PDF Ebook The Count of Monte Cristo (Bantam Classics)
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The Count of Monte Cristo (Bantam Classics)
PDF Ebook The Count of Monte Cristo (Bantam Classics)
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Review
"Dumas was . . . a summit of art. Nobody ever could, or did, or will improve upon Dumas's romances and plays."—George Bernard Shaw
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From the Publisher
Set against the turbulent years of the Napoleonic era, Alexandre Dumas's thrilling adventure story is one of the most widely read romantic novels of all time. In it the dashing young hero, Edmond Dantès, is betrayed by his enemies and thrown into a secret dungeon in the Chateau d'If -- doomed to spend his life in a dank prison cell. The story of his long, intolerable years in captivity, his miraculous escape, and his carefully wrought revenge creates a dramatic tale of mystery and intrigue and paints a vision of France -- a dazzling, dueling, exuberant France -- that has become immortal. "Dumas was... a summit of art. Nobody ever could, or did, or will improve upon Dumas's romances and plays." -- George Bernard Shaw
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Product details
Age Range: 12 and up
Grade Level: 7 and up
Lexile Measure: 930L (What's this?)
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Series: Bantam Classics
Paperback: 544 pages
Publisher: Bantam Classics (January 1, 1985)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0553213504
ISBN-13: 978-0553213508
Product Dimensions:
4.1 x 0.9 x 6.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.6 out of 5 stars
3,311 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#6,871 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
I have the Robin Buss translation of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO in paperback, but that copy was old and worn. I wanted a more durable hardcover edition to read and to display on my bookshelf in my new house. The hardcover I bought from Total Books arrived in near-perfect condition, exactly as advertised, and looks gorgeous on the shelf.Why Robin Buss' translation for Penguin Classics? That's a reasonable question since Alexandre Dumas has been dead long enough for his works to enter the public domain. Several translations of his major novels are not only available in cheaper editions (such as Barnes & Noble Classics), but for free on Project Gutenberg.These are inferior and, in the case of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, censored translations. Most of them date back to the Victorian period, and render Dumas' evergreen French into English prose that feels old-fashioned and stilted today. Furthermore, because these are translations from the Victorian period, the translators filtered Dumas through their own moral sensibilities to give us Bowdlerized versions of a novel that ran on sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll a century before rock 'n roll was something you could do without a machine gun.Robin Buss' unabridged translation comes directly from the original French and renders Dumas into fresh, readable modern English. Material previously omitted by Victorian-era translators such as Franz' hashish-fueled sexual fantasies and the strongly implied lesbian relationship between Eugenie and Louise remain intact and uncensored. As another reviewer pointed out, Buss will provide footnotes to explain subtleties that aren't easily translated from French to English, such as insults delivered by using the formal you (vous) rather than the informal/friendly/intimate you (tu).A detailed appendix provides valuable historical and cultural context that aids the reader in understanding Dumas' masterpiece, and includes a primer on the rise, fall, return, and final downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte that is crucial to making sense of the politics driving the novel's plot.If you cannot read Dumas in his native French, and you want a definitive English version, Robin Buss's unabridged and uncensored modern English translation is essential reading. No other translation will suffice.
This is my favorite novel, a story not only of persecution and vengeance, but of man's relation to his God and how it drives, inspires and interferes with his judgements. Often adapted to film, nobody has captured the depth of Dumas' perceptions and understanding of people, largely because filmmakers focus on the excellently-told action rather the true essence of the story. This is one man's battle against himself, beautifully articulated egardless of which translation from French you choose to read. If you've not read Dumas before, be aware that he sets up his characters and circumstances, creating mysteries, then departs from his main story line to pursue secondary characters. All the threads pull together by the end of the story, but through at least a third of the book, Edmund Dantes is only peripherally present. Don't be discouraged - it's worth the wait, as the resolution is one of the most moving I've encountered in literature. A brilliant book by one of history's most original writers and creators of great heroes.
I love this book. It is a masterpiece of writing and I wanted a copy I could read any time I wanted. However, the Kindle edition has so many errors that it is unreadable. Every page has words running together, and it makes for a huge headache to get through even 2 pages. I couldn't read it due to these issues. I'm very glad I only spent $1.99 on it, but I wish I had spent nothing. A very poorly edited kindle edition.
