Tag: Jared Diamond

Top Ten Favorite Non-Fiction of 2017

Published on by Anastasia26 Comments

As always, Top Ten Tuesday meme is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is:Top Ten Favorite Books of 2017.

I’m twisting this topic a little bit to best nonfiction I read this year because I don’t review enough of it…and these lists are only way to give out some recognition to these great authors.

1. Hunger:A Me­moir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

“So many years past being raped, I tell myself what happened is “in the past.” This is only partly true. In too many ways, the past is still with me. The past is written on my body. I carry it every single day. The past sometimes feels like it might kill me. It is a very heavy burden.”
― Roxane Gay, Hunger

2. Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich

“Show me a fantasy novel about Chernobyl–there isn’t one! Because reality is more fantastic.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

3. Underground by Haruki Murakami

“It was just that, no matter where I found myself, I felt like there was a hole inside me, with the wind rushing through. I never felt satisfied. From the outside you wouldn’t imagine I had any troubles.”
― Haruki Murakami, Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

4. A – Bomb Mayor: Warnings and Hope from Hiroshima by Shinzo Hamai

5. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

“It’s hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you’re going to float the fuck away.” — Roxanne Gay

6. Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel

“Some friends don’t understand this. They don’t understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you’re wonderful just the way you are. They don’t understand that I can’t remember anyone ever saying that to me. I am so demanding and difficult for my friends because I want to crumble and fall apart before them so that they will love me even though I am no fun, lying in bed, crying all the time, not moving. Depression is all about If you loved me you would.”  – Elizabeth Wurtzel

7. Kind, versprich mir dass du dich erschiesst by Florian Huber 

8. Guns, Germs And Steel by Jared Diamond

“In short, Europe’s colonization of Africa had nothing to do with differences between European and African peoples themselves, as white racists assume. Rather, it was due to accidents of geography and biogeography—in particular, to the continents’ different areas, axes, and suites of wild plant and animal species. That is, the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate.” — Jared Diamond

9. The Underground Girls of Kabdul by Jenny Nordberg

When one gender is so unwanted, so despised, and so suppressed in a place where daughters are expressly unwanted, perhaps both the body and the mind of a growing human can be expected to revolt against becoming a woman. And thus, perhaps, alter someone for good.” —  Jenny Nordberg

10. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

“The medical literature on the causes of food poisoning is full of euphemisms and dry scientific terms: coliform levels, aerobic plate counts, sorbitol, MacConkey agar, and so on. Behind them lies a simple explanation for why eating a hamburger can now make you seriously ill: There is shit in the meat.” —  Eric Schlosser

 

The Sunday Post #2: Je te pardonne

Published on by Anastasia5 Comments

SO it’s been an exciting week! And how is it July already?? Time flies! Beginning of the week slowed me down a bit as I was sick but I caught up with the reading. Books I’ve read this week:

The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg. Giving birth to a girl in Afghanistan is often mourned as misfortune.  In Afghanistan there is also a cultural practice called Bacha posh where some families without sons pick one of the daughters to dress, to live and to behave like a boy to avoid the embarrassment family would otherwise face. In this book Nordberg opens the topic for us. I personally can’t believe how much there is still wrong with this world.

I discovered Audible and listened to Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxanne Gay & read by Roxane Gay.

    “In yet another commercial, Oprah somberly says, “Inside every overweight woman is a woman she knows she can be.” This is a popular notion, the idea that the fat among us are carrying a thin woman inside. Each time I see this particular commercial, I think, I ate that thin woman and she was delicious but unsatisfying. And then I think about how fucked up it is to promote this idea that our truest selves are thin women hiding in our fat bodies like imposters, usurpers, illegitimates.”
― Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

Hunger was just heart-breaking, however it changed the way I think and reminded me that we always need to think of the why. Always. Our society needs to change. Fat shaming is wrong. Hunger was the best memoir I’ve read this year so I warmly recommend it.

Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff. Rothfuss described it as “Japanese Steampunk”, I think the description fits well, however for some reason I couldn’t get into this book. Tenth of December by George Saunders which was a collection of short stories. Some were disturbing, some had a dystopian sense to them but all in all I really enjoyed them all. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks. Book by Sacks I hadn’t yet read in which he described musical hallucinations among other.

So a total of: 5 books which means I’m behind my Goodreads challenge…again…  I’ve

also started listening to Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond read by Doug Ordunio. Audible said it’s 16 hours…so I guess I’ll be listening to this for some time.

“In short, Europe’s colonization of Africa had nothing to do with differences between European and African peoples themselves, as white racists assume. Rather, it was due to accidents of geography and biogeography—in particular, to the continents’ different areas, axes, and suites of wild plant and animal species. That is, the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate.” ― Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

On blog side, I’ve been rather lazy. I only managed with one post this week: https://readandsurvive.com/2017/06/27/best-nonfiction-ive-read-in-2017-so-far/

Me and my friend went to see Transformers: The Last Knight. Say hello to bad Optimus. I think it was an enjoyable movie and the effects were great as usual. However, Optimus Prime & Peter Cullen got very little screen time so I didn’t like that, on the other hand, there were lots of new Autobots and Dinobots were a good touch.

I’ve been exploring my new neighborhood and participated in Helsinki Pride 2017.

I accidentally found this song  when I was listening to one song and then Youtube kept playing songs by itself…Does that happen to you? Maître Gims’ voice is amazing! I think this song makes me think of all my past friendships and about people who weren’t loyal to me in the past or who threw my friendship away because of some other person they found more interesting at a time. I think the lyrics also reflect my thoughts. French is the language for songs like this :D

Tu m’as demandé pardon, j’t’ai repoussé (repoussé)
J’voulais qu’tu comprennes que je souffrais (je souffrais)
Mais t’as laissé ton odeur sur les draps (sur les draps)
J’donnerai tout pour être dans tes bras (dans tes bras)

How’s your week been?
//Anastasia

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer.