The Front Cover
How I came to know about this book:
Another feature that I liked is its front cover. I know most of you are thinking that I violated: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But I didn’t. I tried it only because of its good ratings and reviews.
It’s a collection of 44 personal essays on various topics, related to the Anthropocene. The author reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.
Meaning of ‘Anthropocene’: It is the current geological age in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity.
What this book is about:
Meaning of ‘Anthropocene’: It is the current geological age in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity.
What I liked:
Storytelling: The author writes about an incident or many incidents in his life related to the topic. You’d be able to imagine the story in motion, thanks to his storytelling skills.
Humour: There are funny incidents in most essays. I laughed at many while reading.
Connection with the reader: The essays have elements connecting with readers. They feel that their lives are similar to his. In a few incidents, I was surprised to know that the author does the same deeds as mine and, I thought only a few did those, like Googling Strangers.
Flow: In most essays, I never realized when I started with his story and reached the information part to the lesson and then the end. Not all essays follow the above structure, but many.
Information about many topics: The author had given the context of crucial elements in the essay. Like in Velociraptors, he wrote about other dinosaurs also and in Wintry Mix, he wrote about Iceland and some of its features. You can learn a lot from this book, given that you are curious.
Astonishing analogies: He pointed out the relationship between topics and life which is an amazing way of explaining.
Reflects a great way of thinking: I think that the flow in writing and analogies manifest his way of thinking and, we can learn from it to observe events around us like that.
Honesty: It might not seem an important factor to many but, I think it is. The author wrote many of his life incidents without showing himself as grand. He wrote what he thought and did without modifying.
To sum up, this book is an epitome of great writing style.
What I disliked:
Still, I liked around 90% of all essays.
I liked many essays, but I can’t list out all because I don’t want to make this review lengthy. So, I’ll list out a random twelve of them.
Note that it doesn’t mean that I only liked the following and not the others.
· Harvey
· Diet Dr. Pepper
· Staphylococcus aureus
· You’ll Never Walk alone
· Sunsets
· Academic Decathlon
· Piggly Wiggly
· Googling Strangers
· Velociraptors
· Humanity’s Temporal Range
· Sycamore Trees
· The Notes App
My Rating: 9.85/10
1 comments
Indulge me with your kind attention as I express my profound appreciation for your discerning review of the aforementioned literary work. Kindly permit me to solicit your esteemed insights on Gabor Maté's opus, "When the Body Says No," as I endeavor to discern whether this literary endeavor traverses the realms of cliché or offers a novel reservoir of knowledge for eager minds to explore.
ReplyDelete