BOOK 194: THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*CK: MARK MANSON

BOOK 194: THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*CK: MARK MANSON 

In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger shows us that the key to being happier is to stop trying to be “positive” all the time and instead to become better at handling adversity.

For decades we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life.
But those days are over. “Fuck positivity,” Mark Manson says. “Let’s be honest; sometimes things are fucked up and we have to live with it.” For the past few years, Manson—via his wildly popular blog—has been working on correcting our delusional expectations for ourselves and for the world. He now brings his hard-fought wisdom to this groundbreaking book.

Manson makes the argument—backed by both academic research and well-timed poop jokes—that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to better stomach lemons. Human beings are flawed and limited—as he writes, “Not everybody can be extraordinary—there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault.” Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. This, he says, is the real source of empowerment. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties—once we stop running from and avoiding, and start confronting painful truths—we can begin to find the courage and confidence we desperately seek.

“In life, we have a limited amount of fucks to give. So you must choose your fucks wisely.” Manson brings a much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor. This manifesto is a refreshing slap in the face for all of us so that we can start to lead more contented, grounded lives.

MY VERDICT: I started off by really enjoying this book, the reference to Bukowski in the first chapter spoke to me. But after that, this book kind of lost me. The advice seemed to repeat itself over and over, and although the message of the book, which was to focus on some things to care about and learn that some things are not worth spending time worrying about was good, it didn’t seem enough to fill a book. I think this advice was better suited to a pamphlet to be honest. I read to the end but I had already become quite bored and couldn’t wait to finish it – luckily it was quite short.

BOOK 189: SAPIENS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMANKIND: YUVAL NOAH HARARI

BOOK 189: SAPIENS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMANKIND: YUVAL NOAH HARARI

This book surveys the history of humankind from the evolution of archaic human species in the Stone Age up to the twenty-first century, focusing on our own species of human, Homo sapiens. The account is situated within a framework provided by the natural sciences, particularly evolutionary biology.

Harari surveys the history of humankind from the evolution of archaic human species in the Stone Age up to the twenty-first century, focusing on our own species of human, Homo sapiens. He divides the history of Sapiens into four major parts: 

The Cognitive Revolution (c. 70,000 BC, when Sapiens evolved imagination).

The Agricultural Revolution (c. 10,000 BC, the development of agriculture).

The unification of humankind (the gradual consolidation of human political organisations towards one global empire).

The Scientific Revolution (c. 1500 AD, the emergence of objective science).

Public reception

First published in Hebrew in 2011 and then in English in 2014, the book was translated into 45 languages (as of June 2017). It also made to The New York Times best-seller list and won the National Library of China's Wenjin Book Award for the best book published in 2014. Writing four years after its English-language publication, Alex Preston wrote in The Guardianthat Sapiens had become a "publishing phenomenon" with "wild success" symptomatic of a broader trend toward "intelligent, challenging nonfiction, often books that are several years old". Concurrently, The Guardian listed the book as among the ten "best brainy books of the decade".

Scholarly reception

Anthropologist Christopher Robert Hallpike reviewed the book and did not find any "serious contribution to knowledge". Hallpike suggested that "...whenever his facts are broadly correct they are not new, and whenever he tries to strike out on his own he often gets things wrong, sometimes seriously". He considered it an infotainment publishing event offering a "wild intellectual ride across the landscape of history, dotted with sensational displays of speculation, and ending with blood-curdling predictions about human destiny." 

Science journalist Charles C. Mann concluded in The Wall Street Journal, "There’s a whiff of dorm-room bull sessions about the author’s stimulating but often unsourced assertions." 

Reviewing the book in The Washington Post, evolutionary anthropologist Avi Tuschman points out problems stemming from the contradiction between Harari's "freethinking scientific mind" and his "fuzzier worldview hobbled by political correctness", but nonetheless wrote that "Harari’s book is important reading for serious-minded, self-reflective sapiens." 

