nathanjhunt's reviews
211 reviews

This was my 85th book finished in 2025.

I bought this book alongside the Angry Aztecs to read ahead of my trip to the Americas in 2023; better late reading than never!

This one was a lot better than the Aztec one. It was well-organised (splitting the pre-Spanish and Colonial eras really benefited), and it seemed to include more dates than the average HH book. 

The Incan Empire being so short-lived meant some of the facts about emperors were drawn out and dry. I think the book would have been better if it expanded on talking about other earlier people of the Andes etc, and not just centred on Cusco.

This was my 84th book finished in 2025.

So this book took me eight months to finish! That's the longest it's ever taken me to finish something. Having a Doctor Who background, I welcomed this warmly, but honestly I was underwhelmed.

The humour of this is lost 50-ish years later. The humour certainly reminds me of older sitcoms that I was raised on (I'm 30), but it just doesn't really translate years later. I feel a lot of people who read this years ago have fond nostalgia, but for a newer audience, it just doesn't hit the mark.

It was admittedly funny and witty in places, but it was all just a bit too random for me with a pretty unexciting plot.

This was my 83rd book finished in 2025.

I listened to an audiobook version of this, which made me enjoy it all the more hearing it in Michael's distinctive voice.

Pole To Pole benefited from not being set on too many ships. It was these passages in Eighty Days that just fell a bit flat for me. He was on the move more and therefore encountered a wider variety of happenings. What a year 1991 was! I was born in 1994, so it's fascinating to hear about a world I never experienced.

I love that he says everything how he experienced it - no denying the frustrations and disappointments along the way. It makes me feel better about my travelling experiences in the past; I no longer feel guilty for not always living in the moment and appreciating things despite the hardships. You can be pessimistic at the time, but you will always looks back on it in fond memory.

This book uses less dated language than the book that came before and after it, so it was more enjoyable on that front. He does, however, still make the occasional unnecessary comment on women's appearances.

Despite the flaws, Michael Palin will forever be a huge inspiration to me and my adventures (currently visited 51 countries). I cry for the day he will no longer be with us. Palin forever.

This was my 82nd book finished in 2025.

I found this book to be very underwhelming. Rather than telling a scary ghost story, the author tends to give long historical background, and then a fleeting remark about the actual haunting. It reads way more like a historical reference document than an engaging haunted story! The author flits between history and tales in a clunky way.

The layout was bad with no sense of order - not in geographical nor themed order. Very random. A slog to get through; bland writing and barely interesting in places.

This was my 81st book finished in 2025.

I struggled to get into this book, and it just got worse and less engaging throughout. I thought I would like it, but it was a disappointment; overrated.

My biggest issue was the fact it advertised itself as a history book, but it isn't really. I found the first few chapters to be the best - actual history and archaeology (aside from when it started talking about Peugeot for some reason).

The problem is, the genre was far too broad, and it wandered about a lot. There was not enough history, but far too much religion, philosophy, economics, capitalism etc. I just couldn't get into it, and I'm struggling to work out why. I think one of the reasons was that it was clearly written for an American market.

It somehow says so much and yet so little; it's very surface level; it asks more questions than it answers. Just full of a lot of waffle. You can imagine business bros talking about it to each other thinking they're so clever. It's just a bit cringe in places.

I found the section on war and peace very awkward. The author spends time saying we're living in a time of peace; that full out war is not possible anymore; that no country wants to, quote, "swallow up another". This book was translated in 2014 - the year Russia invaded Ukraine! Not to mention the uncomfortable fact that an Israeli author has the audacity to claim the above when his country is causing a genocide in Palestine. Absolute nonsense.

Lastly, a couple random things that confused me:
It weirdly mixes up metric with imperial, swaying between metres, feet, tons, fahrenheit etc.
I just found it an odd choice that the author used "her" every single time, instead of "they / their".
The book is SO pessimistic - it not a fun read in the slightest.

This was my 80th book finished in 2025.

What a tale! It's such a clever book, with so many fascinating and terrifying ideas; I really felt like I was trapped in Winston's shoes. Some of the ideas got lodged in my brain: Newspeak, the Ministry of Truth, doublethink, thought crime, Big Brother. Wow, wow, wow - so clever. 

It was so interesting to see Orwell "predict" the future, in terms of the Cold War and the KGB. Isn't it haunting that these dystopian ideas actually became a reality?

I have to say that the torture scenes were the most memorable and unsettling part of the whole book for me. So visceral, raw and uncensored. Terrifying.

I found the book very engaging, aside from when Winston read "the book" about 3/5ths in. This became a bit of a slog with a lot of info dumping, and I wish Orwell came up with a more clever way of getting the exposition across, like he did at the beginning. The pacing of the whole book got messed up here.

My biggest gripe was the way Orwell writes women. I don't think any woman is particularly well-written, and any mention or description of a woman is rather gross; it's a shame because I didn't really like Julia that much, even though I really wanted to. 

This is a very highly rated book for me. It will stay with me for a very long time. The end broke my heart.

This was my 3rd book finished in 2023.

It was interesting to read a history from an Arab source - something I've never read before.

It was very easy to read, I'd definitely consider reading the full works.

This was my 3rd and final book finished in 2021.

This was another book leant to me by slowloris, who had recently finished reading it herself. I finished it in one sitting during the Christmas period.

It was one of the most well-written science books I've read; very easy to understand. Got to love dinosaurs!

This was my 79th book finished in 2025.

It was like listening to an Alice Roberts documentary. Very soothing.

It was very engaging and covered all kinds of interesting history, archaeology and biology. I had no idea about palaeopathology or archaeogenomics, but they seem very interesting.

It had such a seemless mixture of archaeology and history. It was so refreshing to hear something which didn't solely rely on historical records.

I got slightly lost when it came to talking about proteins etc; biology was never my strong suit. Occasionally, the subject sat just a bit too long on one thing, and it dragged a little bit.

I'd definitely be interested in checking out her other books.

This was my 78th book finished in 2025.

It was alright, it really helped having "Marcus' Diary" included as well. I certainly learned more about the Celts than I did reading The Cut-Throat Celts book.