Started to worry about just how hot our world is going to get, and whether …
Review of 'Heat' on 'Goodreads'
5 stelle
A classic, still very instructive. A few parts have not aged well, but most of it remains prescient. For example, Monbiot gave us a simple message: there's no way we can make fast travel environmentally sustainable, we just have to give it up: we can't replace the growth in air travel with an equal growth in trains going at 300+ km/h. Some people still don't get it, even in the environmental movement. And this is just one example which reminded me of this book the other day.
In the Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers, legendary software expert …
Review of 'The clean coder' on 'Goodreads'
4 stelle
A good reference, mostly because it's so compact and well thought out. I've not managed to use it that much in practice, but it can be a good starting point for conversations or for self-improvement if you're confused about where you stand.
What does the good life—and the good society—look like in the 21st century?
A toxic …
Review of 'Out of the wreckage' on 'Goodreads'
4 stelle
Supremely important topic and I agree with Monbiot that we need a different way of communicating it, but in the end the proposals he makes are underwhelming and unsubstantiated.
IN A LIFE filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of …
Review of 'Becoming' on 'Goodreads'
2 stelle
Very well written and enjoyable, much better than Barack Obama's books. A much more realistic point of view. I can't say I know much more than before though.
We live in an era in which offensive speech is on the rise. The emergence …
Review of 'Hate' on 'Goodreads'
4 stelle
Nadine Strossen is very convincing and uniquely experienced in the topic. Before coming up with your own definitions of online harassment or whatnot, check this book for the well-known pitfalls.
The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy is a 1982 book by …
Review of 'The Ecology of Freedom' on 'Goodreads'
5 stelle
Bookchin attempts to rewrite the history of humanity to prove that hierarchical structures aren't "natural" or "necessary". Paleosociology is inevitably hard and dubious, but Bookchin doesn't pretend to have the truth in his pocket. Every page challenges us to think differently and consider what we could do together as a society.
Bookchin is very aphorism-friendly so it would be easy to extract a myriad slogans. I've wondered about this passage on ecofascism: «To lecture society about its "insatiable" appetites, as our resource-conscious environmentalists are wont to do, is precisely what the modern consumer is not prepared to hear. And to impoverish society with contrived shortage, economic dislocations, and material deprivation is certain to shift the mystification of needs over to a more sinister social ethos, the mystification of scarcity. This ethos–already crystalllized into the "life-boat ethic", "triage", and a new bourgeois imagery of "claw-and-fang" called /survivalism/–marks the first steps towards …
Bookchin attempts to rewrite the history of humanity to prove that hierarchical structures aren't "natural" or "necessary". Paleosociology is inevitably hard and dubious, but Bookchin doesn't pretend to have the truth in his pocket. Every page challenges us to think differently and consider what we could do together as a society.
Bookchin is very aphorism-friendly so it would be easy to extract a myriad slogans. I've wondered about this passage on ecofascism: «To lecture society about its "insatiable" appetites, as our resource-conscious environmentalists are wont to do, is precisely what the modern consumer is not prepared to hear. And to impoverish society with contrived shortage, economic dislocations, and material deprivation is certain to shift the mystification of needs over to a more sinister social ethos, the mystification of scarcity. This ethos–already crystalllized into the "life-boat ethic", "triage", and a new bourgeois imagery of "claw-and-fang" called /survivalism/–marks the first steps towards ecofascism».
I love that he decries false rationalism in a way that's compatible with Popper's view of irrationalism including mysticism and romaticism: «The reconstruction of reason as an interpretation of the world must begin with a review of the modern premises of rationalism–its commitment to insight through opposition» etc. (chapter 11, p. 302). A standard Popper critique of dialectic could fit just as well in place of the next paragraph. Actually when I read this book I had not read "Open Society" yet; now some passages are clearer to me. So I can recommend reading some Popper before this book to get most of it (especially when Plato is mentioned).
Un romanzo sull'impossibilità per il narratore di scrivere un romanzo, per questioni stilistiche e narrative che emergono dalla storia e da tutti gli "inserti meta-narrativi" (mi invento il nome tecnico, vabbè, insomma qualcosa meta-qualcos'altro). Intelligente e divertente, ma leggendolo ho avuto la forte impressione che tale tecnica fosse già superata cinquant'anni fa, insomma non stupisce piú nessuno, e resta senza scopo una certa pesantezza linguistica che quindi non appaga molto. Comunque val la pena di leggerlo, anche perché è corto. Qualche citazione qui: it.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tommaso_Landolfi#La_biere_du_pecheur
L'argomento è interessante, i dodici straordinari; ma da quel poco che ho letto il libro mi sembra troppo agiografico e poco storico (del resto Boatti è un giornalista), insomma non molto profondo, una semplice somma di biografie. Non ho tempo per finirlo, e non credo che lo riprenderò in prestito.
Personalmente l'ho trovato abbastanza ben scritto ma troppo melodrammatico per i miei gusti (per non parlare delle fastidiose intromissioni didascaliche pseudo-dissacranti del narratore): vista la lunghezza, ho preferito interrompere e passare a letture piú piacevoli.
