Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps by Kelly Williams Brown (Review)

Title: Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps

Author: Kelly Williams Brown

First Published: 2013

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Rating: ★★★★☆

If you are an adult, I bet that sometimes (or often as in my case) you lament the amount of shit you have to take care of on a daily basis. Remember how easy it was when you were a kid? You do your homework, help about the house, read a poem... And this is enough for people to accept you as an accomplished human being. Not so easy now, not so easy! 

On the other hand, as Kelly Williams Brow rightly points out, the feeling of accomplishment after you've nailed a complicated adult situation is worth straining your will. From house maintenance to job interviews to handling a breakup - Adulting covers a lot of issues that you have no idea about until they manifest themselves in your live and you're like WHAT?

The book is a bit too US centered so you may just skip the tax returns and retirement plans is they don't apply to you, but the general idea is still valid - you should totally take care of this shit or else it will take care of your undoing. Overall, after reading this I don't feel overwhelmed, rather reassured. I mean, it's totally doable, so chances are I can manage too.

In my book: An encouraging read for those who despair over dish washing, car maintenance or handling social events with grace.

Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou (Review)

Title: Mom & Me & Mom
Author: Maya Angelou
First published:  2013
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Rating: ★★☆☆☆

This is the last pick for Our Shared Shelf reading group organized by Emma Watson. I've enjoyed reading along with the community because it has made me pick a lot of books that I wouldn't even consider reading otherwise. That said, it was a 50/50 hit/miss for me: some books I loved and some hated, but it was a great journey nevertheless.

Mom & Me & Mom was one of the books I didn't enjoy. The writing is overly simplistic and disconnected - jumping from story to story skipping whole years. A lot of stuff got glossed over - like, who mentions being raped in childhood and then just goes further without elaborating?? It's kinda important, you know?

I'm aware that Angelou has other autobiographies and perhaps for readers who are familiar with them or who at least know who she is, the book would have made more sense. I have never heard about Angelou before and I still feel like I don't know her, even after reading her autobiography. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that's how autobiographies SHOULD work.

In my book: A confusing read.

Lectures on Russian Literature by Vladimir Nabokov (Review)

Title: Lectures on Russian Literature
Author: Vladimir Nabokov
First published: 1981
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Rating: ★★★★☆

The great Russian-American writer lectured on Western and Russian literature at Cornell University in the middle of the 20th century. His lectures were unlike any other professor's lectures, as he was fond of reading big chunks aloud, paying a lot of attention to minor details instead of "big ideas". For him structural beauty was very important, and his analyses are really outstanding. His lectures were published later and in spite of some discontinuity arising from the format in which they were initially presented, they are very enjoyable to read.

What I liked most about the book is that Nabokov is very irreverent towards "the great luminaries of literature". He is not in awe of them in the least and he has every right not to be. If he thinks that an author has a structural problem somewhere in a story or that an author has left some loose ends, he says it! On the subject of authors he doesn't like he can sometimes be a little too rough, but as I've said, he has every right to it, so it doesn't irritate me as a reader. Anyway, this is a welcome change from the ecstatic literature teachers at school.

I was very pleased that on some matters Nabokov and I totally agree. For example that Dostoyevsky is too obsessed with mental disorders, and unnecessary so! Nabokov even counts the diagnoses through all Dostoyevsky's books. Yes, he's not of a good opinion of him. Another victim of Nabokov's merciless wit is Gorky, and again I completely agree! Gogol, Chekhov and Tolstoy, on the other hand, get a lot of love. I'd recommend Nabokov's commentary to Anna Karenina to everybody reading the book, as he makes it very easy to imagine how things happened. He goes into everything from Oblonsky's timetable to how the sitting in the trains was organized at the time. Nabokov's take on Gogol is also very fresh and interesting.

It's not necessary to read ALL of the mentioned works to enjoy this book, only the main ones which get the most attention. It can be a good idea to have these lectures on your shelf and read a corresponding lecture after finishing the book it is about.

