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kaitgoodwin (1 KP) rated And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga #1) in Books
Jun 29, 2017
Gloria Steinem recommended Exterminate All the Brutes in Books (curated)
Gloria Steinem recommended The History of History in Books (curated)
Alec Baldwin recommended Tumbleweed Connection by Elton John in Music (curated)
For the lovers of football and history - this book will be of your interest. If you happen to have any connecting with Northern Ireland as well - this book is made for you! I don’t think I fit in the description above. I love watching football - but I am not a football maniac, that knows who plays where, the club’s managers and who is on top of the Champion’s League this year. I love me some good sports matches, and I know a lot of players by name or face, but that’s about it.
Now - Gunshots & Goalposts: The Story of Northern Irish Football - the book that covers the stories of many football players in the past century in Northern Ireland.
While it covers so many stories, I wasn’t able to connect to any of the characters, and I choose to blame this on the way the book was written.
Which - is not a bad thing at all. Why? Because, this book is not meant to make you fall in love with the characters. It is instead, meant to show you the real picture of their lives, the politics that were ongoing in that time, and give you a brief history lesson of what you happened to miss in high school. All related to football, of course.
For me, it was very useful to learn a bit about the politics and history. Before I started the book, I knew NOTHING about Northern Ireland’s history. I knew NOTHING about their football history. This was a great first book for me to dive into the waters of the history of Northern Ireland's football.
The author, Benjamin Roberts, has done a wonderful job in the description and research. It covers a lot of the history period from the First and Second World War, the protestants vs catholics, the unionists vs nationalists, the east vs the west.
This book reminds me a lot of a movie that has been made in the country where I was born - Macedonia. The movie was called ‘’The Third Half’’ and deals with Macedonian Football during World War II, and the deportation of Jews from Macedonia. It reminded me a bit of this, even though in this book we don’t connect with the characters, or dive into their stories too much.
This is a three-star book for me - for the sole reason that this is not a book that I would usually read, and I wouldn’t read books similar to this one either. I enjoyed it, at times, but wouldn’t re-read it. However, I would definitely recommend it to people that love both football and history. I just prefer books where I connect with the characters.
Now - Gunshots & Goalposts: The Story of Northern Irish Football - the book that covers the stories of many football players in the past century in Northern Ireland.
While it covers so many stories, I wasn’t able to connect to any of the characters, and I choose to blame this on the way the book was written.
Which - is not a bad thing at all. Why? Because, this book is not meant to make you fall in love with the characters. It is instead, meant to show you the real picture of their lives, the politics that were ongoing in that time, and give you a brief history lesson of what you happened to miss in high school. All related to football, of course.
For me, it was very useful to learn a bit about the politics and history. Before I started the book, I knew NOTHING about Northern Ireland’s history. I knew NOTHING about their football history. This was a great first book for me to dive into the waters of the history of Northern Ireland's football.
The author, Benjamin Roberts, has done a wonderful job in the description and research. It covers a lot of the history period from the First and Second World War, the protestants vs catholics, the unionists vs nationalists, the east vs the west.
This book reminds me a lot of a movie that has been made in the country where I was born - Macedonia. The movie was called ‘’The Third Half’’ and deals with Macedonian Football during World War II, and the deportation of Jews from Macedonia. It reminded me a bit of this, even though in this book we don’t connect with the characters, or dive into their stories too much.
This is a three-star book for me - for the sole reason that this is not a book that I would usually read, and I wouldn’t read books similar to this one either. I enjoyed it, at times, but wouldn’t re-read it. However, I would definitely recommend it to people that love both football and history. I just prefer books where I connect with the characters.
Hannah (27 KP) rated Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind in Books
Jun 6, 2017
Succinct and simple telling of human history (1 more)
Motivating
Interesting and stimulating account of human history
This book is absolutely a must-read for anyone interested in the history of humankind, the development of societies, language, money and patriarchy, and what the future might hold for humankind.
This book is a simple retelling of what we currently know about the history of humankind. It follows a path from our common ancestor with apes through the stages of revolution to our modern era. It takes a deeper look at the Argicultural and Cognitive Revolutions, and at the progressions of human society over thousands of years, including the development of writing, money and laws.
The author challenges many of the beliefs and myths we hold in our age, asking us to question why things are as they are. Why has society typically been patriarchal throughout our long history? Why, with a closer look at the structure of other species' societies, do we not live in a matriarchal society? He raises many questions that I never previously realised or thought about, and really has the capability of changing the way you look st society and how it developed.
This is a fascinating, well-written work sure to keep you hooked for the entirety of the book. I can't recommend this book enough to anyone with a curious or enquiring mind.
This book is a simple retelling of what we currently know about the history of humankind. It follows a path from our common ancestor with apes through the stages of revolution to our modern era. It takes a deeper look at the Argicultural and Cognitive Revolutions, and at the progressions of human society over thousands of years, including the development of writing, money and laws.
The author challenges many of the beliefs and myths we hold in our age, asking us to question why things are as they are. Why has society typically been patriarchal throughout our long history? Why, with a closer look at the structure of other species' societies, do we not live in a matriarchal society? He raises many questions that I never previously realised or thought about, and really has the capability of changing the way you look st society and how it developed.
This is a fascinating, well-written work sure to keep you hooked for the entirety of the book. I can't recommend this book enough to anyone with a curious or enquiring mind.
Laura Doe (1350 KP) rated Stick A Flag In It: 1,000 Years Of Bizarre History From Britain And Beyond in Books
Dec 30, 2021
This was a look at our British History which was not only interesting but also amusing. The little comments from the author made me laugh at times as well as the little stories that aren’t well known from our history.
I loved the names of the chapters as they really did sum up the information in the chapter both brilliantly and amusingly.
This is definitely a book that you can dip in and out of and one that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in the history of Britain, even if you already think that you know a lot about it.
I would rate it 9 stars as sometimes I got a bit confused as some of the chapters in between the main timeline ones jumped about so sometimes I would think that I was further along in history than I was (for example I thought something happened around the industrial revolution but it became clear that it was actually around the time of Elizabeth I) but other than this, I thoroughly enjoyed it and loved the fact that over the busiest time of year I could just dip in and out of it and not lose the information that I had already read.
Arran Lomas has renewed the love I already had for history with this book!
I loved the names of the chapters as they really did sum up the information in the chapter both brilliantly and amusingly.
This is definitely a book that you can dip in and out of and one that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in the history of Britain, even if you already think that you know a lot about it.
I would rate it 9 stars as sometimes I got a bit confused as some of the chapters in between the main timeline ones jumped about so sometimes I would think that I was further along in history than I was (for example I thought something happened around the industrial revolution but it became clear that it was actually around the time of Elizabeth I) but other than this, I thoroughly enjoyed it and loved the fact that over the busiest time of year I could just dip in and out of it and not lose the information that I had already read.
Arran Lomas has renewed the love I already had for history with this book!