It's a classic for a reason. I can hardly put it down.
This classic story of wrongful imprisonment, hidden treasure, and revenge is truly a masterpiece. Alexandre Dumas’ famous novel The Count of Monte Cristo has seen life not only in print but in film and television, but one cannot appreciate the novel unless you read it in its entire unabridged length.Edmond Dantes is wrongfully accused of a crime and thrown in prison without trial to be forgotten, after overcoming both mental and physical anguish and befriending a fellow prisoner, and finally he is able to escape. Thanks to his friendship Dantes knows where a potential hidden treasure is located and finds it to be real, and using it begins finding out why he was thrown into prison and chart is path to revenge through fortune and hidden identities. Yet what this quick synopsis omits is the numerous and fascinating major and secondary characters that Dantes interacts throughout the narrative.Originally published in serial form, Dumas was paid for how much he wrote and one would think that The Count of Monte Cristo might be riddled with meandering subplots that never go anywhere and/or have nothing to do with the central plot. But Dumas instead wove a tapestry of beauty with every word he wrote; instead of making meandering plots he described scenes and events in rich detail that it brings the story even more alive in the reader’s imagination.If pressed to find anything negative to say about this book, the easiest answer would be cultural references that are almost 170 years old. The only other negative was the completely different societal norms that were in Parisian society in the 1840s compared today’s. However both of these ‘negatives’ can easily be put down to a piece of fiction that was contemporary when it was written but now can be seen as historical fiction with the passage to time.The Count of Monte Cristo needs to be read in all its unabridged glory to fully appreciate why it is a masterpiece and classic. Dumas’ literary tapestry is a delight to behold once finished with the last page and makes the reader think about when they’ll have time to reread it in the future.
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Free PDF The Journey of the Heroic Parent: Your Child's Struggle & The Road Home, by Brad M. Reedy PhD
Free PDF The Journey of the Heroic Parent: Your Child's Struggle & The Road Home, by Brad M. Reedy PhD
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The Journey of the Heroic Parent: Your Child's Struggle & The Road Home, by Brad M. Reedy PhD
Free PDF The Journey of the Heroic Parent: Your Child's Struggle & The Road Home, by Brad M. Reedy PhD
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Review
“I’m on the front lines daily with the codependency and emotional trauma that parents often experience when their child needs or is in treatment and see first-hand the dramatic effect these conditions have on relationships. Far too many parents are torn apart by not having the tools Dr. Reedy provides. This is a must-read for any parent and an awakening for behavioral health professionals.” (Miles Adcox, CEO, Onsite)“Dr. Reedy shows us how to parent with an Open Heart. He is able to help parents see through the confusion, frustration, and anxieties to discover the most profound love—the love between a mother and her children.” (Jane Seymour, Emmy & Golden Globe–winning actress, author, artist, entrepreneur, and mother)“The Journey of the Heroic Parent shows how the generation gap that exists between parents and children can be bridged as a parent embraces his own journey of self discovery.” (Nikki Sixx, bass player, Mötley Crüe & Sixx Sense radio host)
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About the Author
Brad M. Reedy, PhD is the cofounder and clinical director of Evoke Therapy Programs, bringing his wilderness therapy experience to create new programming, including Parent, Family and Couples Intensives. He is an experienced psychotherapist, public speaker, and he leads seminars on parenting, addiction, and mental health for professionals and clients. He is also the cofounder and former director of Second Nature Therapeutic Wilderness Programs, which he helped to become one of the leaders in wilderness therapy for adolescents and their families. He has served on the boards of the Utah Department of Child and Family Services and the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs. For more information, visit drbradreedy.com.
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Product details
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Regan Arts. (April 21, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1941393012
ISBN-13: 978-1941393017
Product Dimensions:
6 x 1 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
Average Customer Review:
4.7 out of 5 stars
69 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#831,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Just order it already. It's freaking amazing. I SO wish I had read this early on in my parenting journey. This book addresses the thoughts and feelings of any parent who's walked the treatment journey with a teen, from a firsthand perspective. You CANNOT go wrong with this book - it will hit you straight in the feels.
I wish I had read this book 10 or even 15 years ago, but at that time I didn't know I needed it. Even still with my 20 year old son battling addiction and childhood trauma, and me seeing so clearly now how poorly I have handled all of that, it's never too late to improve upon the way I relate to him. I find also that the ideas put forth in this book are helpful in my dealings with all people, not just my son.
