Marie > Recent Status Updates

Dun dun duuuuun

While this book has an interesting topic, the writing is lovely and the world-building fleshed out and expansive, it is soo angry. Not that there's anything wrong with that, the topic of women's rights and struggles should make anyone angry - but I find it hard to make myself go through these emotions right now.

Case in point: skeletons from the Danube valley (Djerdap Gorges I guess?). He says that 18 skeletons with evidence of violence is a BIG deal in the skeletal series of 400 skeletons. But are they really? Do you expect that all of those people lived at the same time? That they represent the complete population of the Danube valley? We wish! Paleodemography - the joy and bane of my existence!

It’s really weird reading this book from a perspective of an archaeologist who studies prehistory. I get that the point was to make a cliff-notes version of complete human history, to sketch out general ideas rather than concrete examples. But. BUT. There’s a reason History and Archaeology are two different branches of study. We don’t look at the same things in the same way.

"Thus, a symptom of a field that relies on the test of consistency and ignores the underdetermination problem is a balkanized theoretical landscape, composed of a vast range of unrelated, or even incompatible, theories and ideas."
Aaah, yes, I'm THRILLED by the use of "balkanized" in this particular context!

There are parts that I gobble up like a scrumptious ice cream, and then there are parts that drag as much as a math lesson on a hot afternoon...

I think I've found a new favorite author!

Isn't it just great when you have to read about infectious diseases in the middle of a pandemic because it's your job to?

“The Drae pursed his lips and gave a curt nod. “Toliko vam volim kraljicu.”
This time I snorted. “I have no idea what that means,” I said with a yawn. “

Don’t worry yourself love, neither do I and I speak the language 😂🙈

Another sentence in Serbian - this one labeled as “in freaky language” of the dragons. It was supposed to be a curse - like “to hell with it” but doesn’t really mean anything in Serbian (“sto je dovraga?!)

Maybe it’ll get better?

There I was, innocently minding my own business, when a full blown sentence in Serbian just appeared out of nowhere in the middle of my very English ebook 😂
No explanation so far! Have to keep reading!