3/5 Stars (%64/100)
Pretty decent book. I finished it in one sitting since it was quite short and easy to read. The book is split into different categories (10 facts for 10 categories + 1 fun fact about Shakespeare). Some of them were not really interesting to me (such as sports and even music) but there were some I really enjoyed like Julius Caesar's bargain with the pirates or the facts about certain animals. Overall it is a good book and I got it free from the store. It seems the author has a lot of fact books about other things as well, it could be interesting to read those as well. Recommended!
Kitabı almak isteyenler,spoilerdan çekinmeyenler, öncelikle Mina Urgan'ın son sözünü okumalılar bence. Mina Urgan Sineklerin Tanrısı'nı alegori olarak tanımlamış ve çok güçlü sebeplerle de anlatmış. Ancak benim okurken hissettiğim bir bütündü. Yin Yang gibi kötünün ve iyinin bir bütün olduğu ve hepimizin içinde bulunduğuydu. İçimizde Simon ve Domuzcuk gibi düşünürler, Ralph ve Jack gibi liderler, ne yazık ki Roger gibi kötülerin mevcut olduğuna inanıyorum. Bizlerin seçimleri hatta seçenekleri ise hangisini dinlediğimiz, Split'deki gibi hangisine ışığı verdiğimizle ilgili. Umarım benim ve sizlerin ışığı bilgiden, iyilikten, gerçekten yana olur.
0-30p: Kontrollü okuyucu 📖
40-70p: Hafif bağımlı 👀
80p+: Geçmiş olsun, kitaplar seni ele geçirmiş 😅
4/5 Stars (%79/100)
The book is split into three main parts; the introduction, death poems by zen monks and finally death poems by haiku writers which is definitely my favourite. I advise you not to skip the introduction because you learn a great deal about the place of poetry in Japan and a lot of technical information about haikus and death poems. Though zen monks' poems were interesting, I found haiku writers' poems much powerful and beautiful. I've always liked haikus and tried to write a couple myself.
There were a lot of poems that I highlighted and I plan to read this book at least once more. I loved that the author (rather editor or compiler) decided to put the original poems in Japanese as well as certain information about the author, the poem or the time period in which it was written. Not only you get to read a bunch of beautiful and sad poems, but you also learn a lot of Japanese phrases, words, and also their culture and way of living. It was especially sad to read poems from authors who died in their 30s and 40s. It was also interesting that most of these men were ordinary. (Some are poets, some are writers, some farmer, some monk etc.) Finally, I learned that Ryunosuke Akutagawa wrote some haikus under the name Gaki and the famous painter Hokusai (who painted The Great Wave of Kanagawa) also wrote haikus.
I really liked the book in general. Beautiful poems, lots of interesting information about the writers and poems, and it is very well organized.
5/5 Stars. (%92/100)
The History of Middle-Earth is a 12 book series I really need to collect. Sadly, I have the physical copy of this book only even though I've read the others or at least checked them out. However, this is probably my favourite out of all. "Just as Sauron concentrated his power in the One Ring, Morgoth dispersed his power into the very matter of Arda, thus the whole of Middle-earth was Morgoth's Ring" (One of my favourite quotations from the book)
The book is split into six parts:
1) 1951 revisions of Tolkien about The Silmarillion. You can compare and contrast with the earlier versions.
2)Annals of Aman: The detailed explanation of the creation of the world. There are also a great deal of information about the First Age and the concept of time in Valian Years.
3)Laws and Customs among the Eldar: As it can be understood from the title it talks about the customs of the elves especially about the names and how they breed. Tolkien also talks about the idea of soul and body here.
4)Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth: One of my favourite chapters in the book. Finrod Felagund and a mortal woman Andreth talk about the issue of immortality by comparing the lives of Elves and Men.
5)Tale of Adanel: This is Tolkien's version of the original sin. (Adam and Eve) Andreth is the one who tells the story to Felagund.
6)Myths Transformed: My favourite chapter of the book because it deals with Morgoth (Melkor), Sauron, and the origin of the Orcs. There are lots of useful and important information in this chapter.
Overall, it is a brilliant book and as I said before, it is my favourite in The History of Middle-Earth.
SPOILER içerir...
First, I wanna provide a brief summary of the book then I will share my comments on it:
Humans defeated famine, plague and war (starvation, epidemics and violence)
Humanities new targets are immortality, happiness and divinity by using artificial intelligence, big data, biotechnology, genetic engineering, regenerative medicine and nanotechnology and thus upgrading Homo Sapiens to Homo Deus.
Imminent dangers are climate change, global warming, pollution
Humans domesticated more than 90% of all large animals and thus conquered the world.
But humans are no different than animals since we have no soul, consciousness, mind or free will. Our sensations, emotions, desires and thoughts are biochemical data processing algorithms
What makes humans more special than animals are not our soul, mind or consciousness but our ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers by creating ‘fictional myths’ such as money, corporation, state, gods. Fictions enable us to cooperate better and without fiction no complex human society can function.
Scientists study how the world functions, but there is no scientific method for determining how humans ought to behave. So, countries cannot function on the basis of scientific theories alone. They require some religion or ideology to maintain order.
Humanism (the worship of humankind which sanctifies life, happiness and power of Homo Sapiens) became the dominant world religion for the last 300 years.
Humanism split into three main branches, all of which believe that human experience is the supreme source of authority and meaning, yet they interpret human experience in different ways: Orthodox Humanism (Liberal humanism or simply as liberalism), Socialist Humanism (Communism, leftists), Evolutionary Humanism (Racism, Fascism
4/5 Stars. (%75/100)
The book is split into five main parts: Ground, Water, Fire, Wind, and Void. Each of these chapters contains many short chapters that all talk about different things. The book can be categorized as philosophy though it talks about many things. Miyamoto is trying to educate wannabe warriors by giving many examples and talking about his teachings from the use of the weapon to honing your spirit. However, the good thing about the book is that you can apply most of the things he says in your daily life, especially the parts regarding the body and the spirit. I really like it in general since I am really interested in Japanese culture.