As the parent of a child with addiction I have come to realize that my own peace of mind is critical. Heroic Parent clarifies how caring for yourself, with the hard work that requires, can allow your child to work on him or herself. "Am I a good dad?" no longer depends on my child's success or failure.Examples and suggestions that ring true and motivate me.
The program is priceless. Dr. Reedy provides so much information to help parents be better parents without shaming themselves! Love this book! I recommend it for all parents.
This is a must read for any parent or caregiver trying to understand their childs behavior. This book will empower you to change the way you see yourself as a parent and become a better person. My copy is highlighted from front to back with endless notes. I am so thankful for Dr. Reedy and his work in mental health care.
SUCH a good book!! There are many good (and not so good) parenting books and philosophies out there. In my experience, however, none of them really address the critical importance of parental “intentionâ€. If a parent has unresolved emotional and psychological stressors, even the best parenting techniques and philosophies will fall short of their mark. Parents will then struggle more in raising their kids to become healthy adults and positive contributions to society. The excellence of this book is rooted in its message about empowering parents with the ability to go within and dig to the roots of how and why they parent the way they do. Truly seeing the “self†and fostering good emotional health and empathy builds a solid foundation for parents to better work with whatever parenting philosophies and techniques work best for their families.My personal favorite parenting philosophy is written about in the book “Parenting With Love and Logic†by Jim Fay and Foster Cline. I have experienced first-hand how effective this philosophy can be when parents utilize it from a place of love and empathy. I have also personally witnessed how ineffective it can be when a parent uses the methods of “love and logic†without the backing of love and empathy. When a parents’ own unresolved issues, traumas, codependency, inner wounds, and anger merge with “love and logic†methods, the techniques can twist into drama and abuse. “Journey of the Heroic Parent†empowers parents to address any of their own issues which could undermine otherwise outstanding parenting philosophies like “love and logicâ€.The author, Dr. Reedy, specializes in working with families who are dealing with “difficult†kids, often who are struggling with addictions of some kind. Dr. Reedy is the founder of a wilderness program designed to work with these kids and their families. Although â€Journey of the Heroic Parent†references a lot of the authors’ experience working with these kinds of family relationship dynamics, this book is equally beneficial for people who want to take their journey as a parent to another level. Doing the inner work will help parents create and develop closer connections with their kids, empowering a parent-child relationship that is built on trust, love, strength, healthy boundaries, and mutual empathy. This creates a strong foundation for a parenting “journey†that empowers kids with a much better chance of growing up to be emotionally and psychologically healthy individuals and positive contributions to society. I highly recommend this book to anyone who desires a more authentic bond with their children and who want to be the best possible parent – and person - they can be.
Love Brad Reedy and his down-to-earth parenting philosophy. Sent our son to wilderness 3 years ago. This morning he flew out to help his former therapist at her current wilderness program. Brad's direction on parenting helped get us through the tough times. We are grateful today!
Wish I'd had it fifty years ago. . . .
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PDF Download Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind
PDF Download Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind
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Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind
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About the Author
Gary Marcus is a professor of psychology at New York University and director of the NYU Infant Language Learning Center. Marcus received his Ph.D. at age twenty-three from MIT, where he was mentored by Steven Pinker. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Newsday, the Los Angeles Times, and other major publications. He lives in New York.
