gone � as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]> 384 Peter Watts 0765312182 Gabe 5 scifi, favorites 4.01 2006 Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
author: Peter Watts
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2016/02/27
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: scifi, favorites
review:

]]> The Call of Cthulhu 15730101 The Call of Cthulhu is a harrowing tale of the weakness of the human mind when confronted by powers and intelligences from beyond our world.]]> 43 H.P. Lovecraft Gabe 0 to-read 3.97 1928 The Call of Cthulhu
author: H.P. Lovecraft
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1928
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Friend Of A Friend . . .: Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Your Career]]> 35721135
What if the best way to grow your network isn’t by introducing yourself to strangers at cocktail parties, handing out business cards, or signing up for the latest online tool, but by developing a better understanding of the existing network that’s already around you?
We know that it’s essential to reach out and build a network. But did you know that it’s actually your distant or former contacts who will be the most helpful to you? Or that many of our best efforts at meeting new people simply serve up the same old opportunities we already have?
In this startling new look at the art and science of networking, business school professor David Burkus digs deep to find the unexpected secrets that reveal the best ways to grow your career.
Based on entertaining case studies and scientific research, this practical and revelatory guide shares what the best networkers really do. Forget the outdated advice you’ve already heard. Learn how to make use of the hidden networks you already have.]]> 256 David Burkus 0544971264 Gabe 0 to-read 3.75 Friend Of A Friend . . .: Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Your Career
author: David Burkus
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.75
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/29
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]]> Dune Messiah (Dune #2) 44492285
Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better known--and feared--as the man christened Muad'Dib. As Emperor of the Known Universe, he possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremens, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne--and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence.

And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family's dynasty...

Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert]]> 336 Frank Herbert 0593098234 Gabe 3 3.89 1969 Dune Messiah (Dune #2)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1969
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/18
date added: 2024/05/18
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Chłopki. Opowieść o naszych babkach]]> 137135096 Służących do wszystkiego wraca do tematu wiejskich kobiet, ale tym razem to opowieść zza drugiej strony drzwi chłopskiej chałupy. Podczas, gdy Maryśki i Kaśki wyruszają do miast, by usługiwać w pańskich domach, na wsiach zostają ich siostry i matki: harujące od świtu do nocy gospodynie, folwarczne wyrobnice, mamki, dziewki pracujące w bogatszych gospodarstwach. Marzące o własnym łóżku, butach, szkole i o zostaniu panią. Modlące się o posag, byle "nie wyjść za dziada" i nie zostać wydane za morgi. Dzielące na czworo zapałki, by wyżywić rodzinę. Często analfabetki, bo "babom szkoły nie potrzeba".

Nasze babki i prababki.

Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak daje wiejskim kobietom głos, by opowiedziały o swoim życiu: codziennym znoju, lękach i marzeniach. Ta mocna, głęboko dotykająca lektura pokazuje siłę kobiet, ich bezgraniczne oddanie rodzinie, ale też pragnienie zmiany i nierówną walkę o siebie w patriarchalnym społeczeństwie.]]> 496 Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak 8367674316 Gabe 3 4.43 2023 Chłopki. Opowieść o naszych babkach
author: Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/07
date added: 2024/05/07
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Dla wnuczki kobiety ze wsi - nic odkrywczego. Ale za kolejne 100 lat może się przydać dla osób, które już nie będą miały kontaktu z takimi rodzinnymi historiami i ta rzeczywistości stanie się już tylko anonimową historią
]]> <![CDATA[A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle that Shaped the Middle East]]> 12121296 352 James Barr 1847374530 Gabe 0 to-read 4.06 2011 A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle that Shaped the Middle East
author: James Barr
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)]]> 12749 In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. But since its original prewar translation there has been no completely new version in English. Now, Penguin Classics brings Proust’s masterpiece to new audiences throughout the world, beginning with Lydia Davis’s internationally acclaimed translation of the first volume, Swann’s Way.]]> 468 Marcel Proust 0142437964 Gabe 0 to-read 4.12 1913 Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)
author: Marcel Proust
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1913
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Women in the Days of the Cathedrals]]> 718244 266 Régine Pernoud 0898706424 Gabe 0 to-read 4.16 1980 Women in the Days of the Cathedrals
author: Régine Pernoud
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1980
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Those Terrible Middle Ages!: Debunking the Myths]]> 246258 180 Régine Pernoud 0898707811 Gabe 0 to-read 3.93 1977 Those Terrible Middle Ages!: Debunking the Myths
author: Régine Pernoud
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?]]> 89158

Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future. He evaluates predictions from experts in different fields, comparing them to predictions by well-informed laity or those based on simple extrapolation from current trends. He goes on to analyze which styles of thinking are more successful in forecasting. Classifying thinking styles using Isaiah Berlin's prototypes of the fox and the hedgehog, Tetlock contends that the fox--the thinker who knows many little things, draws from an eclectic array of traditions, and is better able to improvise in response to changing events--is more successful in predicting the future than the hedgehog, who knows one big thing, toils devotedly within one tradition, and imposes formulaic solutions on ill-defined problems. He notes a perversely inverse relationship between the best scientific indicators of good judgement and the qualities that the media most prizes in pundits--the single-minded determination required to prevail in ideological combat.


Clearly written and impeccably researched, the book fills a huge void in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. It will appeal across many academic disciplines as well as to corporations seeking to develop standards for judging expert decision-making.]]> 344 Philip E. Tetlock 0691128715 Gabe 0 to-read 3.98 2005 Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?
author: Philip E. Tetlock
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?]]> 26530322 Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? explores the oddities and complexities of animal cognition―in crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, chimpanzees, and bonobos―to reveal how smart animals really are, and how we’ve underestimated their abilities for too long. Did you know that octopuses use coconut shells as tools, that elephants classify humans by gender and language, and that there is a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame? Fascinating, entertaining, and deeply informed, de Waal’s landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal―and human―intelligence.]]> 340 Frans de Waal 0393246183 Gabe 4 3.91 2016 Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
author: Frans de Waal
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/01/23
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]]> Текст 35525142 Телефон - это резервное хранилище нашей души. В нем самые яркие наши воспоминания, фотографии смеха и наше видео о том, как мы пытаемся почувствовать счастье. В почте - письма от матери и вся подноготная нашей работы. В истории браузеров - все, что нам интересно на самом деле. В чатах - признания в любви и прощания. В нем снимки наших соблазнов и свидетельства грехов, слезы и обиды. Такое время. Картинки. Текст.
Телефон - это и есть я. И тот, кто получит мой телефон, может стать мной - для всех остальных. И они даже ничего не заметят - а когда заметят, будет уже слишком поздно. Для нас всех.]]> 320 Dmitry Glukhovsky 5171035210 Gabe 3 4.00 2017 Текст
author: Dmitry Glukhovsky
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/06
date added: 2023/12/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?]]> 6452731
Affirmative action, same-sex marriage, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, national service, the moral limits of markets―Sandel relates the big questions of political philosophy to the most vexing issues of the day, and shows how a surer grasp of philosophy can help us make sense of politics, morality, and our own convictions as well.

Justice is lively, thought-provoking, and wise―an essential new addition to the small shelf of books that speak convincingly to the hard questions of our civic life.]]> 308 Michael J. Sandel 0374180652 Gabe 0 to-read 4.30 2007 Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
author: Michael J. Sandel
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> Wszyscy tak jeżdżą 144738296
Autor wyrusza więc w Polskę, aby zrozumieć, co się dzieje na polskich szosach. Opisuje wojnę między kierowcami a rowerzystami, organizację nielegalnych wyścigów, bezkarną jazdę po pijaku oraz najgłośniejsze wypadki, po których służby drogowe miały ostatecznie rozprawić się z piratami. Może to nieudolny system prawny odpowiada za społeczne przyzwolenie na szybką i ryzykowną jazdę?

Józefiak wnika także w środowisko firm odszkodowawczych, dosłownie utrzymujących się ze śmierci pod kołami. Sprawdza, jak się żyje tym, którzy dzięki samochodom zarabiają na chleb � kierowcom tirów, kurierom, dostawcom jedzenia. Dociera do wykluczonych z dostępu do komunikacji miejskiej i tych, którzy z pasją gromadzą kolejne "najnowsze modele" na podwórku.

Wszyscy tak jeżdżą to wielowymiarowy, rasowy, gęsty reportaż o stanie umysłowym polskich kierowców]]> 392 Bartosz Józefiak 8381917123 Gabe 0 to-read 4.20 2023 Wszyscy tak jeżdżą
author: Bartosz Józefiak
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Hydrozagadka. Kto zabiera polską wodę i jak ją odzyskać]]> 123020581 Czy Polska musi stać się pustynią?

Choć katastrofy klimatycznej raczej już nie powstrzymamy, to wciąż lokalnie możemy osłabić jej skutki. Albo raczej moglibyśmy, gdybyśmy chcieli, bo posiadamy niezbędną wiedzę i technologię. Mamy jednak inne priorytety.

Gdy burze piaskowe i fale upałów stają się codziennością, a kolejne gminy wprowadzają zakaz podlewania ogródków, wykształcona w latach 70. klasa rządząca zachowuje się, jakby przeżywała drugą młodość. Regulowanie rzek, wycinanie lasów, zatruwanie jezior, osuszanie całych powiatów przez kopalnie odkrywkowe oraz hojne wsparcie wodochłonnej produkcji mięsnej i rolnictwa przemysłowego. To nasza polska codzienność.

Jan Mencwel w swoim reportażu Hydrozagadka próbuje znaleźć źródła problemu, jaki mamy z wodą. Pokazuje, jak nie tylko rząd, ale również Wody Polskie, spółki węglowe, Lasy Państwowe i rolnicy solidarnie działają na rzecz zrobienia z naszego kraju pustyni. Rozmawia też z naukowcami i hydrologami, którzy mówią wprost, że są inne drogi. Jeszcze nie jest za późno, żeby ocalić nasze lasy, jeziora, rzeki i bagna.]]> 352 Jan Mencwel 8367075870 Gabe 0 to-read 4.39 2023 Hydrozagadka. Kto zabiera polską wodę i jak ją odzyskać
author: Jan Mencwel
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Weapon Shops of Isher 358902 191 A.E. van Vogt 0671431293 Gabe 1 3.97 1951 The Weapon Shops of Isher
author: A.E. van Vogt
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1951
rating: 1
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2023/08/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Kwantechizm, czyli klatka na ludzi]]> 44015235 288 Andrzej Dragan 8365411318 Gabe 0 to-read 4.03 2019 Kwantechizm, czyli klatka na ludzi
author: Andrzej Dragan
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Kwantechizm 2.0, czyli klatka dla ludzi.]]> 60029811
By ją nam przybliżyć, Andrzej Dragan w jasny i klarowny sposób objaśnia niezwykłe wnioski wynikające z przełomowych teorii Einsteina oraz najbardziej zaskakujące prawa mechaniki kwantowej, a także przedstawia własny, nowy i rewolucyjny model łączący je ze sobą. Do tego wszystkiego tłumaczy, dlaczego kury nieustannie ruszają głowami, czemu mrówki nie galopują, a dinozaury nie narzekałyby, że doba ma jedynie 24 godziny (oczywiście gdyby umiały mówić i rozumiały koncepcję czasu).

Andrzej Dragan jest profesorem fizyki teoretycznej i laureatem kilkudziesięciu nagród za działalność naukową oraz fotograficzną, filmową i muzyczną. Jako nastolatek działał w grupach crackerskich, obecnie wstrząsa światem nauki. W 2020 roku wraz z profesorem Arturem Ekertem opublikował pracę „Kwantowa zasada względności�, która może okazać się największym przełomem w rozumieniu teorii kwantowej od czasów Einsteina.

"Zbuntowany fizyk znalazł eleganckie rozwiązanie kwantowej zagadki."

Benjamin Skuse, "Wired UK"

"Fizyka podawana niczym najlepszy stand-up. „Kwantechizm� to smakołyk, jakiego nie dostaje się codziennie."

Tomasz Nowak, "Rzeczpospolita"

"Jedna z najlepszych książek o fizyce, życiu i całej reszcie, które ostatnio czytałem. Dragan prawie na palcach potrafi wytłumaczyć, na czym polega teleportacja kwantowa czy teoria względności. Jeśli was kręcą te tematy, nie mogliście lepiej trafić."

Piotr Cieśliński, "Gazeta Wyborcza"

"Uwielbiam tę książkę! Dragan potrafi soczystą gawędą wytłumaczyć teorię względności i kwanty nawet takiemu tumanowi jak ja (łykam to bez popitki). A do tego jest bezczelny, arogancki i ma masę anegdot w kieszeniach."

Łukasz Orbitowski

Powyższy opis pochodzi od wydawcy.]]> 344 Andrzej Dragan 8381351375 Gabe 0 to-read 4.15 2022 Kwantechizm 2.0, czyli klatka dla ludzi.
author: Andrzej Dragan
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/27
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]]> <![CDATA[W czym grzyby są lepsze od ciebie?]]> 52491150
Odkryj ten fenomenalnie ciekawy świat dzięki wiedzy i erudycji dr hab. Marty Wrzosek oraz nieoczywistym pytaniom Karoliny Głowackiej. Po lekturze nie tylko będziesz wiedzieć, jakie grzyby zamieszkują twoje ciało i czy dinozaury gustowały w grzybowych smakach, ale też docenisz rolę świata fungi w medycynie, sztuce� czy meblarstwie.
Tak, zdecydowanie, z grzybami warto się lepiej poznać. Kto wie? Może to one uratują naszą cywilizację?

W książce znajdziesz również miniprzewodnik po mało znanych jadalnych grzybach polskich lasów. Niektórych z nich możesz szukać zimą lub wiosną!]]> 350 Marta Wrzosek Gabe 5 4.29 2019 W czym grzyby są lepsze od ciebie?
author: Marta Wrzosek
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/09
date added: 2023/06/26
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century]]> 38813233 A New York Times Notable Book

From Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times-bestselling author Deborah Blum, the dramatic true story of how food was made safe in the United States and the heroes, led by the inimitable Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, who fought for change.

By the end of nineteenth century, food was dangerous. Lethal, even. "Milk" might contain formaldehyde, most often used to embalm corpses. Decaying meat was preserved with both salicylic acid, a pharmaceutical chemical, and borax, a compound first identified as a cleaning product. This was not by accident; food manufacturers had rushed to embrace the rise of industrial chemistry, and were knowingly selling harmful products. Unchecked by government regulation, basic safety, or even labelling requirements, they put profit before the health of their customers. By some estimates, in New York City alone, thousands of children were killed by "embalmed milk" every year. Citizens--activists, journalists, scientists, and women's groups--began agitating for change. But even as protective measures were enacted in Europe, American corporations blocked even modest regulations. Then, in 1883, Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, a chemistry professor from Purdue University, was named chief chemist of the agriculture department, and the agency began methodically investigating food and drink fraud, even conducting shocking human tests on groups of young men who came to be known as, "The Poison Squad."

Over the next thirty years, a titanic struggle took place, with the courageous and fascinating Dr. Wiley campaigning indefatigably for food safety and consumer protection. Together with a gallant cast, including the muckraking reporter Upton Sinclair, whose fiction revealed the horrific truth about the Chicago stockyards; Fannie Farmer, then the most famous cookbook author in the country; and Henry J. Heinz, one of the few food producers who actively advocated for pure food, Dr. Wiley changed history. When the landmark 1906 Food and Drug Act was finally passed, it was known across the land, as "Dr. Wiley's Law."

Blum brings to life this timeless and hugely satisfying "David and Goliath" tale with righteous verve and style, driving home the moral imperative of confronting corporate greed and government corruption with a bracing clarity, which speaks resoundingly to the enormous social and political challenges we face today.]]> 330 Deborah Blum 1594205140 Gabe 0 to-read 3.90 2018 The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
author: Deborah Blum
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)]]> 35074096
This stunning book features classical artwork inspired by the myths, as well as learned notes from the author. Each adventure is infused with Fry's distinctive wit, voice, and writing style. Connoisseurs of the Greek myths will appreciate this fresh-yet-reverential interpretation, while newcomers will feel welcome. Retellings brim with humor and emotion and offer rich cultural context

Celebrating the thrills, grandeur, and unabashed fun of the Greek myths, Mythos breathes life into ancient tales—from Pandora's box to Prometheus's fire.

This gorgeous volume invites you to explore a captivating world with the brilliant storyteller Stephen Fry as your guide.]]> 416 Stephen Fry 0718188721 Gabe 0 to-read 4.27 2017 Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)
author: Stephen Fry
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> Klara and the Sun 54120408
In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?]]> 340 Kazuo Ishiguro 059331817X Gabe 2 on-audible The ideas used in the novel were not original at all. I hoped that maybe the author doesn’t want to come up with anything original but wants to make some deep character study. But no, they were also shallow.
In the middle of the book some tension and mystery was created but it seemed to go into a sick, forcefully shocking vision like from Jo Nesbo. In the end it turned out to be quite unoriginal one.
I don’t know if I understood the solution of this whole story� ]]> 3.71 2021 Klara and the Sun
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2023/01/22
date added: 2023/01/22
shelves: on-audible
review:
It stared cute and with a promise of a unique, original world. The promise was not met at all. The world was quite shallow and normal.
The ideas used in the novel were not original at all. I hoped that maybe the author doesn’t want to come up with anything original but wants to make some deep character study. But no, they were also shallow.
In the middle of the book some tension and mystery was created but it seemed to go into a sick, forcefully shocking vision like from Jo Nesbo. In the end it turned out to be quite unoriginal one.
I don’t know if I understood the solution of this whole story�
]]> <![CDATA[Apex Magazine Issue 105, February 2018]]> 38460963 Apex Magazine is a monthly science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine featuring original, mind-bending short fiction from many of the top pros of the field. New issues are released on the first Tuesday of every month.

EDITORIAL
Words from the Editor-in-Chief—Jason Sizemore

FICTION
A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies � Alix Harrow
Work, and Ye Shall Eat � Walker McKnight
Ghost Marriage � P. Djeli Clark
Excerpt: Return to the Lost Level � Brian Keene

NONFICTION
Interview with Alix Harrow � Andrea Johnson
Interview with Cover Artist Justin Adams � Russell Dickerson
A Discussion with Tal M. Klein, Author of The Punch Escrow � Lesley Conner

COLUMNS
Between the Lines with Laura Zats and Erik Hane
Page Advice with Mallory O'Meara and Brea Grant]]> 118 Jason Sizemore Gabe 0 to-read 4.49 2018 Apex Magazine Issue 105, February 2018
author: Jason Sizemore
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 132, September 2017]]> 36165705 FICTION
"Antarctic Birds" by A. Brym
"Little /^^^\&-" by Eric Schwitzgebel
"The Secret Life of Bots" by Suzanne Palmer
"Pan-Humanism: Hope and Pragmatics" by Jess Barber and Sara Saab
"Möbius Continuum" by Gu Shi, translated by S. Qiouyi Lu
"Bonding with Morry" by Tom Purdom
"Warmth" by Geoff Ryman

NON-FICTION
"Artificial Wombs and Control of Reproductive Technology" by Stephanie M. Bucklin
"Occult Agencies and Political Satire: A Conversation with Charles Stross" by Chris Urie
"Another Word: The Dream of Writing Full Time" by Kelly Robson
"Editor's Desk: Home for the Month" by Neil Clarke]]> 142 Neil Clarke Gabe 0 to-read 4.18 2017 Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 132, September 2017
author: Neil Clarke
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/21
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]]> Siddharta 42639871 152 Hermann Hesse 9502531329 Gabe 0 to-read 4.14 1922 Siddharta
author: Hermann Hesse
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1922
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Alexandria Quartet (The Alexandria Quartet, #1-4)]]> 13033 Justine (1957), Balthazar (1958), Mountolive (1958), and Clea (1960).

Justine, Balthazar, and Mountolive use varied viewpoints to relate a series of events in Alexandria before World War II. In Clea, the story continues into the years during the war.

One L.G. Darley is the primary observer of the events, which include events in the lives of those he loves, and those he knows. In Justine, Darley attempts to recover from and put into perspective his recently ended affair with a woman. Balthazar reinterprets the romantic perspective he placed on the affair and its aftermath in Justine, in more philosophical and intellectual terms.

Mountolive tells a story minus interpretation, and Clea reveals Darley's healing, and coming to love another woman.]]> 884 Lawrence Durrell 0140153179 Gabe 0 to-read 4.17 1960 The Alexandria Quartet (The Alexandria Quartet, #1-4)
author: Lawrence Durrell
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1960
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions]]> 58340695
The desire to fit in is one of the most powerful, least understood forces in society.

Todd Rose believes that as human beings, we continually act against our own best interests because our brains misunderstand what others believe. A complicated set of illusions driven by conformity bias distorts how we see the world around us. From toilet paper shortages to kidneys that get thrown away rather than used for transplants; from racial segregation to the perceived “electability� of women in politics; from bottled water to “cancel culture,� we routinely copy others, lie about what we believe, cling to tribes, and silence people.

The question is, Why do we keep believing the lies and hurting ourselves?

Todd Rose proves that the answer is hard-wired in our DNA: our brains are more socially dependent than we realize or dare to accept. Most of us would rather be fully in sync with the social norms of our respective groups than be true to who we are. Using originally researched data, Collective Illusions shows us where we get things wrong and, just as important, how we can be authentic in forming opinions while valuing truth. Rose offers a counterintuitive yet empowering explanation for how we can bridge our inference gap, make decisions with a newfound clarity, and achieve fulfillment.]]> 304 Todd Rose 0306925680 Gabe 0 to-read 4.03 Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions
author: Todd Rose
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Next Supper: The End of Restaurants as We Knew Them, and What Comes After]]> 57356066
In the years before the pandemic, the restaurant business was booming. Americans spent more than half of their annual food budgets dining out. In a generation, chefs had gone from behind-the-scenes laborers to TV stars. The arrival of Uber Eats, DoorDash, and other meal delivery apps was overtaking home cooking.

Beneath all that growth lurked serious problems. Many of the best restaurants in the world employed unpaid cooks. Meal delivery apps were putting restaurants out of business. And all that dining out meant dramatically less healthy diets. The industry may have been booming, but it also desperately needed to change.

Then, along came COVID-19. From the farm to the street-side patio, from the sweaty kitchen to the swarm of delivery vehicles buzzing about our cities, everything about the restaurant business is changing, for better or worse. The Next Supper tells this story and offers clear and essential advice for what and how to eat to ensure the well-being of cooks and waitstaff, not to mention our bodies and the environment. The Next Supper reminds us that breaking bread is an essential human activity and charts a path to preserving the joy of eating out in a turbulent era.]]> 352 Corey Mintz 1541758404 Gabe 0 to-read 3.91 2021 The Next Supper: The End of Restaurants as We Knew Them, and What Comes After
author: Corey Mintz
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them]]> 57845087 Eating to Extinction is the prominent broadcaster’s pathbreaking tour of the world’s vanishing foods and his argument for why they matter now more than ever

Over the past several decades, globalization has homogenized what we eat, and done so ruthlessly. The numbers are Of the roughly six thousand different plants once consumed by human beings, only nine remain major staples today. Just three of these―rice, wheat, and corn―now provide fifty percent of all our calories. Dig deeper and the trends are more worrisome

The source of much of the world’s food―seeds―is mostly in the control of just four corporations. Ninety-five percent of milk consumed in the United States comes from a single breed of cow. Half of all the world’s cheese is made with bacteria or enzymes made by one company. And one in four beers drunk around the world is the product of one brewer.

If it strikes you that everything is starting to taste the same wherever you are in the world, you’re by no means alone. This when we lose diversity and foods become endangered, we not only risk the loss of traditional foodways, but also of flavors, smells, and textures that may never be experienced again. And the consolidation of our food has other steep costs, including a lack of resilience in the face of climate change, pests, and parasites. Our food monoculture is a threat to our health―and to the planet.

In Eating to Extinction, the distinguished BBC food journalist Dan Saladino travels the world to experience and document our most at-risk foods before it’s too late. He tells the fascinating stories of the people who continue to cultivate, forage, hunt, cook, and consume what the rest of us have forgotten or didn’t even know existed. Take honey―not the familiar product sold in plastic bottles, but the wild honey gathered by the Hadza people of East Africa, whose diet consists of eight hundred different plants and animals and who communicate with birds in order to locate bees� nests. Or consider murnong―once the staple food of Aboriginal Australians, this small root vegetable with the sweet taste of coconut is undergoing a revival after nearly being driven to extinction. And in Sierra Leone, there are just a few surviving stenophylla trees, a plant species now considered crucial to the future of coffee.

