User Profile

Jayp

jayp@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 months, 1 week ago

I love to read but many of the books I 'read' these days are audio books because of how much I travel for work. My reading habits are a bit chaotic, and it seems I either binge a book in a couple weeks or take years of stopping and starting. I love to learn about and read history, science fiction, biographies, essays, politics, philosophy, popular science, and more.

I consider the day I acquire a book to be when I start reading it.

I love the concept of Bookyrm, and after tracking my reading in spreadsheets for the past 5 years I have now moved it all to Bookwyrm!

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2023 Reading Goal

40% complete! Jayp has read 8 of 20 books.

The retreat of western liberalism (2017) 4 stars

In his widely acclaimed book Time to Start Thinking, Financial Times chief US columnist and …

The first section was good in that it was thought provoking. The rest of the book feels dated, considering the events of the past 6 years.

Overall a depressing book that dives into topics that were, and still are, important to discuss after the rise of the authoritarian right in the west.

The Dawn of Everything (Hardcover, 2021, Signal) 4 stars

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike--either free and equal …

I enjoyed the book but I'm not entirely sure what to think of it. The authors spend a lot of time saying how wrong mainstream anthropology is but frequently don't back up their assertions. They will present evidence that could have many interpretations and then weave in their opinion as the best conclusion without any reason except that it could be true. It feels like the authors read about Kandiaronk and built the rest of the book on this indigenous critique of the west.

Their main points are does society actually have to be the way it is, and has it always been this way? Even if some of their conclusions about specific events are wrong it made me think, and that makes it a good book.