Guus Bosman

I've read the Hitchhiker's Guide several times in my life. The first times were in Dutch, when Arthur Dent was living in the Wieringermeer, the area were I grew up, as a translation to a Dutch audience of a boring area where not much ever happened.

Sasha and I saw the movie years ago.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the 2nd novel, is a great read to and I know it well. But the 3rd through 5th were new to me. I was very disappointed in part three, part four was fine and only part five became somewhat interesting again.

This is a great book, with a wonderful subject: how live has gotten better over time.

But it's a follow-up to a Pinker's book from 7 years ago, the Better Angels of Our Nature. Was it worth another 350 pages? Well, I enjoyed reading the book and it made a solid case for how enlightenment has been the driving force for all the improvements in the past few hundred years.

I'd say the answer is 'yes' -- this was worth another re-read. And the book does have new material, and a reflection of future developments.

The one thing I didn't like was the attention to Trump's election. First of all, that's just one data point in a very long history, and more importantly, a book that writes about the ages should not try to be too current.

Well, I couldn't resist -- this book has been in the news for several days now and I wanted to check it out.

I read the book with a good deal of skepticism, since the author is known to take liberty with the facts at times, and some of the more salacious details in the book are contested. Nevertheless, this is a intriguing insider story of the first year of the Trump White House.

I won't mince words on my opinion of the Trump White House. Needless to say, the book did not improve my opinion.

Fascinating read.

This was ultimately a disappointing book. The first chapters were interesting enough, and it good to see the timeline of human development, but after the initial good start there was very little new information in the book.

It rehashes stories and anecdotes from Guns Germs and Steel, 1491 and similar books, without adding much original content.

I had hoped that this would be a nice introduction to Homo Deus, Yuval Harari's new book, but now I'm not so sure that I want to read that.