From an Indigenous American chef refining precolonial recipes to farmers tending Geechee red peas on the Sea Islands of Georgia, the individuals profiled in Eating to Extinction are essential guides to treasured foods that have endured in the face of rampant sameness and standardization. They also provide a roadmap to a food system that is healthier, more robust, and, above all, richer in flavor and meaning.]]> 464 Dan Saladino 0374605327 Gabe 0 to-read 4.30 Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them
author: Dan Saladino
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.30
book published:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human]]> 60321392
N amed a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by The Economist , Oprah Daily, BookPage, Book Riot, the New York Public Library, and more!

In The Song of the Cell , the extraordinary author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Emperor of All Maladies and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Gene “blends cutting-edge research, impeccable scholarship, intrepid reporting, and gorgeous prose into an encyclopedic study that reads like a literary page-turner� ( Oprah Daily ).

Mukherjee begins this magnificent story in the late 1600s, when a distinguished English polymath, Robert Hooke, and an eccentric Dutch cloth-merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek looked down their handmade microscopes. What they saw introduced a radical concept that swept through biology and medicine, touching virtually every aspect of the two sciences, and altering both forever. It was the fact that complex living organisms are assemblages of tiny, self-contained, self-regulating units. Our organs, our physiology, our selves—hearts, blood, brains—are built from these compartments. Hooke christened them � cells. �

The discovery of cells—and the reframing of the human body as a cellular ecosystem—announced the birth of a new kind of medicine based on the therapeutic manipulations of cells. A hip fracture, a cardiac arrest, Alzheimer’s dementia, AIDS, pneumonia, lung cancer, kidney failure, arthritis, COVID pneumonia—all could be reconceived as the results of cells, or systems of cells, functioning abnormally. And all could be perceived as loci of cellular therapies.

Filled with writing so vivid, lucid, and suspenseful that complex science becomes thrilling, The Song of the Cell tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new humans. Told in six parts, and laced with Mukherjee’s own experience as a researcher, a doctor, and a prolific reader, The Song of the Cell is both panoramic and intimate—a masterpiece on what it means to be human.

“In an account both lyrical and capacious, Mukherjee takes us through an evolution of human from the seventeenth-century discovery that humans are made up of cells to our cutting-edge technologies for manipulating and deploying cells for therapeutic purposes� ( The New Yorker).]]> 473 Siddhartha Mukherjee 1982117354 Gabe 0 to-read 4.25 2022 The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human
author: Siddhartha Mukherjee
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Krótko i szczęśliwie. Historie późnych miłości]]> 62080079 208 Agata Romaniuk 8367324978 Gabe 0 to-read 4.32 2022 Krótko i szczęśliwie. Historie późnych miłości
author: Agata Romaniuk
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/11
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]]> Why We're Polarized 52098718
Why We’re Polarized reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, it offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Donald Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture.]]> 336 Ezra Klein 147670032X Gabe 0 to-read 4.19 2020 Why We're Polarized
author: Ezra Klein
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/11
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]]> <![CDATA[New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time]]> 53404229 New Yorkers weaves the voices of some of the city’s best talkers into an indelible portrait of New York in our time—and a powerful hymn to the vitality and resilience of its people.


Best-selling author Craig Taylor has been hailed as “a peerless journalist and a beautiful craftsman� (David Rakoff), acclaimed for the way he “fuses the mundane truth of conversation with the higher truth of art� (Michel Faber). In the wake of his celebrated book Londoners, Taylor moved to New York and spent years meeting regularly with hundreds of New Yorkers as diverse as the city itself. New Yorkers features 75 of the most remarkable of them, their fascinating true tales arranged in thematic sections that follow Taylor’s growing engagement with the city.


Here are the uncelebrated people who propel New York each day—bodega cashier, hospital nurse, elevator repairman, emergency dispatcher. Here are those who wire the lights at the top of the Empire State Building, clean the windows of Rockefeller Center, and keep the subway running. Here are people whose experiences reflect the city’s fractured realities: the mother of a Latino teenager jailed at Rikers, a BLM activist in the wake of police shootings. And here are those who capture the ineffable feeling of New York, such as a balloon handler in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or a security guard at the Statue of Liberty.


Vibrant and bursting with life, New Yorkers explores the nonstop hustle to make it; the pressures on new immigrants, people of color, and the poor; the constant battle between loving the city and wanting to leave it; and the question of who gets to be considered a "New Yorker." It captures the strength of an irrepressible city that—no matter what it goes through—dares call itself the greatest in the world.]]> 432 Craig Taylor 0393242323 Gabe 0 to-read 4.10 2021 New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time
author: Craig Taylor
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/11
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]]> These Precious Days: Essays 56922687 The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays.

“Any story that starts will also end.� As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.

At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a suprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.� When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks� short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both.

A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be.

From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.]]> 320 Ann Patchett 0063092786 Gabe 0 to-read 4.39 2021 These Precious Days: Essays
author: Ann Patchett
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/11
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]]> Remarkably Bright Creatures 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]> 368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 Gabe 0 to-read 4.35 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/11
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question]]> 58484901 From the creator of The Good Place and the cocreator of Parks and Recreation, a hilarious, thought-provoking guide to living an ethical life, drawing on 2,500 years of deep thinking from around the world.

Most people think of themselves as “good,� but it’s not always easy to determine what’s “good� or “bad”—especially in a world filled with complicated choices and pitfalls and booby traps and bad advice. Fortunately, many smart philosophers have been pondering this conundrum for millennia and they have guidance for us. With bright wit and deep insight, How to Be Perfect explains concepts like deontology, utilitarianism, existentialism, ubuntu, and more so we can sound cool at parties and become better people.

Schur starts off with easy ethical questions like “Should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?� (No.) and works his way up to the most complex moral issues we all face. Such as: Can I still enjoy great art if it was created by terrible people? How much money should I give to charity? Why bother being good at all when there are no consequences for being bad? And much more. By the time the book is done, we’ll know exactly how to act in every conceivable situation, so as to produce a verifiably maximal amount of moral good. We will be perfect, and all our friends will be jealous. OK, not quite. Instead, we’ll gain fresh, funny, inspiring wisdom on the toughest issues we face every day.]]> 304 Michael Schur 1982159316 Gabe 0 to-read 4.13 2022 How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question
author: Michael Schur
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience]]> 58330567 Atlas of the Heart, Brown takes us on a journey through eighty-seven of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. As she maps the necessary skills and an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances—a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.

Over the past two decades, Brown's extensive research into the experiences that make us who we are has shaped the cultural conversation and helped define what it means to be courageous with our lives. Atlas of the Heart draws on this research, as well as on Brown's singular skills as a storyteller, to show us how accurately naming an experience doesn't give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding, meaning, and choice.

Brown shares, "I want this book to be an atlas for all of us, because I believe that, with an adventurous heart and the right maps, we can travel anywhere and never fear losing ourselves."]]> 301 Brené Brown 0399592555 Gabe 0 to-read 4.33 2021 Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience
author: Brené Brown
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2021
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]]> <![CDATA[Leviathan Falls (The Expanse, #9)]]> 28335699
In the dead system of Adro, Elvi Okoye leads a desperate scientific mission to understand what the gate builders were and what destroyed them, even if it means compromising herself and the half-alien children who bear the weight of her investigation. Through the wide-flung systems of humanity, Colonel Aliana Tanaka hunts for Duarte’s missing daughter. . . and the shattered emperor himself. And on the Rocinante, James Holden and his crew struggle to build a future for humanity out of the shards and ruins of all that has come before.

As nearly unimaginable forces prepare to annihilate all human life, Holden and a group of unlikely allies discover a last, desperate chance to unite all of humanity, with the promise of a vast galactic civilization free from wars, factions, lies, and secrets if they win.

But the price of victory may be worse than the cost of defeat.]]> 528 James S.A. Corey 0356510395 Gabe 0 to-read 4.48 2021 Leviathan Falls (The Expanse, #9)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)]]> 58957615
Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill or be killed. Suddenly the cold case has become red hot.

While Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim chase down the clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?

From an upmarket spa to a prison cell complete with espresso machine to a luxury penthouse high in the sky, this third adventure of the Thursday Murder Club is full of the cleverness, intrigue, and irresistible charm that readers have come to expect from Richard Osman's bestselling series.]]> 413 Richard Osman 0241512425 Gabe 0 to-read 4.32 2022 The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)
author: Richard Osman
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Mężczyzna, który uderzy dziecko i inne opowiadania]]> 63096094
Tacy ludzie to najwyżej statyści w Twoim filmie, w którym to Ty grasz główną rolę. Ale ci statyści, chociaż są ledwie mignięciami, prowadzą tak samo złożone życie jak Ty. Mają swoje pragnienia, dziwactwa, problemy, triumfy, ambicje i zmartwienia. Są pierwszoplanowymi bohaterami własnego życia.

To właśnie im poświęcone są opowiadania, które napisał Radosław Kotarski. To debiut fabularny autora bestsellerowych: Włam się do mózgu, Inaczej oraz Nic bardziej mylnego. W zbiorze 15. opowiadań Radek pokazuje, co stałoby się, gdybyśmy przyjrzeli się bliżej tym ludziom i poznali ich historię. Może zatrzymanie się przy nich i popatrzenie z ich perspektywy nauczy nas czegoś o naszym życiu?]]> 263 Radosław Kotarski 8367500067 Gabe 0 to-read 4.15 2022 Mężczyzna, który uderzy dziecko i inne opowiadania
author: Radosław Kotarski
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
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]]> <![CDATA[The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (Comprehensive History of the Holocaust)]]> 170151
In 1939, the Nazi regime’s plans for redrawing the demographic map of Eastern Europe entailed the expulsion of millions of Jews. By the fall of 1941, these plans had shifted from expulsion to systematic and total mass murder of all Jews within the Nazi grasp. The Origins of the Final Solution is the most detailed and comprehensive analysis ever written of what took place during this crucial period—of how, precisely, the Nazis� racial policies evolved from persecution and “ethnic cleansing� to the Final Solution of the Holocaust.


Focusing on the months between the German conquest of Poland in September 1939–which brought nearly two million additional Jews under Nazi control—and the beginning of the deportation of Jews to the death camps in the spring of 1942, Christopher R. Browning describes how Poland became a laboratory for experiments in racial policies, from expulsion and decimation to ghettoization and exploitation under local occupation authorities. He reveals how the subsequent attack on the Soviet Union opened the door for an immense radicalization of Nazi Jewish policy—and marked the beginning of the Final Solution. Meticulously documenting the process that led to this fatal development, Browning shows that Adolf Hitler was the key decision-maker throughout, approving major escalations in Nazi persecution of the Jews at victory-induced moments of euphoria. Thoroughly researched and lucidly written, this groundbreaking work provides an essential chapter in the history of the Holocaust.]]> 616 Christopher R. Browning 0803259794 Gabe 0 to-read 4.31 2003 The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (Comprehensive History of the Holocaust)
author: Christopher R. Browning
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2003
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date added: 2022/12/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Complete Stories and Poems]]> 23919 821 Edgar Allan Poe 0385074077 Gabe 0 to-read 4.39 1849 The Complete Stories and Poems
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1849
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]]> ¾Դǰą 2189360 595 Wiesław Myśliwski 8370799345 Gabe 0 to-read 4.39 1996 ¾Դǰą
author: Wiesław Myśliwski
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/11/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Cokolwiek wybierzesz (Ukryta sieć, #1)]]> 43163443
Cokolwiek wybierzesz to przeszywający thriller, którego finał na długo pozostaje w pamięci. Szamałek przekonująco rysuje postaci uwikłane w medialną machinę, znakomicie tworząc nastrój zbliżającej się katastrofy.]]> 448 Jakub Szamałek 8328061244 Gabe 0 to-read 4.01 2019 Cokolwiek wybierzesz (Ukryta sieć, #1)
author: Jakub Szamałek
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed]]> 20186 ujamaa villages in Tanzania, collectivization in Russia, Le Corbusier’s urban planning theory realized in Brasilia, the Great Leap Forward in China, agricultural "modernization" in the Tropics—the twentieth century has been racked by grand utopian schemes that have inadvertently brought death and disruption to millions. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry?

