Reviews and Comments

Firstly, I want to mention that I didn't read this exact copy of the Tao Te Ching; I just found it to be better to leave the review here instead of fragmenting by finding the exact translation with the exact ISBN-number of my copy.

I've had an interest in Taoism for a while now. A thing that's been irritating me with the Western world is materialism and the ruthless obsession with the pursuit of more, bigger, better, instead of acceptance of what exists and of the current moment. The constant chase of consumerist activities used to pain me, and fighting off the temptation of them weren't exactly easy.

Due to this, taosim and taoistic philosophies gave a refreshing view on all of this, on society, and on how I can live my life in a more meaningful way. I finished this book about two months ago, but I still find myself thinking of different phrases and aphorisms from this book today. I'm definitely re-reading this one soon.

Something else than fascinated me when reading the Tao Te Ching is the use of a feminine pronoun. In Chinese, there are no gendered pronouns. The third person singular pronoun is only "ta", meaning that the translator can choose freely which pronoun to use. My translator chose to use a feminie pronoun, something I rarely see in philosophical and religious works. For me as a feminist, this was a really fun and enjoyable experience. One could argue that using a gender neutral pronoun such as "they" would be better, but my copy was translated before this was normalized.

All in all, I find this to be a great work. Reading it has not convinced me to become a taoist or a religious person, but the philosophies are definitely inspiring. I highly recommend everyone I know to read this!

While the book is interesting, it doesn't feel too original. Whereas books like Stolen Focus by Johann Hari include new nad interesting interviews with world-leading experts, this is mostly based on anecdotal stories which makes it less interesting (why would I want to be told about Kirk Hammet from a subjective viewpoint when I could have a journalist ask though-provoking questions to a world-leading scientist) and also less informative; it feels more like one is trying to repeat the same idea enough times for someone to believe that it is the objective truth.

However, this book is still a book worth reading and far from the worst of the self-help genre. There are many small notes I've made myself while reading this book, and I do have some main takeaways unlike other books where I struggle to find more than one minor takeaway.

I'd give it 3.5 but I can't seem to figure out how, so 3 it is.

While Fahrenheit 451 is a good book that has interesting parts, I feel as if it's more like a sketch than a complete book. This might come from me not having read fiction in a while and the book being 70 years old, but I couldn't get the sense that this was a literary work on the same level as other books I've read.

However, I still found this to be a good book. As someone who's interested in philosophy and social sciences, I was very intrigued by the topic of this book and it's dystopian nature. It has undoubtedly made me reflect more on how society works, how information in society works and how reading (in my opinion) makes us better people.

Johann Hari has managed to write a book which gives a look into some of the causes for what he quite excellently argues is an attention crisis, and how this attention crisis is affecting us as a species. The book has several interesting, intriguing and at times dystopian analyses but manages to end the book in an ultimately speaking hopeful way.

I highly recommend everyone I know to read this book, as it not only gives insight to why we as a species are becoming worse and worse at focusing, thinking deeply and becoming more mindless than mindful, but it also gives a general insight to what this does with us as a society and who it is that seemingly wants it to go this way.

If you are even just partly interested in the social sciences and psychology behind focus, behind social media, behind the ever increasing speeding up of everything in our society or just about why we find it so hard to be able to just sit on the bus without frantically scrolling on our phones, than this book is a must-read.

It is also worth noting that this is not a traditional self help book, like many might think because of the cover and title. It is more an analysis of what has gone wrong, why, how it can be changed, and why individual efforts aren't enough in this situation; while the book does give insight and tips that fit in the self-help genre (many that I'm using and will use as well), the book itself points more towards 'Society needs to change. Now.' than 'You are lazy and need to change.'

In this book, Mark Manson gives a different way to look at hope, morals, ethics and the world. After finishing his book "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck" and discovering this one for 50% off at my local book store, I couldn't not buy it.

Finishing this book has given me a somewhat new way to look at hope, success and given me a few more philosophical notions here and there and I believe it could do that for you too. This book is highly inspired by Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nitzche's work, but also has many other sources. I do really recommend reading every single footnote that there is. Maybe not go through the entire source of one quote, but at least read those where Manson has elaborated himself.

However, I cannot give this book a 5/5 stars review. While I feel Manson's book truly is inspiring and has given me new ways to look at the world, I am unable to overlook the corners that has been cut. I'm assuming Manson wanted this book to be a certain level of funny and highly understandable to your average Joe and in doing so, I believe Manson has left out certain nuances that I feel are important.

There are also footnotes where he directly contradicts what he has stated, such as the "This is most certainly an exaggeration" footnote to a sentence that is "This is not an exaggeration". Naturally, this is meant to prove a point and to humor readers, but I feel that this and other corner cuts here and there makes it hard for me to give it a full 5/5 review.

I'm not going to say much more than this, but I will undoubtedly recommend you to read this. Just keep in mind that this is a popular piece of nonfiction and not science or an academic paper.