Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari

I actually originally encountered this because I wanted to do Harari’s course on the history of humankind on Coursera or one of the other MOOC sites, and I just didn’t have the time. I hoped the book would be a good substitute, picked it up, and was promptly daunted by the size of it. That’s unfair to the book, though: it’s actually immensely readable. It treats time as a progression from physics to chemistry to biology to history, through Agricultural and Cognitive Revolutions through to Industrial ones: the story of the universe is at first told in the terms of physics, and then eventually using human eye witness accounts and evidence. It’s a fairly anthropocentric view, narrowing it down to our perspective on the past, but Harari acknowledges that.

Harari manages to be fairly even handed in discussing capitalism, communism, ideology, religion, and all those difficult topics. While sometimes I thought I could tell what his opinion on each one was, he was generally fair about the appeal even of ideologies which have failed in practice. It’s a weird mix of pessimism and optimism, really, because Harari mentions the declining rates of violence, the increasing rates of health, but also the flat rate of happiness. The fact that, for all that we do, humans don’t seem to be any happier than they were eight to eight hundred years ago.

I enjoyed it, and thought it was a solid and interesting overview of human history, and the potentials for a human future. The readability and clarity of the prose is definitely in its favour.

Rating: 5/5

The Rights of the Reader, Daniel Pennac

Obviously, in many ways this book isn’t applicable to me because I’m not a parent, educator, or even involved much with children at all. I sometimes see them in the library when I’m on duty, but otherwise they have one world and I have mine, and never the twain meet (thankfully, since I’m dreadful with children). It also doesn’t apply to child-me: I read voraciously, exhaustively, incessantly, and my parents really did have to wonder not how to get me to read, but how to stop me. So it’s difficult for me to understand the kids he’s talking about who had to be cautiously reintroduced to books. I’ve always been passionate about my books!

Still, Pennac’s passion for books is obvious and endearing, and he could certainly turn a phrase; if the original French was half as elegant as the English translation, it must’ve been good. I think the enthusiasm and tips here might well help a parent or teacher reinvolve kids with reading. And quite apart from that, he makes some good points for readers of any age: suggesting rights that any reader should have to read what they want, where they want, as much as they want, and talking about the fact that reading is something you make time for, rather than have time for. “By making time to read, like making time for love, we expand our time for living.” Yes.

So not aimed at me, but nonetheless an interesting and lively read, helped by Quentin Blake’s illustrations. And the rules are pertinent no matter who you are…:

1. The right not to read
2. The right to skip
3. The right not to finish a book
4. The right to re-read
5. The right to read anything
6. The right to “Bovary-ism,” a textually transmitted disease (the right to mistake a book for real life)
7. The right to read anywhere
8. The right to dip in
9. The right to read out loud
10. The right to be silent

Perfect.

Rating: 5/5