Bruno

More than the acceptance of death or living life with a purpose, I believe one trait of Marcus Aurelius that often goes unnoticed is its death-grip on intelligence as our most valuable asset, which gives us purpose and power of change. I believe it is without intelligence that its philosophy can easily fall into nihilism. He is also a very firm believer of a collective consciousness and intelligence, possibly deriving from his belief that we are all made biologically “equal” but have the possibility of fine-tuning ourselves into what we want to be.

During his whole 19 (?) years of being the Roman Imperator, he waged a constant war. Did not create it, but it befell onto him. I wonder if his meditative awareness arose from a grown humility during this warring period or was part of his personality all along.

A complete read of historical science. Mario Livio thoroughly describes the personal and scientific lives of Darwin, Kelvin, Pauling, Hoyle and Einstein, among several other Nobel prize winners and scientists altogether. It involves reads on cosmology, chemistry, biology, astrophysics and quantum theory.

The book can be a harsh read at times, but fully documents history with pictures and written correspondence. Mario Livio takes a personal stance in why and how these geniuses failed in their line of work, which becomes a very interesting read.

Above all, the book teaches eager scientists to remain humble and find relevance in their work, as is well pointed out that scientific truths morph over time, despite their correctness to a given state-of-the-art.

I started this book bored and finished it mesmerized. Steinbeck writes in such detail that only a very particular group of readers will enjoy, but everyone will be able to empathize with the story in the end. It is the strenuous characterizing and detailing of the scenes that, while at first seems unnecessary, really makes the reader feel alive in each line of the scenes.

I started this book in the midst of a poor family, experiencing the downfall of losing their house and land. I journeyed through family losses, money scarcity, famine - all that could go wrong, did. But Steinbeck surprised me: the family was so simplistic, that each tragic loss just felt like a regular Monday at some point. Things like hope and optimism were never lost, because they didn't have anything in the first place.

My 3-star review only reflects an overall adequacy to my reading preferences, but now I understand why Steinbeck deserved a Nobel Prize.

This was my first Dan Brown experience, and what a wowzer. The way he builds up suspense, while still being very informative on trivial subjects - I almost felt I was watching a movie. Dan has a very movie script-like writing, but his concise descriptions are amazing.

The cliffhangers at the end of every chapter left me hooked with interest in the pages that followed. I would say the most captivating is that all the mystery, puzzles and search for the hidden symbols in our History are actually based on real events. I would sometimes stop reading to just Google an image or to try and complete the puzzles on my own to see if I could find something by myself.

As an atheist and a scientist alike, this book - although semi-fictional - completely changed my once 100% negative view on religion because it gave me an identifiable logic with all the cultures around the world. The pure concept of faith and inner spirituality changed for me, and only Dan is the culprit.

I loved the Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons and Inferno movies, so I bought the book to check out Dan's skill, and the moment I saw pictograms of puzzles, I instantly bought it.