BOOK 192: ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE: GAIL HONEYMAN

BOOK 192: ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE: GAIL HONEYMAN

No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

The only way to survive is to open your heart. 

MY VERDIT: I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was refreshing to read such an original voice but a little scary at the similarities between the narrator and myself. I think that’s what pulled me into the story at first, luckily as he story progressed I saw that we weren’t the same but some of her habits and thoughts were familiar to me. It’s a heartwarming book that kept me interested from the first page and didn’t disappoint at the end, which was a great relief. I would recommend you read this book soon before the film comes out as I suspect this will also be excellent.

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.

FILM 1714: JERRY BEFORE SEINFELD

TRIVIA: Jerry used many of his jokes from past performances for this film.

https://www.lensculture.com/articles/niels-ackermann-looking-for-identity-looking-for-lenin#slideshow

1. GOODBYE OBAMA 44TH PRESIDENT PIN-BACK BUTTON BY VALXART

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2. OBAMA, JANUARY 25, 2008

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3. OBAMA - BARACK OBAMA ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE COVER ILLUSTRATION - ART - DIGITAL DOWNLOAD

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4. MICHELLE OBAMA PRINT - 'PEOPLE WHO ARE TRULY STRONG LIFT OTHERS UP' - FOR STRONG WOMEN – INSPIRATIONAL

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5. OBAMA

http://chrisdent.co.uk/obama

FILM 1624: REWIND THIS!

Home video changed the world. The cultural and historical impact of the VHS tape was enormous. This film traces the ripples of that impact by examining the myriad aspects of society that were altered by the creation of videotape.

BOOK 164: WOULDN'T IT BE NICE: MY OWN STORY: BRIAN WILSON & TODD GOLD

Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story is an autobiographic memoir written by Brian Wilson with freelancer Todd Gold, published in October 1991 by HarperCollins. Its name derives from the Beach Boys' 1966 single "Wouldn't It Be Nice". Upon release, the book's credibility was challenged, and led to multiple lawsuits. The book was later disowned by Wilson.

In 2016, the book was superseded by I Am Brian Wilson, a new autobiography written with Ben Greenman.

AUTHORSHIP AND LEGITIMACY

The book's legitimacy has been challenged, and its contents has raised questions of plagiarism. Under oath, Wilson stated that he was interviewed for about "thirty-to-forty hours" and that he had only skimmed through a draft of the book before it was published. According to author Peter Ames Carlin, "the stories being related had been lifted nearly word for word from earlier biographies, only with the pronouns changed to reflect Brian's first-person perspective. In other sections the narrative read like depositions for their various court cases, while others ripped the Beach Boys for various personal and professional shortcomings."

Although it glorifies therapist Eugene Landy, he insisted that he had nothing to do with its writing. Despite this, court documents proved that Landy was a close partner in the writing and production process. In the opinion of musicologist Philip Lambert: "The book is plagued by factual misstatements, language and opinions that are implausibly Brian's, and text that defies credulity ... Nonetheless, I don't believe it's advisable to dismiss Wouldn't It Be Nice entirely." He explains that while the book may have been corrupted by motivations in self-interest and legal maneurverings, "it may still provide some nuggets of truth about Brian's day-to-day existence while under Landy's care." He concludes that the biography "can be useful ... if accessed through the proper filters. I don't accept the book's text at face value, but if it's consistent with other sources and rings true, I'm willing to consider it a qualified authority."

In several articles published by Billboard in 1991, writers including David Leaf, Timothy White, and Neal McCabe accused the book of borrowing extensively from earlier writings on Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys from Jules Siegel, Paul Williams, Tom Nolan, and White. Todd Gold has asserted that "any celebrity book relies on extensive culling of magazine articles and past interviews and recycling ... [but] everything was paraphrased to the best of our ability as told through Brian's eyes." Speaking to The Washington Post, Gold also admitted that he used notes prepared by Henry Edwards during interviews for a similar, unfinished book project in 1987. In a 1995 court case, Wilson's lawyers reported evidence which showed that HarperCollins were aware that Wilson's statements in the book were either manipulated or written by Landy.