In my book: 
A great read for everybody interested in Russian literature

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli (Review)

Title: The Prince
Author: Niccolò Machiavelli
First published: 1532
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Rating: ★★★☆☆

I don't know why I picked The Prince in the first place: I'm not a fan of political writing or non-fiction, but the mood stroke me and I downloaded it. The book is very short and, although it was written in the 16th century, very accessible. It's essentially a self-help for rulers, stating what are the best ways to gain and retain power, how to approach different problems and to manage different social strata of the kingdom.

Machiavelli is unscrupulous and ruthless, but his methods seem to be really effective. Anyway, what do a hundred dozen dead people mean if it leads to a greater prosperity of the kingdom? :) It is difficult to support his views from the modern point of view, but it's very interesting to explore his reasoning anyway.

Machiavelli was writing The Prince at the time when Italy didn't have a common ruler, and powerful families, the Pope and foreign kings all competed for influence in different regions. Along with the classical examples taken from Roman history Machivelli also uses contemporary situation to explain his views, which makes the book a great source of historical information. Luckily, I was a bit acquainted with Italian politics of the time (thanks to The Borgias! -_-), so it was much easier for me to make sense of what was being referred to. But no previous knowledge is necessary to be able to enjoy the book. (Although if you go and binge-watch The Borgias, you will not regret it!)

In my book:
An essential classic, especially if you are interested in history, philosophy and politics.

Kouzelné zrcadlo literatury Jaroslava Blažkeho

Title: Kouzelné zrcadlo literatury I
Author: Jaroslav Blažke
First published: 1998
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Rating: ★★★★☆

První díl učebnice “Kouzelné zrcadlo literatury” Jaroslava Blažkeho obsahuje informace o písemných památkách od začátku písemnictví do konce osvícenství. Chronologicky postupující kniha poskytuje krátkou informaci o významných autorech této doby a o jejich spisech. Hlavní výhodou této učebnice je, že obsahuje také krátké úryvky některých děl, což je perfektní pro seznámení se se stylem autora.

Hlavně jsem v této učebnici hledala informace o českých autorech, o kterých asi nic nevím. Po přečtení jsem si udělala na památku krátký seznam zajímavých titulů.

Středověk

1. Konstantin-Cyril a Metoděj

• Překlad Bible do Staroslověnštiny (9. stol.)
• Proglas - nejstarší slovanská báseň (9. stol.)

2. Kosmas

• Kronika česká (12. stol.) - psána latinou, skládá se ze tří knih

3. Karel IV.

• Majestas Carolina (1353) - návrh zemského zákoníku
• Vita Caroli (1371) - vlastní životopis 

4. Jan Hus

• De ecclesia / O církvi (1413)
• De orthographia Bohemica (1410) - traktát o českém pravopise

Český Humanismus

1. Jan Blahoslav

• Gramatika česká (1571)

2. Václav Hájek z Libočan

• Kronika česká (1541)

3. Oldřich Prefát z Vlkanova

• Cesta z Prahy do Benátek (1563) - cestopis

Evropské Baroko

1. Jan Ámos Komenský

• Didactica to jest Umění umělého vyučování (1657) - pedagogický spis
• Labyrint světa a ráj srdce (1631) - alegorický spis

2. Bedřich Bridel

• Co Bůh? Člověk? (1658) - skladba

3. Bohuslav Balbín

• Rozmanitosti z historie Království českého (1687) - obrovská encyklopedie
• Obrana jazyka slovanského, zvláště českého (1672)
• Nástin humanitních disciplin (1666) - učebnice

Osvícenství

1. Josef Dobrovský

• Dějiny české řeči a literatury (1792)
• Českých přísloví sbírka (1804)

Some Philosophy: Kant and Rousseau

I've taken up a new Coursera course called The Modern and the Postmodern. I'm not sure if I like it yet, there's too much philosophy and nothing about modernity so far, but I've decided I'll give it a chance. The first two weeks were dedicated to Kant and Rousseau, and as I'm still very bad at reading philosophical works, I'll write just short reviews here.

