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Overview: 3.5/5 stars

This book talks about difficult themes in the history of Africa and then US, centered around discrimination and exploitation. The book follows a variety if people along the last three centuries that dealt with various elements of discrimination, with slavery being a central theme.

While the topic in interesting, the writing style felt mostly flat to me. The characters were human, but it felt most of them were objects of their own lives instead of subjects. It seems they suffered not only from the outside world but also a lack of inner development. That was true not only of the characters that had limited to no agency, but also of the ones that had freedom and took revolutionary actions: they all felt limited and fairly unengaging.

From the more academic perspective, it gives glimpses of philosophical debates in the history of African Americans. This was the but I personally enjoyed the most.

All in all, an okay book about an interesting and well-researched topic.

I’m looking for a book that would explain the ideologies that played into the creation and development of the European Union. I’m less interested in the practicalities. Do you have a suggestion?

My kid is crawling all over the place and learning to stand. He is little less than a year. What are some games I can start playing with him? What games did you play with your little one?

I’d love to read more old epic poems, but I don’t know where to start. I gave it a go at reading the Iliad, but dropped out at the Catalog of Ships. Even before that, I struggled with it and found it fairly boring. Do you have any advice? Are the Eddas more entertaining?

Politically, Napoleon divides the history of Europe in “before” and “after”. He grabbed the power in France after the Revolution with such skills that he had virtually no opposition. From there he conquered everything, from Egypt, to Russia and Spain. His fall was equally momentous. And then he did it again, leaving everyone confused and the political board of Europe forever reshuffled.

Victor Hugo is a man of that time, trying to make sense of all of this turmoil while mainly talking about people and their inner worlds. In Les Misérables he concentrated on the lowest of the low, poor people making bad choices.

At the time, it was believed that crimes had to be punished, but there was no hope for the criminal to be reinstated into society as a fully functioning member. Hugo makes the opposite claim: criminals are just good people in bad situations. And he talks about them.

While the length can scare readers off, I would encourage anyone to start it. Every page is a little masterpiece of human perception and empathy, with an author taking his time to fully build up not only stages but also souls.

By this I mean, a book you had to brace yourself to read, and you feel proud for having read. Did you enjoy the process of reading it?

Is it interesting characters? Or believable motivations? Maybe writing style? Is the world building?

And how likely are you to enjoy a book that doesn’t fit your own criteria?

A bit criticism to the Silmarillion is that the style is very dry and the plot is disconnected.

This is by design. The Silmarillion wanted to be the creating work of the UK mythology. As such, it mimicked the style of other mythological sagas: the Mabinogion most notably, the minor Homer, the Eddas. Part of the idea is to create a shared well-know scene from which other authors can draw to set their own works.

In some ways, it was incredibly successful: nowadays it’s impossible to talk about Elfs without referencing Tolkien’s in some ways.

I read Plainsong by Haruf some two years ago, and I was immediately enamored with it. All characters are so easily relatable and the whole story unfolds along a sweet melody. While bad and sad things happen, you still feel lulled by the background song and you know things are going to get solved. For any fan of “slice of life” and small stories.