Reviewing the book in The Guardian, philosopher Galen Strawson concluded that among several other problems, "Much of Sapiens is extremely interesting, and it is often well expressed. As one reads on, however, the attractive features of the book are overwhelmed by carelessness, exaggeration and sensationalism." 

Reviewing the book in The New Atlantis, John Sexton, graduate student at the University of Chicago, concluded that "The book is fundamentally unserious and undeserving of the wide acclaim and attention it has been receiving".

MY VERDICT: I found this book entertaining and interesting. Despite some negative reviews from scholars, I found some fascinating theories that I previously had not heard of and some of Harari’s viewpoints were thought provoking. There is a lot of information to digest and I forgot most of the history at the start by the time I got to the end, which is more to do with my memory than a fault of the book. I did feel that the last chapter prophesized too much and continued on a bit too long but overall I enjoyed it.

BOOK 187: I'LL BE GONE IN THE DARK

BOOK 187: I'LL BE GONE IN THE DARK: ONE WOMAN'S OBSESSIVE SEARCH FOR THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER: MICHELLE MCNAMARA

A masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer—the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California for over a decade—from Michelle McNamara, the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case.

"You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark."

For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.

Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.

At the time of the crimes, the Golden State Killer was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Caucasian, and athletic—capable of vaulting tall fences. He always wore a mask. After choosing a victim—he favored suburban couples—he often entered their home when no one was there, studying family pictures, mastering the layout. He attacked while they slept, using a flashlight to awaken and blind them. Though they could not recognize him, his victims recalled his voice: a guttural whisper through clenched teeth, abrupt and threatening.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Framed by an introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by her husband, Patton Oswalt, the book was completed by Michelle’s lead researcher and a close colleague. Utterly original and compelling, it is destined to become a true crime classic—and may at last unmask the Golden State Killer. 

(information from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068432-i-ll-be-gone-in-the-dark)

MY VERDICT:

This is a tragic book, tragic in so many ways. Firstly it is tragic because of the awful accounts of rape and murder perpetrated by a true monster, but also tragic because of Michelle McNamara’s tragic death partway through it’s writing, and almost most tragic of all is that McNamara never got to see the Golden State Killer finally caught.

The book is superbly written, and amazingly researched, you feel like you’re travelling through time and witnessing the investigation. This book cements McNamara as a true crime legend. 

I did hear, before reading this book, some accounts of sleepless nights due to the content. As someone who has read a lot of true crime and watched a lot of horror, I skeptical, I thought maybe I was immune to this way of thinking. However, there were a few nights after spending hours reading the book that I heard a noise in the dark in the night time and wondered how easily someone could gain access to my home, did someone know that there were no men in the house and that I was an easy target? I quickly started mentally making weapons out of the everyday objects in my room and planning where to hide if that noise became louder or I heard footsteps. I think it’s a testament to McNamara’s writing that even the most hardcore true crime fanatics are irked when they feel like they are for a moment placed in a real victim’s shoes.

Michelle McNamara’s investigation techniques are like none I’ve ever been privy to before.  The amount of work that McNamara put in was phenomenal. I was in a privileged position of knowing who the Golden State Killer was eventually found out to be while reading this and, it turns out, she was along the right lines. Because so many avenues were explored, the rules of averages would predict that something would turn out to be right. They guessed he could have been a cop, and they proposed that he would be found using DNA ancestry, that’s the place where McNamara abruptly ended, the last thing she was looking at, and from reading the book, you knew it was only a matter of time before he was caught. 

I wonder if he read this book? Nothing he could have done could have avoided his capture at this point because they had his DNA. I hope somehow, somewhere, Michelle McNamara got to hear the cell door slam behind him.

