Yaroslav

Not many badgers in the House of Lords

Revisado: 09-21-19

I have quite enjoyed this book. I started listening to it after watching the recent British tv adaptation and was somewhat hesitant that I will not be able to enjoy the ride the second time around. I was proven wrong.

The story itself is so rich and bizarre that the tv adaptation could not really deliver all the funny nuances and small quarks of the characters. It really felt that it is a fictional story that intentionally follows tragic clowns, I just could not believe that people can behave that way.

I also liked that the book provided a good description of the context that the story took place, historical events and political intrigues. Not only it helped to appreciate the story itself but also taught me a history lesson or two. For instance, I was interested to learn that in England homosexualism was only decriminalized in the late '60s. And in line with the story spirit, the main sponsor of the bill was a politician who was mostly interested in protecting badgers' wellbeing.

The performance is excellent, nothing to add here.

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Already waiting for volume 2

Revisado: 09-02-19

I greatly enjoyed the performances and sound effects that crated a chilling atmosphere and kept me on the edge of the seat.
I hope there are more stories like this in production.

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How trade shaped the world, indeed

Revisado: 06-22-19

This book will be a great read for those interested in history and economics. It delivers a great amount of nuanced trade related stories that are not covered in school history classes, thus, enriching understanding of trade and civilization histories. Although the author is clearly a free trade advocate he does acknowledges that free trade creates losers and greater trade openness should come hand in hand with a deeper social security net to compensate losers.

I found some facts the most interesting:
1. Great nations' obsession with maritime choke points originated during Hellenic times and was caused by the fact that most of the vital trade routes lay via the choke points. Stop the route and whole economies can collapse.
2. While trade between Asia (India, China) and West (Greece, Romans, Genoa etc.) has been present for centuries before Vasco da Gama's travel, it was unheard that a single merchant would travel the whole route, instead the goods would be exchange at the middle ground in Egypt.
3. Silk was so much in demand among the rich in the West because for most of the European history the only abundant cloth material was wool which was both hot and biting.
4. Unlike its Victorian rich trade driven descendant Tudors' England/Britain was a poor state with weak institutions which preferred raiding/pirating to trade.
5. Opium wars started because British wanted their tea but could not pay for it as Chinese were not interesting in any of their goods, except opium.
6. Historically US democrats as representatives of lower and lower middle classes were against foreign migration. Time changes.
7. US Civil War could have been as much about free trade as about slavery. Southern states were benefiting from low tariffs for their imports and exports while North wanted to hike tariffs to redeem state debt.

Narration is unusual, indeed, I could not start listening to the book for several times as the voice felt robotic and somewhat irritating. However, after some time I got used to it and it stopped bothering me at all. Unfortunately, the pronunciation of geographical landmarks is also weird. The book describes important trade sights in Indian sea, Persian gulf or elsewhere but it took an effort to search for them online as the pronunciation gives you little to work with.

Overall, it is a great book that will be interesting to people who liked Why Nations Fail and Capital In the Twenty-First Century.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Life is more interesting than fiction

Revisado: 05-06-19

When I started this book I had not yet read Zweig’s works and knew little about his life so my motivation to read the memoir was a search for a humane perspective on early 20th century that would add color to my knowledge from history classes. And I got all what I wished for.

At times I was a bit lost during the first part of the memoir where it is mostly about Zweig traveling and meeting famous artists whom I should have known but I did not so I could not perceive the story in all its color. The most memorable piece is about America of early 20th century where nobody judged you by your origin, language or culture and all migration was welcome.

The second part that begins with the beginning of the WWI was much richer for me. At times it felt like nothing changed in these 100 years. Propaganda is still used to turn nations against each other and it is still regular people who suffer from war. The description of Austrian situation prior to German invasion when the whole country was expecting that the western countries would intervene in the last moment and a tragedy would be avoided was particularly poignant.

The narrator’s voice matches the mood of the story perfectly.

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Many missed opportunities but still pretty good

Revisado: 03-22-19

Unusual and interesting premise, well developed characters, good reader make it a nice bed/beach/travel story. Unfortunately the book missed a chance to be more educational. The premise of multiple lives provided a great chance for discussion of history, science and philosophy, however, these topics were discussed only to the extent that was required for the exposition.

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The tilte is misleading, more like a history of SF

Revisado: 03-22-19

When purchasing the book I was expecting some kind of deconstruction of the Sci-Fi genre.
Instead it turned out to be a thorough historical overview of SF. I guess first chapters were the most interesting because they had the most of analysis on what is SF and how it differs from other genres. Later on it quickly turned into historical overview of what had happened to SF in 20th century. Some parts were more interesting, some less, some I skipped.

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A great story underpinned by a great narration

Revisado: 02-03-19

The book includes a decent detective story and a discussion of philosophical ideas on the backdrop of 1980s French politics making it not only a detective but an educational read. The complexity of the ideas allows for the re-reading.
The narration is very good as well. Thoroughly recommended.

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Especially good as an audiobook

Revisado: 12-13-18

People who enjoy reading historical books and follow international and economic affairs won't find a great number of new facts in this book. Nonetheless, they will find an interesting interpretation of already known facts through a prism of millennia.

Interpretations that I remember several weeks after I finished the book and, hence, found interesting:
- Cognitive revolution - an ability to imagine abstract ideas like myths - allowed for an increase of human groups, initial groups united only by personal relationships could not exceed 150 individuals,
- Agricultural revolution helped sapiens to enlarge in numbers but made lives of individuals more tedious as we did not evolve to work in a field,
- Money (trade), religion and imperialism were major driving factors of globalization,
- Imperialism can't be judged by today's standards as today's standards are consequences of imperialism,
- Capitalism, liberalism, nationalism (patriotism), humanism or communism are just modern myths that unite societies.

The performance of an audiobook was great. However, if you want to read a thick smart book I would start from Capital in the 21 Century or Why Nations Fail.

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A great book but a paper version can be easier to digest.

Revisado: 08-12-18

I liked this book a lot. It provides a great summary of what happened before and after the Great Recession. It gave an especially good account of EZ on-going crisis. The policy recommendations such As more aggressive monetary policy and more fiscal stimulus at a 0 lower bound were well justified and convincing. Wolf’s forecast that the crisis would end up in populism explosion was correct.

Still it was difficult to digest. It could have been better to separate the book into 2 parts: EZ crisis and Great Recession. Jumping from one to another every chapter was confusing.

Although the narration was unchanged through out the book sometimes it felt too slow and instead of helping to focus it actually allowed the mind to drift away so I had to return back and listen again numerous times. Hence, it might have been better to have a paper copy in this particular case. Nonetheless, regardless of the format I cannot recommend this book more.

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Insightful and compelling listen

Revisado: 08-06-18

The author is sharing important questions that he believes people should ask themselves in their lives to remain focused and to understand others better. The author tells how asking these questions influenced his personal and professional life through out many years. I have found these questions useful and the author's stories compelling.

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