Reviews and Comments

This book is meant to provoke thoughts on current important issues (according to Harari). And it succeeds very well in it. It didn't feel like having too much of an agenda behind it (except provoking thought and helping understand the issues) even if it discusses issues like immigration, terrorism, religion, nationalism, etc. which seem to be difficult to discuss without passions getting in the way. But Harari discusses many of these things through use of the concept of stories people believe in, which for me at least was a great way to understand (not accept) stories that are pretty much complete opposites of the stories I believe in. The very last chapter on meditation, which would have been (for me personally) better if the meditation would have been a short side story and the chapter would have been more about observation and clarity, of which it did have a good lesson once I got past the praising of the meditation method Harari himself uses.

My problem with Greek Mythology has always been so many names and not getting the full story but just knowing snippets from here and there. Of course it's not Stephen Fry's fault that the subject matter is difficult, but I still kind of suffered with so many names and characters involved and the beginning of the book was almost like a list of names. Still, Stephen's way of telling the myths with funny remarks and connections to modern language was informative and at the same time entertaining. And "reading" this as an audiobook there was the added bonus of narration by Stephen Fry himself, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I somehow found the book to lack consistency, though, with some myths presented in an almost serious way and others presented in a funny (in the sense of British humor) way. But it had to be good anyway to keep me interested for all those hours, which nothing written about Greek mythology has accomplished so far previously despite the fact that there are very captivating stories.

I'm a bit torn on reviewing this book into stars, as it depends on what the expectations are. I have a huge mancrush on Ross Edgley - I mean, who wouldn't have. He has done amazing things and the stories in the book are pure gold which alone would warrant a pure five star review. As some reviewers have said, the nutrition and training parts remain a bit thin, but that's to be expected already based on the subtitle of the book. You simply cannot expect to get a very deep understanding of everything in one book, but that is not really the point of the book either. The point really is to make the reader think about fitness by giving good foundations and some more specific advise on developing different attributes and intentionally leave the peaks of the pyramids that are built on these foundations open, as our knowledge is ever evolving. The basic truths less. The same applies to the nutrition aspect of the book, which, I think remained somewhat thinner than the training part in practical terms. Although the main take home is that even the author came to the same end result with three very different diets (although this word is frowned upon).

In the end I like the fact that the bushido of the book that closes the book includes very sound advise, especially on the fact that you are (or should be) the best expert in yourself and that you should be sceptical about everything including the book itself.

After all this appraisal one might wonder why it is not a five star review and I really don't have a clear answer to that. I loved the book, but when I finished it, there remained a feeling that it was lacking. I don't know what, but something.

I guess it's four stars instead of five, because I really wanted more. Maybe even a promise that there will be sequels that go deeper into the subjects would have sufficed and if they would appear from somewhere, I might change my mind and rate this as a five star foundation book for everything else.