vikingvisuals's reviews
62 reviews

This is a truly well thought out and researched book, taking all readers on a unique yet interconnected journey of the "River Kings" through archaeological evidence.

Cat manages to make her research (as well as the research of countless other archaeologists and scholars) and writing accessible to everyone.

This book also helped me to even further appreciate the work that has been carried out and the vast amount of effort that goes in to our understanding of the past.

Anyone interested in history, archaeology, especially in regards to the Vikings, should read this book.

I agree with other reviews that this book seems to target a specific audience. It starts off simple enough for a wide audience but with each chapter ramps up so quickly and briefly describing abstract concepts that it becomes hard to follow. Even for someone like myself with a great interest (but admitted lack of true mathematical/scientific understanding) in cosmology it was quite hard to follow one concept to the next.

Having said that if you are able to push through it, there is lots of truly interesting information. This newer edition provides also a appendix to update some of the ideas expressed in the later chapters and add new information regarding dark matter.

The book truly is brief: in a little over 200 pages practically the whole history of physics is presented. Personally I think that is what makes the book a little more challenging than one would initially expect.

Unfortunately the particular edition I was reading also made some illustrations or photos nearly impossible to understand or see given the black ink on rough paper. Perhaps other editions do not have this same problem.

I have a soft spot in my heart for anything Carl Sagan writes. "Cosmos" was the book that made my interest in science and space become a fervent passion. The writing in this book is no less engaging.

Multiple topics are tackled and given extremely fair treatment, even the topic of skepticism itself. The book is a journey into how people can mislead themselves and how science is an extremely important tool to steer clear of such folly.

When dealing with pseudoscience Carl Sagan is careful not to just call out the bullshit but to try and understand where these misguided beliefs come from and how they can better be combated in the future. For example he looks at the education system in the US compared to other nations and pleads for more general understanding of basic scientific concepts and the need for encouraging a sense of curiosity and wonder over brainless memorization of facts for passing exams.

There are so many beautiful passages in this book. It truly is a wonderful experience reading his words and taking on his lessons. I envy all students who got to sit in one of his classes. Highly recommend this book.

Persönlich für mich kann ich den Erfolg des Buches nicht ganz nachvollziehen. Ich kann jedoch verstehen, dass der Inhalt für manche Leute doch hilfreich sein kann.

Immerhin habe ich "nur" eine Stunde dafür gebraucht, aber für mich was es ziemlich oberflächlich und nicht wirklich inspiriert. Als ich am Ende auf der letzten Seite gesehen habe, dass der Autor Seminaren und Workshops verkauft, musste ich lachen. Will er uns auch nur Sachen verkaufen, die für unser Leben nur ablenken und nicht so wichtig sind? ;-) Unglaublich.

I read about this book in a thread to an article talking about the Khmer Rogue uprising and the killing fields of Cambodia and immediately purchased it. I did not read any details about the book but just wanted to read more from a survivor's perspective. What initially I thought would be more of a retelling of her experience through her adult self ended up being a very wonderful narration through her experience as a child before, during, and after the atrocities committed under the rule of Pol Pot.

This writing style makes the story even more visceral and real. I knew only little information about this historical event and found it extremely informative to learn more through this perspective. I could relate to the childlike ignorance she experienced when the soldiers first arrived and evacuated everyone from the city. Although the book does not provide detailed information about how everything came to be and what all happened outside of her personal experience, it provides invaluable information. I am glad that it is such a personal story, it touched me deeply and has inspired me to learn even more about the stories and experiences of others.

Truly recommend reading this book, regardless of your understanding of the history.

Meine Frau hat mir letztes Jahr dieses Buch geschenkt und ich war anhand des Titels und "für Fjord-geschrittene" etwas skeptisch... Zum Glück war ich etwas voreilig: das Buch war selbst für mich als Skandinavistik-Absolvent sehr informativ.

Die Autorin beschreibt die Besonderheiten, Traditionen, und und und von Norwegen anhand ihre Reise durch Norwegen als freiberufliche Journalistin. Sie besucht dabei nicht nur weltbekannte Festivals oder die Verleihung des Friedensnobelpreises, sondern besucht auch abgelegenen Orten und erzählt von ihrer Erfahrungen und Gesprächen, die wertvolle Einblicke in das Leben der Norweger geben.

Ich fand es eine ziemlich gute Mischung zwischen "Geschichte von Norwegen" und "aktuelle Ereignisse und Politik". Da sie mehrere Events besucht und mit verschiedenen Leuten spricht, wird man nicht gelangweilt von reinen "Fakten" über Norwegen, die jeder leicht und schnell online nachschlagen kann.

