robinie > Recent Status Updates

Not much has happened yet. Okay read so far.

This book is a lifesaver ...

Like so many other people out there, I am drowning in work. Hence, my boss recommended this book to me hoping it would help me to reduce the level of stress in my life. So far, I find this book to be very inspiring and encouraging.

Ein ultra interessantes Buch, weil Hannah Arendt einen sehr nüchternen, distanzierten Blick auf die Dinge hat und sich nicht von ihren Gefühlen hinreißen lässt. Mir gefällt, dass sie kein Blatt vor den Mund nimmt und Ungerechtigkeiten gegenüber Adolf Eichmann offen anspricht, obwohl sie Gefahr läuft, missverstanden oder sogar als Sympathisantin desselbigen abgestempelt zu werden (was so ähnlich auch passiert ist).

I'm liking this so far. It feels like reading Oliver Twist all over again - but in a good way. ;D

Had no choice but to pick this one up after watching the BBC series "Sherlock".

... what a monster.

I want this book to end already. It's interesting and informative but just like the Hitler biography, it's also exhausting me. And I keep asking myself why the hell I tend to pick up books which talk about politics half of the time when I am not really into politics at all. I want to get a glimpse of the person behind the "political face" and not read about strategy, alliances etc.

This is the kind of book I need in my life right now :D When you are reading about 1) a guy who is responsible for the death of several million people, 2) a doctor's/theologist's thoughts on ethics and culture and 3) a wrecked Warsaw in late 1944, you do need fun books like "Der Schrecksenmeister" for relaxation. ;-) At least I do. :D

Albert Schweitzer often times sounds like a priest in this book - oh wait, he did study theology. :D

I wonder why the authors don't have anything positive to share about Mao. He was a very bad person - no doubt about that - but that does not necessarily mean that everything he said and did had to be evil. But that's exactly how he is portrayed in this book. It's hard to believe that there is no person in this world that has anything positive to say about him. Hence, I am wondering how accurate his portrayal is.

So far, I feel like all I am reading about in this book is killing, torturing, mistreating people, scheming, betraying, manipulating and framing people. All the bad stuff. There is no positivity at all.

So much violence and misery ...

I only read about 10 pages a day because I'm unable to take in all the information I am given, so I have to take my time with this baby.

Enjoying this a lot even though I had expected a biography but got something entirely different. But this "something different" is better than a biography; it consists of letters that Oskar wrote to friends and other people after the war had ended. So we get to learn about his life and his problems in his own words which is better than reading about him from an outsider's point of view.

I began reading this book months ago and had already been 70% into it when I recently decided to go back to page 1 and start over. The reason behind this decision is that I didn't read this book carefully enough. At some point, Albert Schweitzer had lost me and I was unable to follow his train of thoughts. Consequently, I began anew.

I've been SO into non-fiction lately and I don't feel like going back. I could literally read any non-fiction book right now - from Plato's The Republic to Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. It's so much fun to learn new things.

This feels like a second Hitler biography.

I am only 20+ into the book but Mao is already starting to remind me of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

I am getting there! Only about 140 pages to go!

Reading this book feels more like work than anything else.

I am starting to notice how little I know about religion. >.<