Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow

 Hi everyone

Finally! I finally finished Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
The book is my husband's and he ditched the dustcover so I can only show you how it's now.

"In the highly anticipated Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.
Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will transform the way you think about thinking."

This was tedious, slow and repetitive. The man is full of himself.

So yeah, not a fan.

Happy reading!
Helena

Ira Levin: Son of Rosemary

 Hi everyone

I finished Son of Rosemary by Ira Levin. This is supposed to be a sequel to Rosemary's Baby but it was written 30 years later. I got my copy from Bol.com.

"Ira Levin returns to the horror of his 1967 groundbreaking novel Rosemary’s Baby with this sequel set at the dawn of the new millennium. Thirty-three years ago, Rosemary gave birth to the Devil’s child while under the control of a coven of witches. Now the year is 1999, and humanity dreads the approaching twenty-first century, desperately in search of a saviour for this troubled world.
In New York City, Rosemary’s son Andy is believed to be that saviour. But is he the force of good his followers accept him to be? Or is he his father’s son? As the war between good and evil rages on unabated, the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, in this shocking and darkly comic novel from the modern master of suspense."

This was awful.

I really don't know why Levin felt the need to write a seguel to Rosemary's Baby because this is absolutely horrible.

Rosemary's naivité is no longer charming or the sign of a simple mind, instead it's maddening, infuriating. Andy is sleezy, he gives me the heebe-jeebies. The incestious tone throughout is plain wrong and bile-inducing.
The overal plot was predictable but the ending was worst of all.
Without the last 5 pages, I'd have given it two stars. Now it only gets one star. 

Have you read this? What are you thoughts?

Happy reading.
Helena

Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter: The Long War

 Hi everyone

This was my second time reading Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxters The Long War; the second book in The Long Earth series. You can find my first review here. 

“A generation after the events of The Long Earth, mankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by Stepping. Where Joshua and Lobsang once pioneered, now fleets of airships link the stepwise Americas with trade and culture. Mankind is shaping the Long Earth - but in turn the Long Earth is shaping mankind... A new 'America', called Valhalla, is emerging more than a million steps from Datum Earth, with core American values restated in the plentiful environment of the Long Earth - and Valhalla is growing restless under the control of the Datum government...
Meanwhile the Long Earth is suffused by the song of the trolls, graceful hive-mind humanoids. But the trolls are beginning to react to humanity's thoughtless exploitation... Joshua, now a married man, is summoned by Lobsang to deal with a gathering multiple crisis that threatens to plunge the Long Earth into a war unlike any mankind has waged before.”

I still stand by my previous review. 

The storyline of the Chinese expedition should have been cut. It was uninteresting with boring characters and it didn't add much to the overal plot of the book.

I really dislike Sally, maybe more so now I have children of my own and I realize more she just forces Joshua away from his son and wife. There's no nuance to her character. She's always very harsh, hard and uncaring for others. 

But I still love the setting, the ideal of Long Earths, I love Joshua and his family, I love Lobsang.

Happy reading!
Helena

Shelley Parker-Chan: She Who Became the Sun

Hi everyone

I finished She Who Became the Sun, the first book in The Radiant Emperor duology by Shelley Parker-Chan.

"In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…
In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.
When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.
After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu uses the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness."

This was a great book. Even though I didn't really like the characters and they were very one-sided the story and world were interesting enough to overcome that. Ouyang especially was very dramatic and kept thinking the same things over and over.

But the story was really good. It's a reimagining of the rise of the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, something I know nothing about so I can't say how much is based on facts. It is easy to read, the story engages you, I really wanted to keep reading because I wanted to find out what would happen next. So, even though I didn't connect with the characters, hated most of their acts, I still enjoyed the book because of the writing, the world and the plot.

Happy reading
Helena

Bookhaul

 Hi everyone

I got two new books!

Last July I read the first book in Joe Abercrombie's The Age of Madness series; A Little Hatred. I really enjoyed it so I decided to get the second and third book in the series as well. I ordered them from Bol.com the day before yesterday and I received them today.

- Joe Abercrombie: The Trouble with Peace

- Joe Abercrombie: The Wisdom of Crowds

What books would you recommend buying or loaning?

Happy reading
Helena

Wrap Up: October 2024

 Hi everyone

Last month, October 2024 I read and finished 6 books.

Here's a list in chronological order with a link to the review I wrote about each book:

- Shelby Van Pelt: Remarkably Bright Creatures

- Gretchen Rubin: Better Than Before

- Alice Hoffman: The Museum of Extraordinary Things

- Travis Baldree: Bookshops & Bonedust

- Devin Madson: We Ride the Storm

- Christian White: The Wife and the Widow

 

And sadly there's one book I could not finish:

- R. F. Kuang: Babel

 

What did you read this month? Anything you want to recommend?

Happy reading!
Helena

Christian White: The Wife and the Widow

 Hi everyone

This is my review of The Wife and the Widow by Christian White. It's his second book but the first one I read. I read it on my e-reader.

"Set against the backdrop of an eerie island town in the dead of winter, The Wife and The Widow is an unsettling thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her dead husband’s secret life; and Abby, an island local whose world is turned upside when she’s forced to confront the evidence of her husband’s guilt. But nothing on this island is quite as it seems, and only when these women come together can they discover the whole story about the men in their lives."

I really enjoyed this.  

The writing is easy and it has a nice flow. The story is not too slow nor too fast to follow. I really wanted to find out how it all happened. Once you realize the whole story there's quite a bit of the book left and that was a bummer. But the twist was great and I didn't see it coming. A few plotholes and questions about the efficinecy of the police.

All in all a quick, enjoyable murder mystery that sucked me in but don't think too hard about the plot.

Happy reading.
Helena