In this wide-ranging and original book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not—and cannot—be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge. The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. He identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters: administrative ordering of nature and society by the state; a "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of science to improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large- scale interventions; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans.]]> 461 James C. Scott 0300078153 Gabe 0 to-read 4.21 1998 Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
author: James C. Scott
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/09/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Last Sword Maker (The Course of Empire, #1)]]> 38642886
The Chinese government says the rumors aren’t true, but no one is allowed in or out of Tibet.

At the Pentagon, Admiral James Curtiss is called to an emergency meeting. Satellite images prove that a massive genocide is underway, and an American spy has made a startling discovery. This is no disease. It’s a weapons test. Chinese scientists have developed a way to kill based on a person’s genetic traits. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. The success of their new weapon proves that the Chinese are nearing “Replication”—a revolutionary breakthrough that will tip the global balance of power and change the way wars are waged.

Now the US must scramble to catch up before it is too late. Admiral Curtiss gathers the nation’s top scientists, including a promising young graduate student named Eric Hill who just might hold the missing piece to the replication puzzle. Soon Hill and his colleague Jane Hunter are caught up in a deadly game of sabotage as the two nations strive to be the first to reach the coveted goal. But in their headlong race, they create something unexpected � something the world has never seen and something more powerful than they had ever imagined.

The Last Sword Maker is an exciting globe-trotting thriller with unforgettable characters that depicts a haunting vision of the future of warfare.]]> 400 Brian Nelson 1538507668 Gabe 2 3.81 2018 The Last Sword Maker (The Course of Empire, #1)
author: Brian Nelson
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 2
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]]> <![CDATA[Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States]]> 34324534
“History as it should be written.”—Barry Cunliffe, Guardian

“Scott hits the nail squarely on the head by exposing the staggering price our ancestors paid for civilization and political order.”—Walter Scheidel, Financial Times

Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains, and governed by precursors of today’s states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative. The first agrarian states, says James C. Scott, were born of accumulations of domestications: first fire, then plants, livestock, subjects of the state, captives, and finally women in the patriarchal family—all of which can be viewed as a way of gaining control over reproduction.

Scott explores why we avoided sedentism and plow agriculture, the advantages of mobile subsistence, the unforeseeable disease epidemics arising from crowding plants, animals, and grain, and why all early states are based on millets and cereal grains and unfree labor. He also discusses the “barbarians� who long evaded state control, as a way of understanding continuing tension between states and nonsubject peoples.]]> 312 James C. Scott 0300182910 Gabe 3 4.12 2017 Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States
author: James C. Scott
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 3
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]]> Use of Weapons (Culture, #3) 11167564
The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks or military action.

The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought.

The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a burnt-out case. But not even its machine intelligence could see the horrors in his past.

Praise for the Culture

'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday

'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian

'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman

'Compulsive reading' Sunday Telegraph

The Culture
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
The State of the Art
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata

Other books by Iain M. Banks :
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist]]> 514 Iain M. Banks Gabe 0 to-read 4.17 1990 Use of Weapons (Culture, #3)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/09/13
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (The Princeton History of the Ancient World)]]> 34427005 How climate change and disease helped to bring down the Roman Empire

Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire. The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that climate change and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome's power--a story of nature's triumph over human ambition. Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. The Fate of Rome is Harper's sweeping account of how one of history's greatest civilizations encountered and endured, yet ultimately succumbed to the cumulative burden of nature's violence.]]> 417 Kyle Harper 0691166838 Gabe 0 to-read, on-audible 4.19 2017 The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (The Princeton History of the Ancient World)
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name: Gabe
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2017
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]]> The Gulag Archipelago 246422 660 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 0060803320 Gabe 0 to-read 4.34 1973 The Gulag Archipelago
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1973
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]]> Ucieczka od bezradności 58413779 CZEGO OBAWIA SIĘ WSPÓŁCZESNA KULTURA? JAKIE TEMATY WYPIERA? I JAK MOŻEMY PORADZIĆ SOBIE W ŚWIECIE, W KTÓRYM NIE MA MIEJSCA NA BEZRADNOŚĆ?

Tomasz Stawiszyński nie boi się ani trudnych tematów, ani myślenia przewrotnego, idącego w poprzek utartych schematów. Z zacięciem badacza odrzucającego łatwe i oczywiste rozwiązania bierze na warsztat wszystko to, co w kulturze wyparte, czego się boimy, o czym wolimy zapomnieć, a co � paradoksalnie � jest nieodłączną częścią ludzkiej egzystencji.

Śmierć, żałoba, smutek, bo o nich między innymi mowa, to tematy, od których społeczeństwo późnego kapitalizmu odwraca wzrok. Stara się je ukryć, zdeprecjonować, sprowadzić do patologii wymagającej farmakologicznej albo terapeutycznej interwencji. W zamian oferuje nam iluzję wspólnoty zbudowanej w bańce social mediów, opartej na ideologiach wzmagających plemienną lojalność albo nowych mitach, które niebezpiecznie zaczynają przypominać teorie spiskowe.

Dlaczego wciąż uciekamy przed bezradnością? Przed tym, że przemijamy, starzejemy się i nieustannie tracimy to, co pragniemy zachować? Czy kiedykolwiek uda nam się zatrzymać i czy może pomóc w tym modny ostatnio transhumanizm? Nowa monograficzna książka Tomasza Stawiszyńskiego � filozofa, eseisty, dziennikarza � w błyskotliwy sposób próbuje zmierzyć się z tymi pytaniami i umieszcza je w kontekście zbudowanym zarówno przez ważne teksty współczesnej humanistyki, jak i kulturę popularną.

OBOWIĄZKOWA LEKTURA DLA WSZYSTKICH, KTÓRYM NIE WYSTARCZAJĄ PROSTE ODPOWIEDZI NA TRUDNE PYTANIA]]> 362 Tomasz Stawiszyński 8324073132 Gabe 0 to-read 4.06 2021 Ucieczka od bezradności
author: Tomasz Stawiszyński
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2021
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]]> <![CDATA[Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion]]> 18774981
From Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of numerous New York Times bestselling books, Waking Up is for the twenty percent of Americans who follow no religion but who suspect that important truths can be found in the experiences of such figures as Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history. Throughout this book, Harris argues that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow, and that how we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the quality of our lives.

Waking Up is part memoir and part exploration of the scientific underpinnings of spirituality. No other book marries contemplative wisdom and modern science in this way, and no author other than Sam Harris—a scientist, philosopher, and famous skeptic—could write it.]]> 256 Sam Harris 1451636016 Gabe 0 to-read 3.88 2014 Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion
author: Sam Harris
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2014
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]]> <![CDATA[Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation]]> 13763042
Despite the widespread and almost collective character of these experiences, our culture insists they are the result of faulty or insufficiently mature psyches. For many, the Freudian idea that the family designs the pattern of an individual's erotic career has been the main explanation for why and how we fail to find or sustain love. Psychoanalysis and popular psychology have succeeded spectacularly in convincing us that individuals bear responsibility for the misery of their romantic and erotic lives. The purpose of this book is to change our way of thinking about what is wrong in modern relationships. The problem is not dysfunctional childhoods or insufficiently self-aware psyches, but rather the institutional forces shaping how we love.

The argument of this book is that the modern romantic experience is shaped by a fundamental transformation in the ecology and architecture of romantic choice. The samples from which men and women choose a partner, the modes of evaluating prospective partners, the very importance of choice and autonomy and what people imagine to be the spectrum of their choices: all these aspects of choice have transformed the very core of the will, how we want a partner, the sense of worth bestowed by relationships, and the organization of desire.

This book does to love what Marx did to commodities: it shows that it is shaped by social relations and institutions and that it circulates in a marketplace of unequal actors.]]> 293 Eva Illouz 0745661521 Gabe 0 to-read 4.07 2011 Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation
author: Eva Illouz
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2011
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]]> <![CDATA[Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism]]> 1088620 Eva Illouz rejects these conventional ideas and argues that the culture of capitalism has fostered an intensely emotional culture in the workplace, in the family, and in our own relationship to ourselves. She argues that economic relations have become deeply emotional, while close, intimate relationships have become increasingly defined by economic and political models of bargaining, exchange, and equity. This dual process by which emotional and economic relationships come to define and shape each other is called emotional capitalism. Illouz finds evidence of this process of emotional capitalism in various social sites: self-help literature, women's magazines, talk shows, support groups, and the Internet dating sites. How did this happen? What are the social consequences of the current preoccupation with emotions? How did the public sphere become saturated with the exposure of private life? Why does suffering occupy a central place in contemporary identity? How has emotional capitalism transformed our romantic choices and experiences? Building on and revising the intellectual legacy of critical theory, this book addresses these questions and offers a new interpretation of the reasons why the public and the private, the economic and the emotional spheres have become inextricably intertwined.]]> 144 Eva Illouz 0745639054 Gabe 0 to-read 3.82 2022 Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism
author: Eva Illouz
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
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]]> The Tyranny of Choice 25849604
Drawing on diverse examples from popular culture - spanning dating sites and self-help books, to our obsession with celebrities' lifestyles - and fusing sociology, psychoanalysis and philosophy, Salecl shows that choice is rarely based on a simple rational decision with a predictable outcome.]]> 224 Renata Salecl Gabe 0 to-read 3.53 2010 The Tyranny of Choice
author: Renata Salecl
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2010
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]]> <![CDATA[Monkey: The Journey to the West]]> 100237 306 Wu Cheng'en 0802130860 Gabe 0 to-read 4.06 1592 Monkey: The Journey to the West
author: Wu Cheng'en
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1592
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]]> <![CDATA[The Journey to the West, Volume 1 (Journey to the West)]]> 158788 The Journey to the West, volume I, comprises the first twenty-five chapters of Anthony C. Yu's four-volume translation of Hsi-yu Chi, one of the most beloved classics of Chinese literature. The fantastic tale recounts the sixteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Hsüan-tsang (596-664), one of China's most illustrious religious heroes, who journeyed to India with four animal disciples in quest of Buddhist scriptures. For nearly a thousand years, his exploits were celebrated and embellished in various accounts, culminating in the hundred-chapter Journey to the West, which combines religious allegory with romance, fantasy, humor, and satire.]]> 544 Wu Cheng'en 0226971503 Gabe 0 to-read 4.26 1592 The Journey to the West, Volume 1 (Journey to the West)
author: Wu Cheng'en
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1592
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]]> The Master Key System 71316 236 Charles F. Haanel 1599869470 Gabe 0 to-read, on-audible 4.22 1912 The Master Key System
author: Charles F. Haanel
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1912
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sublime Object of Ideology]]> 18912
Linking key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as totalitarianism and racism, the book explores the political significance of these fantasies of control.]]> 256 Slavoj Žižek 0860919714 Gabe 0 to-read, on-audible 4.07 1989 The Sublime Object of Ideology
author: Slavoj Žižek
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know]]> 55539565 Think Again is a book about the benefit of doubt, and about how we can get better at embracing the unknown and the joy of being wrong. Evidence has shown that creative geniuses are not attached to one identity, but constantly willing to rethink their stances and that leaders who admit they don't know something and seek critical feedback lead more productive and innovative teams.

New evidence shows us that as a mindset and a skilllset, rethinking can be taught and Grant explains how to develop the necessary qualities to do it. Section 1 explores why we struggle to think again and how we can learn to do it as individuals, arguing that 'grit' alone can actually be counterproductive. Section 2 discusses how we can help others think again through learning about 'argument literacy'. And the final section 3 looks at how schools, businesses and governments fall short in building cultures that encourage rethinking.

In the end, learning to rethink may be the secret skill to give you the edge in a world changing faster than ever.]]> 307 Adam M. Grant 1984878107 Gabe 0 to-read, on-audible 4.12 2021 Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know
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name: Gabe
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2021
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]]> <![CDATA[The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization]]> 58782897 2019 was the last great year for the world economy.

For generations, everything has been getting faster, better, and cheaper. Finally, we reached the point that almost anything you could ever want could be sent to your home within days - even hours - of when you decided you wanted it.

America made that happen, but now America has lost interest in keeping it going.