Was ich auf jeden Fall betonen möchte: selbst wenn man in dem Buch bestimmt mehrere Tipps für einen Besuch in Norwegen finden kann, geht es hier tatsächlich wie auf dem Cover steht eher um die Lebensart. Wer sich also nicht nur für Tipps für die nächste Norwegen-Reisen, sondern allgemein für Norwegen und die Norweger selbst interessiert, würde mit was anderem sicherlich besser bedient.

I've always been a huge fan of Stephen Fry as an actor and activist, now after reading this I am also a huge fan of him as an author.

This book helps bring the tellings of Greek mythology to a more modern age. Although he uses sources both ancient and modern in his research, he makes it clear that mythology is not a set true history but a collection of stories that have changed and been reworked from one ancient text to the next. In this rendition Stephen Fry adds a good amount of humor, especially when dealing with dialogue amongst the gods and mortals.

What I loved was not only these stories but also his frequent mention of how these stories account for various aspects of our very language today. Every page I felt like I was gaining a new bit of knowledge along with the mythological stories.

I will have to read this again in the future, as with so many names and tales it is easy to get lost and forget all the connections and relationships.

There are a few things I enjoyed about the book: It emphasizes the importance of consistency and how even the smallest steps count towards the habit. This is something I've been applying to my own life even before reading the book and can concur that it is much better to do a few minutes of something you are trying to start/change/improve than to do one long session every so often.

I think for the most part the ideas are pretty decent and the structure was easy to follow. I appreciated that he didn't put so much importance on "goals" and mentioned that habits are neither good nor bad (which I appreciated, since I get annoyed by value judgements being placed on every aspect of life), however it annoyed me that throughout the rest of the book "good habits, bad habits" were consistently a part of the language, which to me goes a bit against some of the very ideas he was putting out about the importance of how we frame our language when habit forming plays a huge role in our identity.

For me the book suffers the same sort of issues that virtually all self help books do: examples are always taken from people who are high achievers. It's nice to have examples of how certain behaviors pay off, but that doesn't really help truly illustrate effectiveness of his strategies, more just him cherry picking examples that help pay into his framing of habit building.

I also think lots of the examples and advice are not super helpful for neurodivergent individuals and apply/are more beneficial for neurotypical people.

Personally I am a sucker for research, so when people are trying to convince me to something, it helps to see actual studies that back it up, however here most of what was brought up was mostly related to theory or just anecdotal evidence.

On that note I also really hate the lack of proper notation. Citations are never marked where given in the book, so you have to guess the sentence you were interested in seeing more citations on actually even is listed in the back of the book. When footnotes are used, it's generally just to links on the author's own website, which to me is a bit annoying. I know it's typical for self help author's to also sell a whole mindset for their living, but it always puts me off.

All in all the book is decent enough, even if to me a bit overrated. The ideas are simple enough to follow and have potential to be very helpful, however I felt lots of the book was filler, of which personally more beneficial filler could have been given instead (more examples for wider ranges of habits than the usual "lose weight, stop smoking"). The actual anecdotes to me didn't really add much.

Ich habe dieses Buch gekauft, weil ich Isländisch lernen wollte. Es gibt nicht so viele Bücher, mit denen man Isländisch lernen kann und deshalb dachte ich, dass ich eine gute Entscheidung getroffen habe. Dann habe ich das Buch bekommen und bemerkt, dass es tatsächlich nicht für Erwerb der Isländischen Sprache geeignet war (zumindest nicht im groberen Sinn) und sondern eher ein Begleitbuch ist. Man wird überhaupt keine Alltagssprache lernen oder einfache Audrücke wie "wie heißt du?" oder "wie geht es dir?" lernen: dafür braucht man ein ganz anderes Buch.

Auch wenn der Titel erst ein bisschen irreführend ist, ist das Buch trotzdem ein wunderbares Hilfsmittel, um Isländisch besser zu beherrschen. Es gibt sehr detaillierte Beschreibungen über die verschiedenen grammatischen Regeln, Syntax, usw. der isländischen Sprache. Ich würde aber trotzdem sagen, dass die Übungen eher schwer sind ohne ein bisschen Vorkenntnis. Der Text sagt schon, dass man keine Vorkenntnis braucht, aber die Art von lehren, das dieses Buch anbietet, hilft nicht ganz so viel beim Spracherwerb (nach meiner Meinung).

Man kann diese Tatsache besonders bemerken, wenn man die Begleit-CD kauft. Die "Aussprache und Grammatikübungen" sind nicht so hilfreich, denn die Aufnahmen sind so unglaublich schnell ausgesprochen. Isländisch ist schon eine schwierige Sprache und wenn man ein Begleitbuch kauft, um es besser zu lernen, könnte man annehmen, dass man die schnelle Aussprache einer Muttersprachler nicht so gut verstehen würde. Dementsprechend finde ich die CD nur nützlich, wenn man schon ziemlich viel Hörübungen in Isländisch gemacht hat: sonst sind die für Anfänger und auch Leute aus der mittleren Stufe überhaupt nicht so hilfreich.