Around the World in 80 Cocktails
Book
Ever since its invention in the late-18th century, the cocktail has been a global traveller. Born in...
Vietnam: Tradition and Change
Huu Ngoc, Lady Borton and Elizabeth Fuller Collins
Book
During his twenty-year tenure as a columnist for Viet Nam News, Ha Noi's English-language newspaper,...
The Bauer Brothers: Images of Nature
Book
The art of Franz and Ferdinand Bauer was praised by the poet and botanist Johann Goethe as the...
Secret Places of the Lion: Alien Influences on Earth's Destiny
Book
Mankind's earliest traditions speak of the arrival of certain souls not of this earth who appear as...
Fingerprints of the Gods
Book
Fingerprints of the Gods is a revolutionary rewrite of history that has persuaded millions of...
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
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.
Development Drowned and Reborn: The Blues and Bourbon Restorations in Post-Katrina New Orleans
Clyde Woods, Laura Pulido and Jordan T. Camp
Book
Development Drowned and Reborn is a "Blues geography" of New Orleans, one that compels readers to...
Speeches That Influenced the World
Book
Speeches that Defined the World is a collection of the most potent and memorable speeches throughout...
Falcon
Book
The fastest animal alive, the falcon deserves attention not just for the combination of speed,...