Globe-spanning supply chains are only possible with the protection of the U.S. Navy. The American dollar underpins internationalized energy and financial markets. Complex, innovative industries were created to satisfy American consumers. American security policy forced warring nations to lay down their arms. Billions of people have been fed and educated as the American-led trade system spread across the globe.

All of this was artificial. All this was temporary. All this is ending.

In The End of the World is Just the Beginning, author and geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan maps out the next world: a world where countries or regions will have no choice but to make their own goods, grow their own food, secure their own energy, fight their own battles, and do it all with populations that are both shrinking and aging.

The list of countries that make it all work is smaller than you think. Which means everything about our interconnected world - from how we manufacture products, to how we grow food, to how we keep the lights on, to how we shuttle stuff about, to how we pay for it all - is about to change.

A world ending. A world beginning. Zeihan brings readers along for an illuminating (and a bit terrifying) ride packed with foresight, wit, and his trademark irreverence.]]> 512 Peter Zeihan 006323047X Gabe 0 to-read, on-audible 4.12 2022 The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization
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name: Gabe
average rating: 4.12
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]]> What We Owe the Future 59802037 An Oxford philosopher makes the case for "longtermism"—that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time.

The fate of the world is in our hands. Humanity’s written history spans only five thousand years. Our yet-unwritten future could last for millions more—or it could end tomorrow. Astonishing numbers of people could lead lives of great happiness or unimaginable suffering, or never live at all, depending on what we choose to do today.

In What We Owe the Future, philosopher William MacAskill argues for longtermism, that idea that positively influencing the distant future is a key moral priority of our time. From this perspective, it’s not enough to reverse climate change or avert the next pandemic. We must ensure that civilization would rebound if it collapsed; counter the end of moral progress; and prepare for a planet where the smartest beings are digital, not human.

If we make wise choices today, our grandchildren’s grandchildren will thrive, knowing we did everything we could to give them a world full of justice, hope and beauty.]]> 335 William MacAskill 1541618629 Gabe 0 to-read, on-audible 3.81 2022 What We Owe the Future
author: William MacAskill
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2022
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]]> Excession (Culture, #5) 9447868 Two and a half millennia ago, the artifact appeared in a remote corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a different universe. It was a perfect black-body sphere, and it did nothing. Then it disappeared.

Now it is back.

'Banks is a phenomenon ... wildly successful, fearlessly creative' William Gibson

'Thrilling, affecting and comic ... probably the finest science fiction he has written to date' New Scientist

'Banks has rewritten the libretto for the whole space-opera genre' The Times

]]> 464 Iain M. Banks Gabe 0 to-read, on-audible 4.30 1996 Excession (Culture, #5)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/11
shelves: to-read, on-audible
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Player of Games (Culture, #2)]]> 11316767 The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. His Culture books combine breathtaking imagination with exceptional storytelling, and have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson The Culture - a utopian human-machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many expert Game Players, and one of the greatest is Jernau Morat Gurgeh. He is Master of every board, computer and strategy - he is The Player of Games.Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the cruel and incredibly wealthy Empire of Azad to try their infamous game . . . a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh plays the game, and faces the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death. Praise for the Culture 'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday 'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian 'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman 'Compulsive reading' Sunday TelegraphThe Culture Consider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen SonataThe State of the ArtOther books by Iain M. Against a Dark BackgroundFeersum EndjinnThe AlgebraistAlso now The The Drawings - an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.]]> 320 Iain M. Banks Gabe 0 to-read, on-audible 4.47 1988 The Player of Games (Culture, #2)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/11
shelves: to-read, on-audible
review:

]]> Interference (Semiosis, #2) 43263202 The sequel to Sue Burke's sweeping SF epic debut, Semiosis, continues in Interference as the colonists and a team from Earth confront a new and more implacable intelligence.

Over two hundred years after the first colonists landed on Pax, a new set of explorers arrives from Earth on what they claim is a temporary scientific mission.

But the Earthlings misunderstand the nature of the Pax settlement and its real leader. Even as Stevland attempts to protect his human tools, a more insidious enemy than the Earthlings makes itself known.

Stevland is not the apex species.

Semiosis duology
Semiosis
Interference]]> 320 Sue Burke 1250317843 Gabe 0 to-read, on-audible 3.89 2019 Interference (Semiosis, #2)
author: Sue Burke
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/11
shelves: to-read, on-audible
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors]]> 39074550 An international bestseller

The book-length answer to anyone who ever put their hand up in math class and asked, "When am I ever going to use this in the real world?"

"Fun, informative, and relentlessly entertaining, Humble Pi is a charming and very readable guide to some of humanity's all-time greatest miscalculations--that also gives you permission to feel a little better about some of your own mistakes." --Ryan North, author of How to Invent Everything

Our whole world is built on math, from the code running a website to the equations enabling the design of skyscrapers and bridges. Most of the time this math works quietly behind the scenes . . . until it doesn't. All sorts of seemingly innocuous mathematical mistakes can have significant consequences.

Math is easy to ignore until a misplaced decimal point upends the stock market, a unit conversion error causes a plane to crash, or someone divides by zero and stalls a battleship in the middle of the ocean.

Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near misses, and mathematical mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman Empire, and an Olympic team, Matt Parker uncovers the bizarre ways math trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world. Getting it wrong has never been more fun.]]> 314 Matt Parker 0241360196 Gabe 0 to-read, on-audible 4.11 2019 Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors
author: Matt Parker
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/11
shelves: to-read, on-audible
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mózg i błazen. Rozmowa z Jerzym Vetulanim]]> 25687812
W trakcie naszych spotkań mówił pan fascynujące, ale i bardzo kontrowersyjne rzeczy o sobie, o nauce, narkotykach, krakowskich artystach i Janie Pawle II, którego znał pan osobiście. Dlatego boję się, że sporo z tego wyleci podczas autoryzacji.

Niech się pan nie martwi. Niczego nie będę wykreślał. Potraktuję naszą książkę jako "dzieło pośmiertne", kiedy autora już nie obchodzi, co o nim pomyślą (ś𳦳).ձ> 192 Marcin Rotkiewicz 8380490924 Gabe 0 to-read 3.86 2015 Mózg i błazen. Rozmowa z Jerzym Vetulanim
author: Marcin Rotkiewicz
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology]]> 19243347 364 Gayle Laakmann McDowell 0984782818 Gabe 0 to-read 4.17 2013 Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology
author: Gayle Laakmann McDowell
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us]]> 60651047 McKinsey 2022 Summer Reading List - TOP 5 Recommended Book

Citizens opens up a new way of understanding ourselves and shows us what we must do to survive and thrive � as individuals, as organisations, as nations, even as a species.

Jon Alexander’s consultancy, the New Citizenship Project, has helped revitalise some of Britain’s biggest organisations such as the Co-op, The Guardian and the National Trust. Here, with the New York Times bestselling writer, Ariane Conrad, he shows how human history has moved from the Subject Story of kings and empires to the current Consumer Story. Now, he argues compellingly, it is time to enter the Citizen Story.

Because when our institutions treat people as citizens rather than consumers, everything changes. Unleashing the power of everyone equips us to face the challenges of economic insecurity, climate crisis, public health threats, and polarisation.

Citizens is an upbeat handbook, full of insights, clear examples to follow, and inspiring case studies, from the slums of Kenya to the backstreets of Birmingham. It is the perfect pick-me-up for leaders, founders, elected officials � and citizens everywhere.

]]> 320 Jon Alexander 1912454858 Gabe 0 to-read 4.12 2022 Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us
author: Jon Alexander
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Forbidden Gates: How Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology, and Human Enhancement Herald The Dawn Of TechnoDimensional Spiritual Warfare]]> 10586040
How so?

In recent years, astonishing technological developments have pushed the frontiers of humanity toward far-reaching morphological transformation that promises in the very near future to redefine what it means to be human. An international, intellectual and fast-growing cultural movement known as transhumanism intends the use of genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology (GRIN technologies) as tools that will radically redesign our minds, our memories, our physiology, our offspring, and even perhaps, as Joel Garreau in his bestselling book Radical Evolution claims, our very souls. The technological, cultural, and metaphysical shift now under way unapologetically forecasts a future dominated by this new species of unrecognizably superior humans, and applications under study now to make this dream reality are being funded by thousands of government and private research facilities around the world. As the reader will learn, this includes among other things rewriting human DNA and combining men with beasts, a fact that some university studies and transhumanists believe will not only alter our bodies and souls but could ultimately open a door to contact with unseen intelligence.

As a result, new modes of perception between things visible and invisible are expected to challenge the Church in ways that are historically and theologically unprecedented. Without comprehending what is quickly approaching in related disciplines of research and development, vast numbers of believers could be paralyzed by the most fantastic—and most far reaching—supernatural implications. The destiny of each individual—as well as the future of their family—will depend on their knowledge of the new paradigm and their preparedness to face it head on.]]> 325 Thomas Horn Gabe 0 to-read 4.14 2011 Forbidden Gates: How Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology, and Human Enhancement Herald The Dawn Of TechnoDimensional Spiritual Warfare
author: Thomas Horn
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Zatrzymaj się 7456071 192 Wojciech Eichelberger 8375541451 Gabe 0 to-read 4.14 2009 Zatrzymaj się
author: Wojciech Eichelberger
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Łowcy z kotłowni. Dziki świat finansowych naciągaczy]]> 41828168 Mówią o tobie „frajer�, znają numer twojego telefonu.

Wiesz, czym jest „kotłownia�? Słyszałeś o dziewczynie, która dostała 10 tysięcy złotych za przejście nago przez takie miejsce? To tylko wierzchołek góry lodowej.

„Kotłownia� to specyficzne call center, w którym ma kipieć od emocji. Krzyk, szybkie tempo i obrażanie klientów. Bez tego naciąganie się nie uda. Cel jest jeden: za wszelką cenę znaleźć ofiarę. Motywacja? Zawrotne premie, imprezy stulecia, alkohol lejący się strumieniami i dragi. W jednej z „kotłowni� zatrudnił się autor naszego reportażu śledczego.

Łowcy od lat oszukują setki tysięcy Polaków. Zawodowi naciągacze wiedzą, że wystarczą gotowe scenariusze. Raz na inwestycję w nieruchomości, raz na rynkach forex, innym razem w złoto niczym w Amber Gold. Za chwilę ruszy lawina oszustw związanych z kryptowalutami. A później? Cokolwiek. Nawet warzywa i śmieci. Naciągać można na wszystko.]]> 208 Mateusz Ratajczak 8327715844 Gabe 0 to-read 3.51 2018 Łowcy z kotłowni. Dziki świat finansowych naciągaczy
author: Mateusz Ratajczak
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster]]> 357486 Written by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Voices from Chernobyl is the first book to present personal accounts of the tragedy. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown—from innocent citizens to firefighters to those called in to clean up the disaster—and their stories reveal the fear, anger, and uncertainty with which they still live. Composed of interviews in monologue form, Voices from Chernobyl is a crucially important work of immense force, unforgettable in its emotional power and honesty.]]> 236 Svetlana Alexievich 0312425848 Gabe 4 to-read
I also appreciate a lot the analysis of homo sovieticus - why people helped, why they behaved like this.]]> 4.39 1997 Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
author: Svetlana Alexievich
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/03
date added: 2022/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:
I am from a country neighbouring Ukraine so I haven't learnt much about the catastrophe itself. But it was a great reportage about the people. If you forget about the reality itself, if you distance yourself, it sounds like a post-apo novel, it's creepy that something like this has happened.

I also appreciate a lot the analysis of homo sovieticus - why people helped, why they behaved like this.
]]> <![CDATA[Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing]]> 50358103 Money, Jacob Goldstein shows how money is a useful fiction that has shaped societies for thousands of years, from the rise of coins in ancient Greece to the first stock market in Amsterdam to the emergence of shadow banking in the 21st century.
At the heart of the story are the fringe thinkers and world leaders who reimagined money. Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor, created paper money backed by nothing, centuries before it appeared in the west. John Law, a professional gambler and convicted murderer, brought modern money to France (and destroyed the country's economy). The cypherpunks, a group of radical libertarian computer programmers, paved the way for bitcoin.
One thing they all realized: what counts as money (and what doesn't) is the result of choices we make, and those choices have a profound effect on who gets more stuff and who gets less, who gets to take risks when times are good, and who gets screwed when things go bad.
Lively, accessible, and full of interesting details (like the 43-pound copper coins that 17th-century Swedes carried strapped to their backs), Money is the story of the choices that gave us money as we know it today.

