Olivier Vojetta's Blog: BUS RIDING BOOKS, page 4
September 14, 2014
‘A short history of England’ by Simon Jenkins
Below is the book review I wrote on the bus in August 2014…
Memories of what I learnt back at school are coming back. It took an overdose of names and dates dropping administered by this book. But what I found most interesting are the anecdotes that never make it into history books...
- 1337-1453: Hundred Years' War. The French used canons while archery was critical to the English, so much in fact that King Edward banned all other sports including football for his fellow Englishmen to solely concentrate on archery. However, what Edward did not prepare for is battlefield dysentery: the 'Black Death' reduced the English population from 5.5m to 4m, the largest drop in history.
- The book keeps referring to Shakespeare's 'deformation' of English history e.g. as in his work on Richard III (1452-1485). But what matters is that the darkness of the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth ('the greatest ruler in English history', 1533-1603) was illuminated by Shakespeare's dramatic genius. And his plays have been played in London theaters ever since.
- By 1730, there was a gin shop for every 11 dwellings in London. Gin was so cheap that you could get drunk for a penny and drop dead for two... until the 1736 Gin Act was voted and the sale of gin started being taxed.
- England's Second Hundred Years' War with France (1689-1815) was only over when Napoleon Bonaparte died on the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena in 1821. All up, war with France lasted 400 years, but this didn't prevent me getting the UK citizenship a few years ago. Revenge is a dish best served cold.
- Queen Victoria (1819-1901) and Albert enjoyed a matrimonial bliss, sharing their time between Windsor, Balmoral and Osbourne, on the Isle of Wight. Albert got a Swiss cottage constructed there... Swiss cottages blossomed around the country as a result, including one in London, near South Hampstead. I used to live in the area before heading for Australia and the oddity of a Swiss cottage in central London finally makes sense to me.
- 11/11/1918 is Armistice Day or 'Poppy Day', as named after the flowers that grew over the trenches, as if they were coloured by the blood of the Fallen.
- The UK refused to sign the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The country wanted to remain independent. But in 1963 and 1967, they wanted to join the party after all but this time, it was De Gaulle's turn to say 'NON'. The swinging sixties at their best...
- Come the 80 and 90's, and London was becoming more like New York, a city that never sleeps... helped by Thatcherism. Thatcher was relentless: she was going to bed late, rising early after 4 hours' sleep to head to Downing Street. The Tories were nicknamed the 'nasty party' for a reason, going as far as to say there was no such thing as 'society'. This is rather ironic because if England has been a success as a country, it's mostly because of the openness of English society as a whole.
- The 'Naughties' (2000-2009) were marked by the Blair style and the New Labour. But security became an obsession for 'Cool Britannia' after the terrorist attacks in London (July 2005). Later, the GFC officially started with the market crash in autumn 2008. And bankers joined politicians as the most unloved people, with uninterrupted banker bashing ever since. This is not surprising coming from a country which has often been at war with itself... 'If you are not at peace with your friends, be at war with them', the saying goes.
To conclude: this is a well documented book, with a political history expertly told. The only thing missing is passion, but maybe, just maybe this is by design, and to stay true to the English style. 'Would you like a cup of tea my dear?'.
Overall, I give this book a rating of 3 out of 5. It's not really literature, only a good school manual.
Memories of what I learnt back at school are coming back. It took an overdose of names and dates dropping administered by this book. But what I found most interesting are the anecdotes that never make it into history books...
- 1337-1453: Hundred Years' War. The French used canons while archery was critical to the English, so much in fact that King Edward banned all other sports including football for his fellow Englishmen to solely concentrate on archery. However, what Edward did not prepare for is battlefield dysentery: the 'Black Death' reduced the English population from 5.5m to 4m, the largest drop in history.
- The book keeps referring to Shakespeare's 'deformation' of English history e.g. as in his work on Richard III (1452-1485). But what matters is that the darkness of the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth ('the greatest ruler in English history', 1533-1603) was illuminated by Shakespeare's dramatic genius. And his plays have been played in London theaters ever since.
- By 1730, there was a gin shop for every 11 dwellings in London. Gin was so cheap that you could get drunk for a penny and drop dead for two... until the 1736 Gin Act was voted and the sale of gin started being taxed.
- England's Second Hundred Years' War with France (1689-1815) was only over when Napoleon Bonaparte died on the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena in 1821. All up, war with France lasted 400 years, but this didn't prevent me getting the UK citizenship a few years ago. Revenge is a dish best served cold.
- Queen Victoria (1819-1901) and Albert enjoyed a matrimonial bliss, sharing their time between Windsor, Balmoral and Osbourne, on the Isle of Wight. Albert got a Swiss cottage constructed there... Swiss cottages blossomed around the country as a result, including one in London, near South Hampstead. I used to live in the area before heading for Australia and the oddity of a Swiss cottage in central London finally makes sense to me.
- 11/11/1918 is Armistice Day or 'Poppy Day', as named after the flowers that grew over the trenches, as if they were coloured by the blood of the Fallen.
- The UK refused to sign the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The country wanted to remain independent. But in 1963 and 1967, they wanted to join the party after all but this time, it was De Gaulle's turn to say 'NON'. The swinging sixties at their best...
- Come the 80 and 90's, and London was becoming more like New York, a city that never sleeps... helped by Thatcherism. Thatcher was relentless: she was going to bed late, rising early after 4 hours' sleep to head to Downing Street. The Tories were nicknamed the 'nasty party' for a reason, going as far as to say there was no such thing as 'society'. This is rather ironic because if England has been a success as a country, it's mostly because of the openness of English society as a whole.
- The 'Naughties' (2000-2009) were marked by the Blair style and the New Labour. But security became an obsession for 'Cool Britannia' after the terrorist attacks in London (July 2005). Later, the GFC officially started with the market crash in autumn 2008. And bankers joined politicians as the most unloved people, with uninterrupted banker bashing ever since. This is not surprising coming from a country which has often been at war with itself... 'If you are not at peace with your friends, be at war with them', the saying goes.
To conclude: this is a well documented book, with a political history expertly told. The only thing missing is passion, but maybe, just maybe this is by design, and to stay true to the English style. 'Would you like a cup of tea my dear?'.
Overall, I give this book a rating of 3 out of 5. It's not really literature, only a good school manual.
‘David and Goliath’ by Malcolm Gladwell
Below is the book review I wrote on the bus in July 2014…
To be an underdog can be an advantage and Malcolm Gladwell illustrates the idea through real-life examples. He introduced the concept of the 'gift of opportunity' in an earlier book and this time around, he explains how to turn a handicap into an opportunity and how one accomplish the unthinkable despite the odds. In brief, the book is about the 'advantage of a disadvantage'.
I immediately thought of the Vietnam war. It was a mess for the US army although it was the Goliath of the times. The Vietnamese knew how to fight in the jungle better. I also thought of 17-year-old Michael Chang in that infamous Roland Garros final against Stefan Edberg in 1989 and maybe even more of his underarm serve against Ivan Lendl earlier on in the tournament. And how he managed to win a slam that was not supposed to be his. Remember that? Chang was David in all its splendour. People said it was not fair at the time; in fact, they were almost angry at Chang for not playing a conventional game of tennis...
If there was only one thing to take-away from Gladwell's book, it would be the author saying how much freedom there is in a disadvantage (the 'nothing to lose' attitude) and how much more one can achieve in a small pond compared to a big pond. He specifically used the example of Harvard where the bottom quartile of students (there is always one, even at prestigious schools!) feels demoralised and depressed at their relative underperformance. He goes on describing the large proportion of those failing to get a science degree at such prestigious universities. Of course, the bottom quartile is made of very smart people (they got in in the first place) but only the very best truly enjoy their academic journeys at Ivy League Universities, for they continue to thrive and outperform like they always did.
An extension of the discussion is that early adversity can pay off. This is just a fact-maybe a mere anecdote given the tiny size of the sample-but 12 out of the 44 presidents of the USA had suffered a parental loss in their early years. From Washington to Obama... What's more, Gary Cohn who overcame dyslexia, is now the President of Goldman Sachs.
Now, I have heard somewhere that half of the US Presidents are left-handed; does this mean they overcame this disadvantage as well? Sometimes, it is hard to say what is correlation and what is causation... This would potentially be my only criticism of the book: social sciences are not exact sciences like physics or maths! So it is hard to prove anything, especially with such a small and biased sample (44 US Presidents are definitely not statistically representative of the US population, let alone of the world!).
Malcolm Gladwell also wrote a book called Outliers, so one could think he keeps writing the same book over and over again. But no, this one is different... and quite a useful tool for the outsider that I am, to tell the truth.
To be an underdog can be an advantage and Malcolm Gladwell illustrates the idea through real-life examples. He introduced the concept of the 'gift of opportunity' in an earlier book and this time around, he explains how to turn a handicap into an opportunity and how one accomplish the unthinkable despite the odds. In brief, the book is about the 'advantage of a disadvantage'.
I immediately thought of the Vietnam war. It was a mess for the US army although it was the Goliath of the times. The Vietnamese knew how to fight in the jungle better. I also thought of 17-year-old Michael Chang in that infamous Roland Garros final against Stefan Edberg in 1989 and maybe even more of his underarm serve against Ivan Lendl earlier on in the tournament. And how he managed to win a slam that was not supposed to be his. Remember that? Chang was David in all its splendour. People said it was not fair at the time; in fact, they were almost angry at Chang for not playing a conventional game of tennis...
If there was only one thing to take-away from Gladwell's book, it would be the author saying how much freedom there is in a disadvantage (the 'nothing to lose' attitude) and how much more one can achieve in a small pond compared to a big pond. He specifically used the example of Harvard where the bottom quartile of students (there is always one, even at prestigious schools!) feels demoralised and depressed at their relative underperformance. He goes on describing the large proportion of those failing to get a science degree at such prestigious universities. Of course, the bottom quartile is made of very smart people (they got in in the first place) but only the very best truly enjoy their academic journeys at Ivy League Universities, for they continue to thrive and outperform like they always did.
An extension of the discussion is that early adversity can pay off. This is just a fact-maybe a mere anecdote given the tiny size of the sample-but 12 out of the 44 presidents of the USA had suffered a parental loss in their early years. From Washington to Obama... What's more, Gary Cohn who overcame dyslexia, is now the President of Goldman Sachs.
Now, I have heard somewhere that half of the US Presidents are left-handed; does this mean they overcame this disadvantage as well? Sometimes, it is hard to say what is correlation and what is causation... This would potentially be my only criticism of the book: social sciences are not exact sciences like physics or maths! So it is hard to prove anything, especially with such a small and biased sample (44 US Presidents are definitely not statistically representative of the US population, let alone of the world!).
Malcolm Gladwell also wrote a book called Outliers, so one could think he keeps writing the same book over and over again. But no, this one is different... and quite a useful tool for the outsider that I am, to tell the truth.
‘The Fry Chronicles’ by Stephen Fry
Below is the book review I wrote on the bus in April 2014…
I just finished this audio book and what I perhaps liked the most is Stephen Fry's British accent, together with his outstanding elocution. This brought me straight back to my London days from the bus to and from work in Sydney, when I listened to the book. It was also a great 'read' for the things you learn along the way, e.g. 1) the mechanics of the inner creative circles at universities such as Cambridge, which Fry attended and 2) the unlikely combination of being all at the same time 'gay for 90%', a humanist who can't sing at all and someone with a severe chocolate addiction (among many others).
More anecdotally, Fry had his first ever movie role in Charriots of Fire (1981) and met Rowan Atkinson during his student days while Mr Bean attended Oxford.
My only serious criticism of the book is that it abruptly stops at the time when Fry turns 30. Yes, it was fascinating to hear about Fry's troubled teenage years followed by his roaring twenties, but I did not quite know what to think of the ending: 'The later part of my life will be the object of another book' or something along these lines, pompuously accompanied by some classical music. Perhaps a commercial move dictated by the publishing house, perhaps not. A very good book nonetheless for all lovers of English humour and lifestyle.
I just finished this audio book and what I perhaps liked the most is Stephen Fry's British accent, together with his outstanding elocution. This brought me straight back to my London days from the bus to and from work in Sydney, when I listened to the book. It was also a great 'read' for the things you learn along the way, e.g. 1) the mechanics of the inner creative circles at universities such as Cambridge, which Fry attended and 2) the unlikely combination of being all at the same time 'gay for 90%', a humanist who can't sing at all and someone with a severe chocolate addiction (among many others).
More anecdotally, Fry had his first ever movie role in Charriots of Fire (1981) and met Rowan Atkinson during his student days while Mr Bean attended Oxford.
My only serious criticism of the book is that it abruptly stops at the time when Fry turns 30. Yes, it was fascinating to hear about Fry's troubled teenage years followed by his roaring twenties, but I did not quite know what to think of the ending: 'The later part of my life will be the object of another book' or something along these lines, pompuously accompanied by some classical music. Perhaps a commercial move dictated by the publishing house, perhaps not. A very good book nonetheless for all lovers of English humour and lifestyle.
‘The Bride Stripped Bare’ by Nikki Gemmel
Below is the book review I wrote on the bus in March 2014…
Just finished this book and I did not like it at all. It was recommended to me on the basis that it was 'an interesting book on marriage and sex, by an intriguing Australian author'. Well, the 100+ lessons contained in the book started wearing me out at lesson #5... But I never put a book down before finishing it so I reluctantly kept on reading. The book is flawed in many respects and so is the author's exploration of modern sexuality in my view. The only thing sort of saving the book in the end is the strong bond between the husband - by far the 'best' character among a legion of shallow individuals - and his newborn son.
Just finished this book and I did not like it at all. It was recommended to me on the basis that it was 'an interesting book on marriage and sex, by an intriguing Australian author'. Well, the 100+ lessons contained in the book started wearing me out at lesson #5... But I never put a book down before finishing it so I reluctantly kept on reading. The book is flawed in many respects and so is the author's exploration of modern sexuality in my view. The only thing sort of saving the book in the end is the strong bond between the husband - by far the 'best' character among a legion of shallow individuals - and his newborn son.
‘On Writing’ by Stephen King
Below is the book review I wrote on the bus in March 2014…
Just finished this book, a great read. Stephen King's short book on writing is both a memoir and a masterclass. Taking you through his childhood and teens, King explains what made him a writer, how he first came to be published, and what kept him at it over all these years. Overcoming poverty, drug addiction, and eventually a car crash in 1999 that nearly ended his writing career, King shows us his unique life experiences and interests, but more importantly, just what makes writing work, in his opinion. As one the greatest story tellers ever, he has good reasons to believe in his skills!
Just finished this book, a great read. Stephen King's short book on writing is both a memoir and a masterclass. Taking you through his childhood and teens, King explains what made him a writer, how he first came to be published, and what kept him at it over all these years. Overcoming poverty, drug addiction, and eventually a car crash in 1999 that nearly ended his writing career, King shows us his unique life experiences and interests, but more importantly, just what makes writing work, in his opinion. As one the greatest story tellers ever, he has good reasons to believe in his skills!
BUS RIDING BOOKS
Everyday I take the bus.
Everyday I read books.
Everyday I write about them.
Everyday I live through them.
Everyday I read books.
Everyday I write about them.
Everyday I live through them.
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