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Remnants of HistoryIt has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.—Bertrand RussellAre human beings "noble in reason" and "infinite in faculty" as William Shakespeare famously wrote? Perfect, "in God’s image," as some biblical scholars have asserted? Hardly. If mankind were the product of some intelligent, compassionate designer, our thoughts would be rational, our logic impeccable. Our memory would be robust, our recollections reliable. Our sentences would be crisp, our words precise, our languages systematic and regular, not besodden with irregular verbs (sing-sang, ring-rang, yet bring-brought) and other peculiar inconsistencies. As the language maven Richard Lederer has noted, there would be ham in hamburger, egg in eggplant. English speakers would park in parkways and drive on driveways, and not the other way around. At the same time, we humans are the only species smart enough to systematically plan for the future—yet dumb enough to ditch our most carefully made plans in favor of short-term gratification. ("Did I say I was on a diet? Mmm, but three-layer chocolate mousse is my favorite . . . Maybe I’ll start my diet tomorrow.") We happily drive across town to save $25 on a $100 microwave but refuse to drive the same distance to save exactly the same $25 on a $1,000 flat-screen TV. We can barely tell the difference between a valid syllogism, such as All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal, and a fallacious counterpart, such as All living things need water, roses need water, therefore roses are living things (which seems fine until you substitute car batteries for roses). If I tell you that "Every sailor loves a girl," you have no idea whether I mean one girl in particular (say, Betty Sue) or whether I’m really saying "to each his own." And don’t even get me started on eyewitness testimony, which is based on the absurd premise that we humans can accurately remember the details of a briefly witnessed accident or crime, years after the fact, when the average person is hard pressed to keep a list of a dozen words straight for half an hour. I don’t mean to suggest that the "design" of the human mind is a total train wreck, but if I were a politician, I’m pretty sure the way I’d put it is "mistakes were made." The goal of this book is to explain what mistakes were made—and why.Where Shakespeare imagined infinite reason, I see something else, what engineers call a "kluge." A kluge is a clumsy or inelegant—yet surprisingly effective—solution to a problem. Consider, for example, what happened in April 1970 when the CO2 filters on the already endangered lunar module of Apollo 13 began to fail. There was no way to send a replacement filter up to the crew—the space shuttle hadn’t been invented yet—and no way to bring the capsule home for several more days. Without a filter, the crew would be doomed. The mission control engineer, Ed Smylie, advised his team of the situation, and said, in effect, "Here’s what’s available on the space capsule; figure something out." Fortunately, the ground crew was able to meet the challenge, quickly cobbling together a crude filter substitute out of a plastic bag, a cardboard box, some duct tape, and a sock. The lives of the three astronauts were saved. As one of them, Jim Lovell, later recalled, "The contraption wasn’t very handsome, but it worked." Not every kluge saves lives. Engineers sometimes devise them for sport, just to show that something—say, building a computer out of Tinkertoys— can be done, or simply because they’re too lazy to do something the right way. Others cobble together kluges out of a mixture of desperation and resourcefulness, like the TV character MacGyver, who, needing to make a quick getaway, jerry-built a pair of shoes from duct tape and rubber mats. Other kluges are created just for laughs, like Wallace and Gromit’s "launch and activate" alarm clock/coffeemaker/Murphy bed and Rube Goldberg’s "simplified pencil sharpener" (a kite attached to a string lifts a door, which allows moths to escape, culminating in the lifting of a cage, which frees a woodpecker to gnaw the wood that surrounds a pencil’s graphite core). MacGyver’s shoes and Rube Goldberg’s pencil sharpeners are nothing, though, compared to perhaps the most fantastic kluge of them all—the human mind, a quirky yet magnificent product of the entirely blind process of evolution.The origin, and even the spelling, of the word kluge is up for grabs. Some spell it with a d (kludge), which has the virtue of looking as clumsy as the solutions it denotes, but the disadvantage of suggesting the wrong pronunciation. (Properly pronounced, kluge rhymes with huge, not sludge. One could argue that the spelling klooge (rhymes with stooge) would even better capture the pronunciation, but I’m not about to foist a third spelling upon the world.) Some trace the word to the old Scottish word cludgie, which means "an outside toilet." Most believe the origins lie in the German word Kluge, which means "clever." The Hacker’s Dictionary of Computer Jargon traces the term back at least to 1935, to a "Kluge [brand] paper feeder," described as "an adjunct to mechanical printing presses."The Kluge feeder was designed before small, cheap electric motors and control electronics; it relied on a fiendishly complex assortment of cams, belts, and linkages to both power and synchronize all its operations from one motive driveshaft. It was accordingly