January Reading Thread

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I'm starting The Poppy War by RF Kuang and I've no idea if it's any good. It had a book shop recommendation with it, so I bought it. We'll see how I go.

The Magician is still going, but it is a teenager book and not too challenging. However, I will keep on nibbling on this one as it's interesting enough.
 
I have started Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty (1999) by Nancy Etcoff. The thesis appears to be that, despite obvious and important cultural differences in the perception of human beauty, some aspects of it are evolutionarily determined.
 
Finished Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Eh, it was OK. Pluses were snappy writing, strong pacing and smart characterisation (apart from Harry himself); minuses were that the magic elements were weirdly lacking in magic, and the plotting of the climax was insulting to readers' intelligence. Probably won't bother with the rest.
 
Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story by Lee Berger & John Hawks

Almost Human is an exciting description of the finding of a large number of prehistoric hominid bones (that would eventually be a new species called Homo naledi) in a cave system near Sterkfontein caves, in a region thought to have been thoroughly searched for fossil hominids.

This book starts off with a nicely written, if somewhat simplistic, introduction to the history of the discovery of hominid fossils, along with a mini-biography of a younger Lee Berger that reads rather like a job interview. The interesting and exciting parts occur when Lee Berger describes his newer (and less well-known) fossil finds (Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi) and their implications in terms of human evolution. What I also found interesting is Berger's encouragement of collaborative and open access to fossil finds and research results that was hitherto almost a subject of taboo in human evolutionary paleoanthropological circles. Almost Human is a well written book that makes a fascinating discovery and it's implications accessible to the general public. Now, I just have to find a similar book on Homo floresiensis...

NOTE: I would consider Almost Human a companion book to Berger's following book Cave of Bones, which discusses the same discoveries, just with a different emphasis and some additional Homo naledi discoveries and implications.​
 
Bowler1 said:
I'm starting The Poppy War by RF Kuang and I've no idea if it's any good.
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I'm knackered this morning, the poppy war had me up to the early hours reading and reading. So far, it's hooked me in. It's a big book, but the final report will be along soon as I'm keen to see where this book goes.
 
Bowler1 said:
I'm knackered this morning, the poppy war had me up to the early hours reading and reading. So far, it's hooked me in. It's a big book, but the final report will be along soon as I'm keen to see where this book goes.
Click to expand...
I started reading Babel by her once...I thought it was a load of fancy words to impress the reader but the story was dross DNF
 
My annual resolution to read more nonfiction and get to grips with stuff I really aught to understand gets off to a grinding halt. I lasted less than four pages of Michael Guillen' Five Equations that Changed the World. I quit when I read that Isaac Newton's dad had been killed in the civil war between William the First and the Parliamentary forces lead by Cromwell.

William the First? William the First aka William the Conqueror had been dead for 700 years by the time Newton was born.

Not just a one off the mistake is repeated several times. Pretty sure he got the name of Newton's school wrong too.
 
Busy rereading The Imperial Japanese Navy In The Pacific War by Mark E. Stille.
 
I have finished:
Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire by Simon Baker
A nice overview of the rise and fall of Ancient Rome focusing on six turning points that shaped Roman history. Nice maps, no time line.
 
Over the past week, I've also listened to/read William Shakespeare's two narrative poems: "Venus & Adonis", and "The Rape of Lucrece", and two plays: Cymbeline and Othello.
 
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