Reading with Binh

  1/ “Flowery” and complicated prose, I had to consult dictionary quite often while reading it (but I liked it!).   2/ The author raised many philosophical and existential questions through dialogs and musings of the characters, questions definitely worth pondering on.   3/ I learned many historical and religious facts, so, for me personally, reading the novel was a very illuminating and brain stimulating experience. Now I know how religion - Christianity, in particular - managed to plunge the western world into the long-lasting Dark Ages.   4/ Comprehensive character building, expressive through their actions and speech. Especially brother William, very intriguing persona. His speech, manners and logical deductions all point to a highly intelligent man. I especially like his sense of humor and satire.   5/ Those who seek thrills, mistaken this novel for an ordinary “whodunnit” set in Medieval times, will be disappointed, because The Name of the ...

        -         The author, Omid Malekan, tried to explain the terms and concepts of Blockchain in simplest forms, and he succeed! Even for a “noob” like me, the book did not present confusion and frustration, despite its quite complex subject matter. On the contrary, the experience was quite engaging and entertaining, one can even say – illuminating! Before reading the book, I had very vague ideas about blockchain; after reading the book, my understanding of the blockchain, its history and prospects, improves considerably. As of now, I’m pretty convinced that blockchain technology is the future, and it will affect our daily lives greatly, just as AI will.   -          I especially like the fun facts and trivia, stories related to the blockchain that the author included. Some were very amusing, as was the story of a guy who bought a pizza way back then with 10.000 Bitcoins. He must have cried his eyes...

1/ The beginning was strewn with technicality that did not appeal to me, so I was losing interest a bit, but persisted in reading it until the end [I do not leave any book half-read in principle]. 2/ The language, characters’ outfits and the gadgets seem a little outdated. 3/ Overall, the book will please male readers much more than female, I guess, due to the subject matter and all those weird male protagonists and their equally weird conversations. 4/ I still give it 4/5, as I consider Philip K. Dick’s writing of high quality, and the plot twists are nicely integrated.

Heavily biased piece of work, reads like anti-Soviet propaganda from an American point of view in the Cold War era. According to this book, nothing, nothing was ever good in the Soviet Union!!! Which is in ifself a lie by definition. Although the soviet regime had its many repressions, shortages, drawbacks, life in the Soviet Union was not all bad for all of the population. That is why many Russians still remember the Soviet period with warm feelings, still watch popular Soviet films (“Beware of the Car”, “A Diamond Arm”, “Office Romance”, “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears”...), read books produced in Soviet times (“12 Chairs”, “Scarlet Sails”, “The Adventures of Dunno and His Friends”, The Strugatsky Brothers' sci-fi books...) and listen to Soviet songs (“Million Roses”, “Moscow Nights”, “Kalinka”, “Katuysha”...). Those where never mentioned in the book. I’ve read many books in Daily Life Through History series, practically all the authors express their love and respect for their ...

  -          Ambitious in scope with its “space opera” canon, depicting the politics and machinations of the royal members, great houses, the Spacing Guild, CHOAM Company, Bene Gesserit cult, all vying for power in the form of spice on a desert planet – Arrakis.   -          Unusual structuring: excerpt from some books that Princess Irulan later wrote about Muad'Dib in the beginning of every chapter, appendixes at the end of the book, explaining and expanding “the Dune universe”.     -          Although I enjoyed some of the dialogs, for me personally, the writing is outdated. The author was so fascinated with the eastern mysticism, middle eastern culture plus the inevitable Cold War sentiments, that we can easily trace their signs on the pages of Dune. That’s too obvious and not so creative, in my humble opinion. Some of the examples: the E...