temperamental, subject to frequent breakdowns, and devilishly difficult to repair—but oh, so clever!Virtually everybody agrees that the term was first popularized in February 1962, in an article titled "How to Design a Kludge," written, tongue in cheek, by a computer pioneer named Jackson Granholm, who defined a kluge as "an ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole." He went on to note that "the building of a Kludge . . . is not work for amateurs. There is a certain, indefinable, masochistic finesse that must go into true Kludge building. The professional can spot it instantly. The amateur may readily presume that ‘that’s the way computers are.’" The engineering world is filled with kluges. Consider, for example, something known as vacuum-powered windshield wipers, common in most cars until the early 1960s. Modern windshield wipers, like most gizmos on cars, are driven by electricity, but back in the olden days, cars ran on 6 volts rather than 12, barely enough power to keep the spark plugs going and certainly not enough to power luxuries like windshield wipers. So some clever engineer rigged up a kluge that powered windshield-wiper motors with suction, drawn from the engine, rather than electricity. The only problem is that the amount of suction created by the engine varies, depending on how hard the engine is working. The harder it works, the less vacuum it produces. Which meant that when you drove your 1958 Buick Riviera up a hill, or accelerated hard, your wipers slowed to a crawl, or even stopped working altogether. On a rainy day in the mountains, Grandpa was out of luck. What’s really amazing—in hindsight—is that most people probably didn’t even realize it was possible to do better. And this, I think, is a great metaphor for our everyday acceptance of the idiosyncrasies of the human mind. The mind is inarguably impressive, a lot better than any available alternative. But it’s still flawed, often in ways we scarcely recognize. For the most part, we simply accept our faults —such as our emotional outbursts, our mediocre memories, and our vulnerability to prejudice—as standard equipment. Which is exactly why recognizing a kluge, and how it might be improved upon, sometimes requires thinking outside the box. The best science, like the best engineering, often comes from understanding not just how things are, but how else they could have been.
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Product details
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books; First edition (April 7, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 054723824X
ISBN-13: 978-0547238241
Product Dimensions:
5.2 x 0.6 x 7.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
3.9 out of 5 stars
13 customer reviews
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As someone who's fairly well-read but not (as several other reviewers of this book) well-versed in the specialty of evolutionary biology, I found this book to be engaging, clear, and thought-provoking. I'd recommend this particularly to those interested in philosophy, psychology, computer programming, and the scientific method. What's most remarkable about this book is that although it delves deeply into many counter-intuitive qualities of human nature, it's utterly readable outside of an academic setting and offers practical advice on understanding of human failure and conflict.Marcus' basic premise, that the human mind is highly flawed from an "engineering" standpoint, is highly compelling (to be accurate- this premise is based on the research of evolutionary biologists and does not necessarily reflect any originality on Marcus' part). In chapters on Memory, Belief, Choice, Language, and Pleasure, the author attributes many of the foibles of human nature to deficiencies in the human mind based on the fact that culture, deliberate reasoning, and long-term planning (vs. reacting in the moment) did not offer survival advantages over the course of the human being's adaptive evolution. Just a few examples of potential weaknesses described include: 1) a contextual (vs. "postal code") memory resulting in an average of 55 minutes per day looking for things we know we own but can't find; 2) an inflated craving for sugar, fat, salt, and sex based on evolutionary scarcity; 3) a tendency to believe things that fit in with our pre-existing beliefs (i.e., confirmation bias); and 4) a tendency to respond to anecdotes vs. data.This book is interesting even from a purely philosophical perspective; for example, Marcus notes that "evolution didn't evolve us to be happy; it evolved us to pursue happiness"- hence humanity's often tragic and perpetual pursuit of material wealth far beyond necessity.Marcus doesn't shy away from prescribing ways to cope with these challenges, and devotes his entire closing chapter to "true wisdom" gained by self-consciousness of our minds' limitations. A few of his suggestions include "anticipate your own impulsivity and pre-commit" for example by choosing your groceries a week in advance and not when you are hungry; "don't make important decisions when you are tired or have other things on your mind." He also addresses more comprehensive and far-reaching strategies for addressing the problems of the human mind, such as offering high school classes on informal argument, spotting fallacies, interpreting statistics, and understanding the difference between correlation and causation. I couldn't agree more- but is that my confirmation bias?