The co-host of the popular NPR podcast Planet Money provides a well-researched, entertaining, somewhat irreverent look at how money is a made-up thing that has evolved over time to suit humanity's changing needs.
]]> 272 Jacob Goldstein 031641719X Gabe 0 to-read 4.16 2020 Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing
author: Jacob Goldstein
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?]]> 6696927 193 Philip K. Dick 0575094184 Gabe 0 to-read 3.96 1968 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1968
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous]]> 41880609 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born � a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam � and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.]]> 246 Ocean Vuong 0525562028 Gabe 0 to-read 4.05 2019 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma]]> 18693771 A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing.

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers' capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain's natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk's own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.]]> 464 Bessel van der Kolk 0670785938 Gabe 0 to-read 4.36 2014 The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
author: Bessel van der Kolk
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Zapaść. Reportaże z mniejszych miast]]> 57843880 Urobieni. Reportaże o pracy próbuje ustalić, co jest przyczyną tak fatalnej sytuacji, a o szczerą odpowiedź prosi tych, którym kryzys zagraża najbardziej. Podczas podróży po Polsce spotyka się z mieszkańcami i miejskimi aktywistami, rozmawia z samorządowcami, a oficjalne statystyki zestawia z rzeczywistością. Nie boi się stawiać trudnych pytań, nie ocenia, ale nie zadowala się też ogólnikowymi diagnozami oderwanymi od lokalnych problemów. Szukając odpowiedzi uważnie wsłuchuje się w głosy tych, którzy wyjechali, jak również tych, którzy pomimo ciężkiej sytuacji postanowili zostać. Z reporterską wnikliwością opisuje zastaną rzeczywistość, tworząc realistyczny portret Polski mniejszych miast i ich mieszkańców.]]> 256 Marek Szymaniak 8381912520 Gabe 0 to-read 3.78 2021 Zapaść. Reportaże z mniejszych miast
author: Marek Szymaniak
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Normal People 41057294
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.]]> 273 Sally Rooney 1984822179 Gabe 0 to-read 3.81 2018 Normal People
author: Sally Rooney
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less]]> 10639 Future Shock, a social critique of our obsession with choice, and how it contributes to anxiety, dissatisfaction and regret. Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401K, everyday decisions have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented.

In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains why too much of a good thing has proven detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz explains how a culture that thrives on the availability of constantly evolving options can also foster profound dissatisfaction and self-blame in individuals, which can lead to a paralysis in decision making and, in some cases, depression.

With the latest studies on how we make choices in our personal and professional lives, Schwartz offers practical advice on how to focus on the right choices, and how to derive greater satisfaction from choices that we do make.]]> 265 Barry Schwartz 0060005696 Gabe 4 3.83 2004 The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
author: Barry Schwartz
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/01
date added: 2022/06/01
shelves:
review:

]]> Traktat o łuskaniu fasoli 2189373
Książka nagrodzona Nagrodą Literacką NIKE 2007.
Książka nagrodzona Nagrodą Literacką Gdynia 2007.
Książka nagrodzona przez „Magazyn Literacki KSIĄŻKI� jako „książka roku 2006�.]]> 400 Wiesław Myśliwski 8324008918 Gabe 0 to-read 4.37 2006 Traktat o łuskaniu fasoli
author: Wiesław Myśliwski
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Four Winds 53138081 Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance.

In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes an epic novel of love and heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America’s most defining eras—the Great Depression.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250178602]]> 464 Kristin Hannah 1250178606 Gabe 2 So there is this woman, we don't really know much about, but maybe we will learn more? or maybe
her daughter will become the main character?
So what we know is that she is this literature-lover (gosh, such a cliche, a book about a literature-lover, again), but she must have only watched the covers of these books because she did not learn from all these romances that a night with a man usually ends up with an unwanted marriage. I thought all these books were exactly about this, but idk, I haven't read them. And she's not 13, but 25 or so, hence she should have noticed cases like this among her neighbours at least. I guess this shallow and bizarre case was used to create a situation showing how women were treated badly in the 30s. But for me it has only shown how irresponsible the main character is.
Another thing we know is that some people say she's brave. But through the whole book nothing really proves it.
And that's all we know about Elsa. So there's no way we can get attached to her.

And her one-dimensional parents leave her and she lives on a farm which is struck with greatly described storms (the author should concentrate on describing weather conditions because this is what she does best), which she is afraid of leaving.
But then she does, because her daughter, that behaves worse than any spoiled millennial I've met, is nagging her. The daughter is the worst. She behaves worse than the worst child raised in a rich family in the 2000s. And she's experienced the shortages of great depression, really? Can you name one child in these times behaving like this? And a GIRL?! That should be obedient and humble?
So there's no way we can get attached to Loreda neither.

And these are all the main characters. They leave the farm and start a new life. It was meant, I guess, to be dramatic and full of pain?
Some of the moments that were meant to be dramatic were introduced in 5 sentences, with no tension created and fully described in a few pages. So you know, you are talking on a sunny day and then snap! a robbery, a flood and phew, we're okay... mkay.... I did not even begin to be frightened and it's already the next day.

So maybe there is some historical background?
Not really, there are mainly dialogues..

So maybe there are some stories that show how women were treated?
Not really, just some bearly believable break-ins where the subject is saying something like "and the men discussed it among themselves, as if women had no opinion" - I doubt any woman would have thought something like this in the 30s in a very ordinary, normal, daily situation. They were taught that it is better that way, they would not have gotten such an idea.
Nothing deeper was brought up.

So maybe sth about the discrimination in the US?
It's very flat, all the californians are using the same insults over and over again. You don't pay taxes, you spread disease, you smell. Really? Only a range 3 insults? And nobody gets bored to use the same words over and over again for years? They don't use abuse instead? Some verified methods to get rid of immigrants? The reality looks differently, we can extract from our surroundings to see that it doesn't work this easy way.

So I've learnt nothing, I've discovered nothing, I've felt nothing.
I just have to go back to my popular science and science fiction books, because the usual fiction books don't work for me.]]> 4.27 2021 The Four Winds
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2022/01/20
date added: 2022/05/22
shelves:
review:
So there is this girl/woman that has bad luck. Some reviewers write that the author has listed all the bad things that could have happened to an american living in the 30s and that it is an exaggeration... idk, my family histories from the II WW in Poland were much more cruel, so it is far from an exaggeration for me, but maybe in the US it is.
So there is this woman, we don't really know much about, but maybe we will learn more? or maybe
her daughter will become the main character?
So what we know is that she is this literature-lover (gosh, such a cliche, a book about a literature-lover, again), but she must have only watched the covers of these books because she did not learn from all these romances that a night with a man usually ends up with an unwanted marriage. I thought all these books were exactly about this, but idk, I haven't read them. And she's not 13, but 25 or so, hence she should have noticed cases like this among her neighbours at least. I guess this shallow and bizarre case was used to create a situation showing how women were treated badly in the 30s. But for me it has only shown how irresponsible the main character is.
Another thing we know is that some people say she's brave. But through the whole book nothing really proves it.
And that's all we know about Elsa. So there's no way we can get attached to her.

And her one-dimensional parents leave her and she lives on a farm which is struck with greatly described storms (the author should concentrate on describing weather conditions because this is what she does best), which she is afraid of leaving.
But then she does, because her daughter, that behaves worse than any spoiled millennial I've met, is nagging her. The daughter is the worst. She behaves worse than the worst child raised in a rich family in the 2000s. And she's experienced the shortages of great depression, really? Can you name one child in these times behaving like this? And a GIRL?! That should be obedient and humble?
So there's no way we can get attached to Loreda neither.

And these are all the main characters. They leave the farm and start a new life. It was meant, I guess, to be dramatic and full of pain?
Some of the moments that were meant to be dramatic were introduced in 5 sentences, with no tension created and fully described in a few pages. So you know, you are talking on a sunny day and then snap! a robbery, a flood and phew, we're okay... mkay.... I did not even begin to be frightened and it's already the next day.

So maybe there is some historical background?
Not really, there are mainly dialogues..

So maybe there are some stories that show how women were treated?
Not really, just some bearly believable break-ins where the subject is saying something like "and the men discussed it among themselves, as if women had no opinion" - I doubt any woman would have thought something like this in the 30s in a very ordinary, normal, daily situation. They were taught that it is better that way, they would not have gotten such an idea.
Nothing deeper was brought up.

So maybe sth about the discrimination in the US?
It's very flat, all the californians are using the same insults over and over again. You don't pay taxes, you spread disease, you smell. Really? Only a range 3 insults? And nobody gets bored to use the same words over and over again for years? They don't use abuse instead? Some verified methods to get rid of immigrants? The reality looks differently, we can extract from our surroundings to see that it doesn't work this easy way.

So I've learnt nothing, I've discovered nothing, I've felt nothing.
I just have to go back to my popular science and science fiction books, because the usual fiction books don't work for me.
]]> <![CDATA[A Libertarian Walks into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears)]]> 50358538 A tiny American town's plans for radical self-government overlooked one hairy detail: no one told the bears.

Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, they set their sights on Grafton, NH, a barely populated settlement with one paved road.

When they descended on Grafton, public funding for pretty much everything shrank: the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse. State and federal laws became meek suggestions, scarcely heard in the town's thick wilderness.


The anything-goes atmosphere soon caught the attention of Grafton's neighbors: the bears. Freedom-loving citizens ignored hunting laws and regulations on food disposal. They built a tent city in an effort to get off the grid. The bears smelled food and opportunity.

A Libertarian Walks into a Bear is the sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying tale of what happens when a government disappears into the woods. Complete with gunplay, adventure, and backstabbing politicians, this is the ultimate story of a quintessential American experiment -- to live free or die, perhaps from a bear.]]> 288 Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling 1541788516 Gabe 2 It wasn't funny for me, as promised by other review. Maybe you have to be either an american or an english native speaker?

The title and the beginning promised an analysis on why the libertarian approach fails to cope with problems such as bears and, hopefully, many others. Well, surprisingly, the book is only about the problem of bears. And a short episode on fires. Beside that some history of libertarian party and a lot of stories on bears visiting human habitats.

I did not get the conclusion. The descriptions on bear attacks were very individual and suddenly it all was summed up as some kind of legal/political problem. Getting from a story about a few elderly people to libertarianism? Where did it come from?]]> 3.79 2020 A Libertarian Walks into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears)
author: Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
name: Gabe
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2021/02/03
date added: 2022/05/22
shelves:
review:
I don't understand what the book was about. The only positive thing was that I've learnt some interestings facts on the bears' behaviour.
It wasn't funny for me, as promised by other review. Maybe you have to be either an american or an english native speaker?

The title and the beginning promised an analysis on why the libertarian approach fails to cope with problems such as bears and, hopefully, many others. Well, surprisingly, the book is only about the problem of bears. And a short episode on fires. Beside that some history of libertarian party and a lot of stories on bears visiting human habitats.

I did not get the conclusion. The descriptions on bear attacks were very individual and suddenly it all was summed up as some kind of legal/political problem. Getting from a story about a few elderly people to libertarianism? Where did it come from?
]]> <![CDATA[The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future]]> 16685439 A forceful argument against America's vicious circle of growing inequality by the Nobel Prize–winning economist.

