Should you read this book?

In need of hours of thought provoking entertainment? I reckon I've sorted it for you.  Here they are in order of greatness. Three of them are fiction - IKR!!! Fabulous, entertaining, life enhancing, educating in history, emotion and philosophy type fiction though. So, At joint number one (fiction award) The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber . Powerful, shocking, no-holds barred depiction of Victorian England. Ir's what Dickens should have written. An excellent listen. Here's my original post At joint number one (non-fiction award) Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari A great, energetically written philosophical tour of pre human history, human history and some bets on the future. A great great first half, and a good second half. here's my original post   At number three (fiction) BY THE SAME AUTHOR AS THE WINNER Under the Skin by Michel Faber I listened to this on audible and gradually worked out what was going on This

Nope However my esteemed friend Val writes "Re The Dry - I SO disagree! It breathes the Australian outback, captures exactly how people speak and react, and the denouement is spot on. Aussies are imprinted with the dread of fire - I’ve seen a tiny version of a grass fire and it terrified me - the power of fire in the dry is overwhelming. I thought it was a terrific book! I completely love her latest The Lost Man too."

Maybe - if you're an angst ridden teen or if you like her music. It's enjoyably written - direct and plain in a good way - and there's a lot about the music industry in it. There's also continuous moaning, little humour - the self deprecation is woeful not funny, and nothing has gone right for her. Wound me up a bit.

Maybe read. I t ried listening and couldn't concentrate. Probably needed to read the book for an hour, get into it, then I'd be able to follow. It looked really interesting and the bits I caught whilst astro planing were cynical, bitter, ironic, satirical etc.

Overall no. Started promisingly - was there a Roman Empire, was there a decline, was there a fall? He problematised all 3 ideas and I thought great. It isn't a book as such btw, it's a lecture series. Anyway it then descended to a description of each emperor and such an emphasis on one person (each time) seemed to ridiculous to me. Trade wars and the emergence of other countries weren't even side shows, they were bare mentions. Got to hard to remember which emperor we were on. Gave up.

Should you read this book? Yes for history fans. It's not a book, it's a series of lectures and I loved them. I rushed off and watched The Last Kingdom, then Vikings because of them. I did Anglo Saxon at Uni in 1984 and I swear I learned more in this lecture series. This was the lecture series I needed BEFORE I did the course.  Here's one thing a liked - a centuries mnemonic: MCGVR (Mcgyver) 6th century - migration 7th century - conversion 8th - golden age 9th - vikings 10th - recovery

Yes -  most of it. It's Sara Pascoe's autobiography in more random order with her opinions on her body in a political way. Some interesting stuff on the evidence for polygamy in early humans, and a lot on the politics of rape.

No. I thought it'd be the legal equivalent of 'this is going to hurt" but it wasn't. More mini essays on the history of magistrates and juries. Needed more case studies with those histories woven in. Got bored, couldn't concentrate, stopped listening.

No.  Well I quite enjoyed it but it was a bit of a slog. I'd say only for those totally enthralled by Viking stuff. Basically the Vikings TV series took lots of good stories and gave them all to Ragnar, when they were spread out over centuries and continents. Fair enough. So Vikings in England, Scotland, Orkney. Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Nova Scotia, France, italy, Russia and Constantinople. Amazing. What happened to the settlement in Greenland - why did it disappear? Sounds grim. So many wars were between Vikings who were raiding and the Vikings who had settled the same land previously. Vikings raided neighbours in Scandinavia for their stuff - well it all became a bit mixed as to who counts as them and who counts as us. 

Yes an enjoyable listen. Main bewildering amazement: head of year, maths teacher, young family AND racing all over the country doing comedy gigs. How???