Kluge a decent book with some interesting points, but overall I didn't think it offered any ground-breaking insights and was not particularly rigorously supported. I don't deny Marcus' main premise, that the brain is an imperfect kluge pieced together by natural selection and many of the traits we have do not promote happiness and wellbeing. But I think he underestimates the adaptive value (at least in a Darwinian sense) of some of the aspects of our brains. It's easy to overlook some subtle advantage of a trait and conclude it has no adaptive value. Gerd Gigerenzer's Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious, for instance, convincingly argues that many apparent reasoning errors are actually "highly intelligent social judgments" which are helpful overall in the real world (as opposed to a contrived logic puzzle, for instance).It's easy to propose an alternative design for some aspect of the human mind without any real way to test if humans would indeed be better off with it. For instance, Marcus says "in a system that was superlatively well engineered, belief and the process of drawing inferences (which soon become new beliefs) would be separate, with an iron wall between them." But it's not clear to me that this is the best system. Each time we see a bird flying, should we conclude gravity doesn't exist since we're drawing inferences without regard for pre-existing beliefs? Sometimes observations seem to contradict well-founded beliefs and resistance to changing those beliefs is not necessarily irrational or counterproductive (although sometimes it is). Are we better off in the end with some other system? Perhaps, but would our ancestors have been better off with that system in the Pleistocene? It's not as simple a question as Marcus makes it out to be.The original hardcover version of this book did not include the word "evolution" in the subtitle, and its after-the-fact addition to the paperback reflects the paucity of evolutionary information within. Marcus never really highlighted the crucial fact that our brains are adapted to the ancestral environment in which we evolved, which was in small bands of hunter/gatherers. Many aspects that are poorly designed for the modern world (our endless predilection for salty and fatty foods, for instance) may have been well adapted to life in the Pleistocene (where fat stores could be called upon during periodic food shortages). The same is true for all the hours we spend watching TV (perhaps a substitute for storytelling) or seeking non-procreative sex (sex and procreation, for the most part, could not be decoupled in the Pleistocene). While it remains true that these things are non-adaptive today (from a gene's point of view), it would have been enlightening to know that they were recently adaptive and not just evolutionary shortcomings, as Marcus suggests. He doesn't seem to be an expert on evolution; he mainly relies upon what he sees as imperfections of the modern mind in the modern world without much regard for the evolutionary history of those traits, and is quick to label them as evidence of a sloppy design.For instance, Marcus cites a study which concludes "teenagers may have an adult capacity to appreciate short-term gain, but only a child's capacity to recognize long-term risk" and concludes "evolutionary inertia takes precedence over sensible design." But isn't it possible that post-pubertal peer acceptance is a critical factor for reproductive success, and therefore reckless susceptibility to peer pressure during teenage years is an adaptation and not just some evolutionary mistake? Studies show that teens actually overestimate the dangers of the activities they partake in, yet they do them anyway to gain peer acceptance. And it plausibly increases their reproductive success to this day, despite contraception.To be fair, many of the traits described were just as maladaptive in the Pleistocene as they are today and many points remain valid.For great discussions of mental imperfections, I recommend How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life and Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts). For a scientifically rigorous (and fairly technical) discussion of the evolutionary history of human mind, I recommend Melvin Konner's The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. Kluge also offers a brief and simplistic explanation of religion; for an account of the evolutionary origins of religion, I recommend Pascal Boyer's Religion Explained, or for a more technical and scholarly coverage of that subject, Scott Atran's In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (Evolution and Cognition Series).
Kluge is a very well-written and easy-to-read book by Gary Marcus explaining how evolution, similar to any other process, has led to both good and bad consequences. I highly recommend it to those who struggle to learn more about their intellectual and mental shortcomings. I consider it one of the best feedback anyone can get about his/her mental performance. The book can seriously help you put different things in their natural rather than exaggerated perspective.
Very thought provoking and a truly fun read
Good job in portraying how we (might have) evolved to be the interesting and confusing human beings we are today. I say might have, because really, who knows how we got here? It is just short of 5 stars because he spends a bit much on how we are not computers, holding them up as examples of "perfect memory". But if they are, then why is "big data" all the rage, and we are still trying to figure out how to make sense of it? In other words, computers don't have a perfect way to do anything yet either. And BTW we, humans, invented computers, so maybe this is part of our evolution, adding another layer on top of our "carbon-based emotional bag-of-water" foundation?I highly recommend the book.
This book fills a niche, there is nothing quite like it.However the author takes the indefensible position, that von-Neumann-computer-like "Postal Code Memory" would be superior to the self-tuning, robust quantum-consciousness-network we've got. Probably he has not done any large-scale computer programming !FORTUNATELY this "postal code rant" is not woven in, really, you can just ignore it and the rest of the book stands on its own as a great read.
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