America currently has the most inequality, and the least equality of opportunity, among the advanced countries. While market forces play a role in this stark picture, politics has shaped those market forces. In this best-selling book, Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz exposes the efforts of well-heeled interests to compound their wealth in ways that have stifled true, dynamic capitalism. Along the way he examines the effect of inequality on our economy, our democracy, and our system of justice. Stiglitz explains how inequality affects and is affected by every aspect of national policy, and with characteristic insight he offers a vision for a more just and prosperous future, supported by a concrete program to achieve that vision.]]> 523 Joseph E. Stiglitz 0393345068 Gabe 2 economics a) for sure, if you've ever attended some economics course, but it would even be enough if you've watched news more than 10 times in your life,
b) if it is already after year 2010,
c) if you value your time

a) It's a collection of obvious, very general statements, with thousands of repetitions on basic economic mechanisms. And in the same time it does not explain these basic concepts very well, as it requires knowledge in other basic ideas that are not explained... I don't know who the book is intended for.

b) And of course it is a critique of financial institutions. It it like if Stiglitz was very angry with the financial institutions and needed to write it down to blow off steam. Well, okay, many people were angry and we've already heard many interesting, much better, voices for the last 13 years, even movies were made on this topic. This one adds nothing to the topic.

c) if you're interested the topic and don't have extensive knowledge in economy there must be some better books. Even my textbooks on the university were more interesting.
I did not read anything on inequality itself. Anything on slightly similar topics I can recommend to more advanced readers would be: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty or even Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century, though it also drags on a bit and may be orbiting one concept too much

What the book taught me? I would really like the noble-price-winner to teach me something but there was... nothing. It brings:
- no answer to the question asked in the title. What is the price of inequality according to Stiglitz? We've learned what are the symptoms. Even not reasons, just some observations of random areas where we can see inequality. In US, comparing to Europe. As if Europe was this heaven of equality.
- no recommendations, exploratory diagnosis, ideas,
- no hard, interesting data, or any new analysis,
- no view of other countries than the USA. He touches the topic of Greece and Spain but it could be summarised in a few sentences.

Well, in fact, the whole book could have been summarised in a few sentences - the financial institutions are bad... all the rent-seekers are bad and they use their money to force the legislation to introduce favourable laws and create monopolies.
Free market doesn't work and conservatives are wrong. Because... no, I won't explain it too much, I'll just make a few more repetitions on how the financial institutions bring no value to the world and it suck out talented people that could alternatively invent a lightbulb (I agree, but... please, Mr Slighlitz, you've already said it).]]> 4.04 2012 The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future
author: Joseph E. Stiglitz
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at: 2021/04/07
date added: 2022/05/22
shelves: economics
review:
Don't read the book:
a) for sure, if you've ever attended some economics course, but it would even be enough if you've watched news more than 10 times in your life,
b) if it is already after year 2010,
c) if you value your time

a) It's a collection of obvious, very general statements, with thousands of repetitions on basic economic mechanisms. And in the same time it does not explain these basic concepts very well, as it requires knowledge in other basic ideas that are not explained... I don't know who the book is intended for.

b) And of course it is a critique of financial institutions. It it like if Stiglitz was very angry with the financial institutions and needed to write it down to blow off steam. Well, okay, many people were angry and we've already heard many interesting, much better, voices for the last 13 years, even movies were made on this topic. This one adds nothing to the topic.

c) if you're interested the topic and don't have extensive knowledge in economy there must be some better books. Even my textbooks on the university were more interesting.
I did not read anything on inequality itself. Anything on slightly similar topics I can recommend to more advanced readers would be: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty or even Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century, though it also drags on a bit and may be orbiting one concept too much

What the book taught me? I would really like the noble-price-winner to teach me something but there was... nothing. It brings:
- no answer to the question asked in the title. What is the price of inequality according to Stiglitz? We've learned what are the symptoms. Even not reasons, just some observations of random areas where we can see inequality. In US, comparing to Europe. As if Europe was this heaven of equality.
- no recommendations, exploratory diagnosis, ideas,
- no hard, interesting data, or any new analysis,
- no view of other countries than the USA. He touches the topic of Greece and Spain but it could be summarised in a few sentences.

Well, in fact, the whole book could have been summarised in a few sentences - the financial institutions are bad... all the rent-seekers are bad and they use their money to force the legislation to introduce favourable laws and create monopolies.
Free market doesn't work and conservatives are wrong. Because... no, I won't explain it too much, I'll just make a few more repetitions on how the financial institutions bring no value to the world and it suck out talented people that could alternatively invent a lightbulb (I agree, but... please, Mr Slighlitz, you've already said it).
]]> <![CDATA[The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming]]> 41552709
This is only a preview of the changes to come. And they are coming fast. Without a revolution in how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth could become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century.

In his travelogue of our near future, David Wallace-Wells brings into stark relief the climate troubles that await--food shortages, refugee emergencies, and other crises that will reshape the globe. But the world will be remade by warming in more profound ways as well, transforming our politics, our culture, our relationship to technology, and our sense of history. It will be all-encompassing, shaping and distorting nearly every aspect of human life as it is lived today.

Like An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring before it, The Uninhabitable Earth is both a meditation on the devastation we have brought upon ourselves and an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation.]]> 310 David Wallace-Wells 0525576703 Gabe 3 Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
Apocalypse Never was too optimistic when it comes to our future. But the Uninhabitable Earth was waaaay too strong to be a counterbalance for the Apocalypse Never... (But don't worry! The scientists comment that the author is hugely exaggerating!)

So in general the book:
1. is ridiculously pessimistic (but in a way that it is not convincing in this pessimism, you just feel oh just plz stop listing already)
2. has some scientific errors, and in general was not scientific enough for me, more like a manifesto than a scientific analysis
3. gathered in one place some doom visions, some curiosities, that are not very revealing, but okay it was nice to remind everyone of the potential risks
4. but is doesn't give much solutions. It even demotivated from taking action
5. the last few chapters were a summary of Harrai views and recalls to other books (Guns Germs and Steel and sth else)

Ad 4. It demotivates from taking action!
The author writes that it makes no sense to vote with your money. Your individual choices as a consumer are of no use. It's only the politicians that can do anything and extrapolate your views and lifestyle to other people by right policies. So you should rather vote for the right party.
First of all, not everyone lives in the USA. In fact 96% people don't.
Who I'm voting for in my irrelevant country doesn't change much. And most of the democratic countries are irrelevant when it comes to pollution. USA, Germany, Japan, Russia and China (voting in China and Russia, that's funny) generate nearly 50% of global CO2*. So... only ~540 mln people in the world can change anything by voting. That's 7%. Are you really addressing your book to 7% of people? And demotivating the 93% of the rest of the world from taking other types of action?

[* sorry for this cherry picking and disregarding India which should be among these countries (and would add 6-7% of emissions). But I'm not that well oriented in political situation in this country to be able to comment if they have any power to change this situation or not.]

My vote usually has no influence on ecology (now I am exaggerating, but sorry, I got infected by Mr Wallace) and I believe that my lifestyle (and persuading friends and strangers to make better consumer choices) has more influence on the american and german companies than my not being able to vote there.

Moreover, in a two-party system (not in every country in theory but usually in practice) it's hard to vote for some specific, exact ideas because they are in a package with a thousand other ideas. Maybe it's easier the other way round? To show (by the lifestyle, consumer choices and expressing your views on demonstrations and in the internet) the government what is popular so that they change what they see as profitable political decisions?
And even if you really are addressing the book only to the americans (great, thanks, can I just return the book now and forget?) - it's not valuable to demotivate them from changing lifestyle...

Ad1. It was like listening to my grandmother after I've had a few beers previous night.
Listening to all the worst possible ever scenarios that alcohol consumption will influence my life - how uncle Tom the alcoholic, was beating his wife and lost his whole family, how, you will see my poor darling, you will get ugly skin and some disgusting pockets because of some rare infection, how they will cut my leg off, how the neighbour died from cancer caused by vodka, and how this one teenage girl in the news died from alcohol poisoning.]]> 4.00 2019 The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
author: David Wallace-Wells
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/10
date added: 2022/05/22
shelves:
review:
I sat to this book as a balance after reading Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
Apocalypse Never was too optimistic when it comes to our future. But the Uninhabitable Earth was waaaay too strong to be a counterbalance for the Apocalypse Never... (But don't worry! The scientists comment that the author is hugely exaggerating!)

So in general the book:
1. is ridiculously pessimistic (but in a way that it is not convincing in this pessimism, you just feel oh just plz stop listing already)
2. has some scientific errors, and in general was not scientific enough for me, more like a manifesto than a scientific analysis
3. gathered in one place some doom visions, some curiosities, that are not very revealing, but okay it was nice to remind everyone of the potential risks
4. but is doesn't give much solutions. It even demotivated from taking action
5. the last few chapters were a summary of Harrai views and recalls to other books (Guns Germs and Steel and sth else)

Ad 4. It demotivates from taking action!
The author writes that it makes no sense to vote with your money. Your individual choices as a consumer are of no use. It's only the politicians that can do anything and extrapolate your views and lifestyle to other people by right policies. So you should rather vote for the right party.
First of all, not everyone lives in the USA. In fact 96% people don't.
Who I'm voting for in my irrelevant country doesn't change much. And most of the democratic countries are irrelevant when it comes to pollution. USA, Germany, Japan, Russia and China (voting in China and Russia, that's funny) generate nearly 50% of global CO2*. So... only ~540 mln people in the world can change anything by voting. That's 7%. Are you really addressing your book to 7% of people? And demotivating the 93% of the rest of the world from taking other types of action?

[* sorry for this cherry picking and disregarding India which should be among these countries (and would add 6-7% of emissions). But I'm not that well oriented in political situation in this country to be able to comment if they have any power to change this situation or not.]

My vote usually has no influence on ecology (now I am exaggerating, but sorry, I got infected by Mr Wallace) and I believe that my lifestyle (and persuading friends and strangers to make better consumer choices) has more influence on the american and german companies than my not being able to vote there.

Moreover, in a two-party system (not in every country in theory but usually in practice) it's hard to vote for some specific, exact ideas because they are in a package with a thousand other ideas. Maybe it's easier the other way round? To show (by the lifestyle, consumer choices and expressing your views on demonstrations and in the internet) the government what is popular so that they change what they see as profitable political decisions?
And even if you really are addressing the book only to the americans (great, thanks, can I just return the book now and forget?) - it's not valuable to demotivate them from changing lifestyle...

Ad1. It was like listening to my grandmother after I've had a few beers previous night.
Listening to all the worst possible ever scenarios that alcohol consumption will influence my life - how uncle Tom the alcoholic, was beating his wife and lost his whole family, how, you will see my poor darling, you will get ugly skin and some disgusting pockets because of some rare infection, how they will cut my leg off, how the neighbour died from cancer caused by vodka, and how this one teenage girl in the news died from alcohol poisoning.
]]> <![CDATA[The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution]]> 9704856
Francis Fukuyama, author of the bestselling The End of History and the Last Manand one of our mostimportant political thinkers,provides a sweeping account of how today’s basic political institutions developed. The first of a major two-volume work, The Originsof Political Orderbegins with politics among our primate ancestors and follows the story through the emergence of tribal societies, the growth of the first modern state in China, the beginning ofthe rule of law in India and the Middle East, and the development of political accountability in Europe up until the eve of the French Revolution.

Drawing on a vast body of knowledge—history, evolutionary biology, archaeology, and economics—Fukuyama has produced a brilliant, provocative work that offers fresh insights on the origins of democratic societies and raises essential questions about the nature of politics and its discontents.]]> 585 Francis Fukuyama 0374227349 Gabe 4
Fukuyama gives a summary on why different countries are performing differently now and why the world order looks like it does.
The main theme of the books is that a stable country needs 3 things: rule of law, accountability and being strong and modern. As always, when an author has such a strong, structured hypothesis, some of the arguments were biased to fit his thesis. And as I am not much of a history expert, I could not pick up all of them so I just approached the book with some distance.

Comparing to World Order by Kissinger - this one suited me better as the story already begins in early AD years. It thus explains why different cultures (mainly in China, India, Arabic Western Europe, Russia and South America) developed different characteristics and not just what they are thinking now.

Comparing to Guns, Germs and Steel - this one is also better, as it presents a lot more aspects and does not make the world as deterministic.

And comparing to Harari's Sapiens - it's much more down to earth - academic and concentrated on economics rather than philosophical, with innovative thoughts. Which suits me better.]]> 4.17 2011 The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
author: Francis Fukuyama
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2021/03/26
date added: 2022/05/22
shelves:
review:
I surely recommend the book for those who are interested in economics and politics but failed by being history ignorants in school and have to catch up. But in the same time I would not treat it as a bible in this area.

Fukuyama gives a summary on why different countries are performing differently now and why the world order looks like it does.
The main theme of the books is that a stable country needs 3 things: rule of law, accountability and being strong and modern. As always, when an author has such a strong, structured hypothesis, some of the arguments were biased to fit his thesis. And as I am not much of a history expert, I could not pick up all of them so I just approached the book with some distance.

Comparing to World Order by Kissinger - this one suited me better as the story already begins in early AD years. It thus explains why different cultures (mainly in China, India, Arabic Western Europe, Russia and South America) developed different characteristics and not just what they are thinking now.

Comparing to Guns, Germs and Steel - this one is also better, as it presents a lot more aspects and does not make the world as deterministic.

And comparing to Harari's Sapiens - it's much more down to earth - academic and concentrated on economics rather than philosophical, with innovative thoughts. Which suits me better.
]]> Dune (Dune, #1) 44767458
When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.]]> 658 Frank Herbert 059309932X Gabe 4 The story is okay, interesting. But not enough as for such a long book. I like when a sci-fi book sums up to some philosophical thought and here it's not ingenious enough to be remembered. 4/5

But the writing... I'm not a fan here. The way the story was lead did not make me want to keep reading. From the beginning we know most of what will happen. [spoilers removed]
This was the last moment I felt any emotions.
From that moment on, I had no interest in what will happen, because everything was miraculously going the foreseen way.

And I couldn't stand the language itself, I felt like reading the bible - so many repetitions, such strange, unnatural dialogues, everything so pompous. And the characters are thus unlikeable.
The only character that I could attach to one way or another was Jessica.
Paul was a caricature. A caricature of Jesus? Well, he's a messiah, eventually. But even Jesus is more human, Jesus has some human feelings, weaknesses. And Paul is just a soulless, characterless, perfect, sublime being. He's speaking gold from the first minute. Andin the same time I did not feel any strength from him, he was so blunt.
And the rest of the characters did not exist at all. 2/5]]> 4.33 1965 Dune (Dune, #1)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1965
rating: 4
read at: 2021/03/22
date added: 2022/05/22
shelves:
review:
The world itself is very absorbing, some great ideas that work well to create a consistent world where you can show economy, ecology, society and politics without jarring. 5/5
The story is okay, interesting. But not enough as for such a long book. I like when a sci-fi book sums up to some philosophical thought and here it's not ingenious enough to be remembered. 4/5

But the writing... I'm not a fan here. The way the story was lead did not make me want to keep reading. From the beginning we know most of what will happen. [spoilers removed]
This was the last moment I felt any emotions.
From that moment on, I had no interest in what will happen, because everything was miraculously going the foreseen way.

And I couldn't stand the language itself, I felt like reading the bible - so many repetitions, such strange, unnatural dialogues, everything so pompous. And the characters are thus unlikeable.
The only character that I could attach to one way or another was Jessica.
Paul was a caricature. A caricature of Jesus? Well, he's a messiah, eventually. But even Jesus is more human, Jesus has some human feelings, weaknesses. And Paul is just a soulless, characterless, perfect, sublime being. He's speaking gold from the first minute. Andin the same time I did not feel any strength from him, he was so blunt.
And the rest of the characters did not exist at all. 2/5
]]> <![CDATA[The Body: A Guide for Occupants]]> 43582376 A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson achieved the seemingly impossible by making the science of our world both understandable and entertaining to millions of people around the globe.

Now he turns his attention inwards to explore the human body, how it functions and its remarkable ability to heal itself. Full of extraordinary facts and astonishing stories, The Body: A Guide for Occupants is a brilliant, often very funny attempt to understand the miracle of our physical and neurological make up.

A wonderful successor to A Short History of Nearly Everything, this book will have you marvelling at the form you occupy, and celebrating the genius of your existence, time and time again.]]> 450 Bill Bryson 0385539304 Gabe 4 popular-science
I was soo affected by the story on breast surgery! It was really moving and graphic.]]> 4.30 2019 The Body: A Guide for Occupants
author: Bill Bryson
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/03/17
date added: 2022/05/22
shelves: popular-science
review:
As always for Bryson, the book was well written. He is a great storyteller. It was a nice summary of how our organisms work. It had some curiosities, he's paid tribute to some forgotten scientists. I haven't learnt that much as from Short History of Nearly Everything, but I still enjoyed it

I was soo affected by the story on breast surgery! It was really moving and graphic.
]]> <![CDATA[The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World]]> 28256439 The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben shares his deep love of woods and forests and explains the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in the woodland and the amazing scientific processes behind the wonders of which we are blissfully unaware. Much like human families, tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, and support them as they grow, sharing nutrients with those who are sick or struggling and creating an ecosystem that mitigates the impact of extremes of heat and cold for the whole group. As a result of such interactions, trees in a family or community are protected and can live to be very old. In contrast, solitary trees, like street kids, have a tough time of it and in most cases die much earlier than those in a group.

Drawing on groundbreaking new discoveries, Wohlleben presents the science behind the secret and previously unknown life of trees and their communication abilities; he describes how these discoveries have informed his own practices in the forest around him. As he says, a happy forest is a healthy forest, and he believes that eco-friendly practices not only are economically sustainable but also benefit the health of our planet and the mental and physical health of all who live on Earth.]]> 272 Peter Wohlleben 1771642483 Gabe 4 4.06 2015 The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World
author: Peter Wohlleben
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/22
date added: 2022/05/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy]]> 29502362 Modern economies reward activities that extract value rather than create it. This must change to insure a capitalism that works for us all.

In this scathing indictment of our current global financial system, The Value of Everything rigorously scrutinizes the way in which economic value has been determined and reveals how the difference between value creation and value extraction has become increasingly blurry. Mariana Mazzucato argues that this blurriness allowed certain actors in the economy to portray themselves as value creators, while in reality they were just moving existing value around or, even worse, destroying it.

The book uses case studies - from Silicon Valley to the financial sector to big pharma - to show how the foggy notions of value create confusion between rents and profits, a difference that distorts the measurements of growth and GDP.

The lesson here is urgent and sobering: to rescue our economy from the next, inevitable crisis and to foster long-term economic growth, we will need to rethink capitalism, rethink the role of public policy and the importance of the public sector, and redefine how we measure value in our society.]]> 384 Mariana Mazzucato 161039674X Gabe 3 but having courage to start discussion about fundamentals of economic theories

In The Value of Everything, Maria Mazzucato is trying to dissuade us from neoclassical approach to value. This is an important topic to discuss, because how we perceive value has changed whole economic models and thus our surroundings. So it may have a positive (and relevant) impact to try to look at it differently.
She wants to fight these two myths:
- the price reflects the real value (applies to everything)
- government always performs worse than the private sector (though it was perhaps the topic of her previous book)

The content wants to be revolutionary and it is indeed making a lot of fuss and discussion in media. But for me it is mainly it - a fuss - it's criticising, playing on emotions, more like a manifest. In this, I must admit, she's great, mission accomplished. If this is an invitation for discussion - I accept it (just bring some arguments for the next round, pls). And great writing and charisma, very inspiring and motivating. In order to turn up the atmosphere even more, she creates some strawman antithesis and fights with it with great passion.

But it doesn't bring much new to the table.

- No deep analysis (or maybe even without "deep"? how many values were in this book, nomen omen, about value?),
- no proposition of any alternative (as only counterbalance, Mariana Mazzucato recalls classic economy... so the answer to our problems are concepts from 2 centuries ago that had problems working even a while ago?) and
- no balanced arguments. There's no analysis why the current state is as it is, how we got here, what moral hazards and pathologies we were trying to omit, just criticising it as if somebody has set up the world this way out of spite.

I can see by the reviews that she is very persuasive in her arguments (and uses easy language) which makes it even worse because people who don't know much about economy, finance, business etc may believe in this incomplete, simplified, utopian picture.

And yet another book moaning again about the same 3 widely hated rent-seeking sectors: financial, big pharma and big tech. Just this time filled more with passion and idealism and seeking hope in government rather than just with pure hate (as in The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future).

What was okay: as I wrote in the intro, the book starts an important discussion, an appeal to try to make a huge change in economics and not sit in the same, simplified, 100-years old approach. And a nice critique of GDP and some other concepts.

I must admit it is a though-provoking book, because I wrote a draft of a review/thoughts on it but it is 1600 words long in the draft version, so idk who would be willing to read a 2,5k-long text by some random. So I'll, for the time being, leave these thoughts for myself.]]> 4.08 2018 The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy
author: Mariana Mazzucato
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/23
date added: 2022/05/22
shelves:
review:
TL;DR: utopian, wanna-be controversial, brings nothing new to the table but having courage to start discussion about fundamentals of economic theories

In The Value of Everything, Maria Mazzucato is trying to dissuade us from neoclassical approach to value. This is an important topic to discuss, because how we perceive value has changed whole economic models and thus our surroundings. So it may have a positive (and relevant) impact to try to look at it differently.
She wants to fight these two myths:
- the price reflects the real value (applies to everything)
- government always performs worse than the private sector (though it was perhaps the topic of her previous book)

The content wants to be revolutionary and it is indeed making a lot of fuss and discussion in media. But for me it is mainly it - a fuss - it's criticising, playing on emotions, more like a manifest. In this, I must admit, she's great, mission accomplished. If this is an invitation for discussion - I accept it (just bring some arguments for the next round, pls). And great writing and charisma, very inspiring and motivating. In order to turn up the atmosphere even more, she creates some strawman antithesis and fights with it with great passion.

But it doesn't bring much new to the table.

- No deep analysis (or maybe even without "deep"? how many values were in this book, nomen omen, about value?),
- no proposition of any alternative (as only counterbalance, Mariana Mazzucato recalls classic economy... so the answer to our problems are concepts from 2 centuries ago that had problems working even a while ago?) and
- no balanced arguments. There's no analysis why the current state is as it is, how we got here, what moral hazards and pathologies we were trying to omit, just criticising it as if somebody has set up the world this way out of spite.

I can see by the reviews that she is very persuasive in her arguments (and uses easy language) which makes it even worse because people who don't know much about economy, finance, business etc may believe in this incomplete, simplified, utopian picture.

And yet another book moaning again about the same 3 widely hated rent-seeking sectors: financial, big pharma and big tech. Just this time filled more with passion and idealism and seeking hope in government rather than just with pure hate (as in The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future).

What was okay: as I wrote in the intro, the book starts an important discussion, an appeal to try to make a huge change in economics and not sit in the same, simplified, 100-years old approach. And a nice critique of GDP and some other concepts.

I must admit it is a though-provoking book, because I wrote a draft of a review/thoughts on it but it is 1600 words long in the draft version, so idk who would be willing to read a 2,5k-long text by some random. So I'll, for the time being, leave these thoughts for myself.
]]> <![CDATA[Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions]]> 1713426
Why does recalling the Ten Commandments reduce our tendency to lie, even when we couldn't possibly be caught?

Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup?

Why do we go back for second helpings at the unlimited buffet, even when our stomachs are already full?

And how did we ever start spending $4.15 on a cup of coffee when, just a few years ago, we used to pay less than a dollar?

When it comes to making decisions in our lives, we think we're in control. We think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we?

In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.

Not only do we make astonishingly simple mistakes every day, but we make the same "types" of mistakes, Ariely discovers. We consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. We fail to understand the profound effects of our emotions on what we want, and we overvalue what we already own. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable--making us "predictably" irrational.

From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, Ariely explains how to break through these systematic patterns of thought to make better decisions. "Predictably Irrational" will change the way we interact with the world--one small decision at a time.]]> 247 Dan Ariely Gabe 4 on-audible He even indirectly explains some long-time traditions/social conventions (why you shan't leave prices on presents, why sunday mass had sense for morality, why avoiding temptation was always so underlined in different religions or by parents etc.)
And it's written in a funny way.]]> 4.12 2008 Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
author: Dan Ariely
name: Gabe
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/26
date added: 2022/05/22
shelves: on-audible
review:
If you have economic background, you could say that most of these concepts and experiments were taught during behavioural economics courses... but they are so well packaged and so well structured here! And most of all - some of them are greatly summarised! The author gives you tips for every day problems and rules for life! He leads you step by step - from common knowledge and perceptions, through an experiment then gives some anecdote that allows you to remember the summary of the research and gives some real life problems that effect from this irrationality. So it's easy to remember and it has content for all type of people - those who like numbers and those who prefer stories.
He even indirectly explains some long-time traditions/social conventions (why you shan't leave prices on presents, why sunday mass had sense for morality, why avoiding temptation was always so underlined in different religions or by parents etc.)
And it's written in a funny way.
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