BOOK 185: THE STRANGER BESIDE ME: ANN RULE

BOOK 185: THE STRANGER BESIDE ME: ANN RULE

The Stranger Beside Me is a 1980 autobiographical and biographical true crime book written by Ann Rule about the serial killer Ted Bundy, whom she knew personally before and after his arrest for a series of murders. Subsequent revisions of the book were published in 1986, 1989, 2000, and 2008.

MY VERDICT: This book is simply amazing. It’s well written and continuingly interesting but the most astounding thing about it is it’s very existence – all the things that had to come into place to make this book happen. The fact that Ann Rule, as a true crime author, was commissioned to write a book about a series of murders and then slowly discovered that the murderer was a man she knew as a friend is something that you wouldn’t believe in a film script. But truth is stranger than fiction. 

When I first heard about this book I had assumed that Ann Rule knew Ted Bundy in passing, that they’d worked in the same building taking calls from those in need, maybe they exchanged a few words. The truth is that they considered each other friends, they went to parties together, they had lunch together, they spoke about themselves and their personal problems. How shocked would you be if someone you knew this way turned out to be a brutal murderer? And for so long she believed that he couldn’t have done it. Ann Rule expresses all her emotions bare on the page and this is scattered among details of Ted’s life and Ted’s crimes. It’s fascinating from start to finish and although the order maybe could have been a little less disjointed, (it starts with his escape to Florida) which in my opinion should have been more chronological (especially with the notes at the start and finish of the book) it’s still easy to follow and you do feel like you’re taken on a journey through the life, crimes and relationships of a real serial murderer.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in true crime.

BOOK 173: SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM: JOAN DIDION

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a 1968 collection of essays by Joan Didion that mainly describes her experiences in California during the 1960s. It takes its title from the poem "The Second Coming", by W. B. Yeats. The contents of this book are reprinted in Didion's We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction (2006).

The title essay describes Didion's impressions of the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco during the neighborhood's heyday as a countercultural center. In contrast to the more utopian image of the milieu promoted by counterculture sympathizers then and now, Didion offered a rather grim portrayal of the goings-on, including an encounter with a pre-school-age child who was given LSD by her parents.

In The New York Times Book Review, the novelist and screenwriter Dan Wakefield wrote, "Didion's first collection of nonfiction writing, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, brings together some of the finest magazine pieces published by anyone in this country in recent years. Now that Truman Capote has pronounced that such work may achieve the stature of 'art,' perhaps it is possible for this collection to be recognized as it should be: not as a better or worse example of what some people call 'mere journalism,' but as a rich display of some of the best prose written today in this country."

(Information from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slouching_Towards_Bethlehem)

BOOK 112: BLOG INC. : JOY DEANGDEELERT CHO

As someone who has kept a blog for a couple of years now I found this book very interesting.  It has inspired me to make more personal blog posts and not to worry too much about what people will think of me and just put myself out there.

There are some very helpful tips for people to blog as a full time job, which was fascinating but didn’t really apply to me.  I’m happy to blog as a hobby and entirely for fun and this book was just as useful to me as those who blog for profit.

BOOK 107: HELL'S ANGELS: HUNTER S. THOMPSON

Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs is a book written by counterculture icon Hunter S. Thompson, first published in 1966 by Random House. It was widely lauded for its up-close and uncompromising look at the Hells Angels motorcycle club, during a time when the gang was highly feared and accused of numerous criminal activities. The New York Times described Thompson's portrayal as "a world most of us would never dare encounter."

Hell's Angels was the book that launched Thompson's career as a writer. Though he had by then published numerous articles for various journals and newspapers and was recognized as a journalist, the book was his first true exposure to a national audience. Reviews of the work were generally very positive and despite a poor performance on the publicity tour by Thompson, who was by his own admission drunk or exhausted for nearly every interview, the book sold relatively well. Even so, Thompson himself made little off of the royalties from early editions of the book, a misfortune he blamed on a succession of agents and the book's publisher, Random House.

Thompson's treatment of an alleged gang-rape by Hells Angels was strongly criticized by feminist Susan Brownmiller in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape.