Three books

An emotional book about shame, a historical book about Constantinople and an interesting take on prehistory (and society).

 

 

Brene Brown has a world famous Ted talk, though I must admit I didn't really understand it back in 2010. But when a beautiful South American lady gives you a book, then you read it. I read this in the summer of 2019 I think, before Covid-19.

This book about vulnerability, about shame, gave me a lot of insight in human behaviour, including my own. I did not realise how important shame was in life. Thank you Brown for writing this.

 

Lost to the West was upvoted on Hackernews as an interesting read. I was not disappointed. The book is about the East Roman Empire, on which we did not spend much time in school. We studied Egypt, Greece and Rome in detail, but only the Western part of Rome until the split in East and West Roman Empires. School only mentioned that the Eastern Empire lasted for 11 centuries, but that was it.

Some people may find this book with 1100 year history of emperors boring, there is a lot of repetition, but the message is intriguing. Constantinople, now Istanbul, and sometimes called Byzantium, really did shape Western Europe. This empire is at least as important as the Greeks and the (West)Romans to the current society in Europe.

The Sapiens book has been recommended to me by several people. I like prehistory a lot, it's my favorite time period. The book is interesting, and really easy to read, but is it science? I don't know. It's a good book though!