Immanuel Kant

Title: An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
Author: Immanuel Kant
First published: 1784
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Rating: ★★★★☆

Kant sees enlightenment as a willing "growing up" of a man. He must stop being afraid of thinking by himself and start doing it. But Kant doesn't think that independent thinking is always appropriate. He divides everybody's lives into two parts: private, including his work and family life, and public, which means written articles or public speeches. And an opinion is not out of place in public life, whereas in everyday life people must follow rules. The most important is that these rules must be the ones consciously imposed by men on themselves.

In my book:
Overall, Kant seems to be a reasonable guy, who steers a middle course which doesn't look either dangerous or impossible.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Title: Discourse on the Arts and Sciences

Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

First published: 1750

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Rating: ★★☆☆☆

In his first discourse, Rousseau tries to prove that the development of arts and sciences doesn't make people better or happier and isn't good for the nation as a whole. His argument can be summarized as this: Sparta was better than Athens. He references a lot of research works of others and brings to the reader's attention some very selective historical facts that support his idea, but on the whole his point is so contrary to what we all, I assume, believe now that it's really hard to relate to his writing.

Title: Discourse on the Origins of Inequality

Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

First published: 1754

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Rating: ★★☆☆☆

The second discourse is much longer than the first one, and I think this length is quite unnecessary. Rousseau tries to trace the human history to pre-society times to explain how this society appeared. I expected a lot from this work, because the topic is really interesting, but I got nothing except vague suppositions. I guess much less was known then than is known now about the early history of humankind, but I still got the feeling that Rousseau is not trying to get to the core of the problem but only wants to support his ideas about the incompetence of the state and the wonderfulness of the barbaric existence.

In my book:

I find it really difficult to get Rousseau not only because of his rather controversial and disturbing ideas, but also because of a very abundant writing style. What I mean is that it is not at all concise and sometimes is not very structured, and has such a lot of references to other works, that I spent half of the time reading commentary. It is tiring. 

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

Title: Three Cups of Tea
Authors: Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin
First published: 2006
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Mortenson was an alpinist, who wanted to conquer K2, the killer mountain in Himalayas. He failed and got lost while descending. People form a poor mountainous village helped him to recover and gave him food and shelter. He promised to build a school for them, as the children were studying in the open air in any weather. The problem was that back in USA he worked as a nurse and didn't even have money to rent a flat. So living in his car and working night shifts, he started his campaign to find money for the school.

It is a very powerful story of how a man can change the world with his enthusiasm only. Mortensen started with a bridge and a school for the village where he lived after the descent from K2, but he soon realized that there are hundreds of villages in need of a school, and so his charity foundation grew. During the war with Taliban he also realized that schools can be the only way to save the world from terrorism, as children end up in extremist Muslim establishments only because they don't have any chance to go to a secular school.

What surprised me most was that Pakistan was not included in any charity programs just because its citizens are Muslim. The neighboring Nepal is also a poor mountainous country, earning money mostly from alpinists, but they are Buddhist, and so after Hillary tons of good things were done for its education and health care. But nobody did it for Pakistan, as some people just think that Muslim = Terrorist.

The book gives a vivid picture of life, culture and nature of Pakistan, and the history of its exploration. The style of writing is journalist-like, as it is non-fiction, and the book includes quite some facts, citations and photos. A great introduction to the region!

UPD: Jenny mentioned in the comments that there was some discussion about whether the facts in the book are correct or not, so I'm a bit confused now about the whole thing. I will not change the review, but for justice's sake I'll add these links here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/business/media/david-oliver-relin-co-author-of-three-cups-of-tea-dies-at-49.html?_r=0
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/06/the-death-of-co-author-of-three-cups-of-tea-is-ruled-suicide.html