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sjhoward's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
hunterandrew's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
5.0
A meditation on meditation. The exact feeling of taking Justin’s class for the first time: everything began to fall into place. I find my inner silence most accessible in the Westfjords. The continual task is to live in the present with a great depth of attentiveness.
sternemerle's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.75
trin's review against another edition
1.0
This is a very silly book.
Kagge is an explorer and entrepreneur whose worldview is close to 180 degrees away from my own. He seems earnest, but entirely humorless and enraptured by rich people problems. He also, in my mind, has never met an anecdote from which he can't draw the wrong conclusion.
He starts the book with a story about his teenage daughters at dinner expressing a disdain for silence and wanting to "quickly pull their smartphones out to find the answer." To shock them into valuing silence over technology, he tells them a story about a friend of his who climbed Mount Everest. Before dying in a sudden snowstorm, the man was able to use a satellite phone to call his pregnant wife and name their child together in the minutes before he perished. His corpse is still "freeze-dried" partly up the mountain, "lying there in silence." Upon completing this story, Kagge describes his children as sitting in silence as well.
First of all: yeah, I bet. Fun dinner table convo. Second: Kagge tries to use this story to make a point about the evils of technology, but isn't the actual takeaway here that technology is AMAZING and allowed a DYING MAN TO NAME HIS CHILD ON THE PHONE WITH HIS WIFE FROM MOUNT EVEREST? Dude. There are about 10,000 anecdotes one could use to prove the perils of tech, and you're going with this?
Kagge also tries to use Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" to boost his case (weird, as music, including that song, is somewhat of a sound-based phenomenon), and says things like, "I have more faith in Steve Jobs as a responsible father than as a visionary marketing genius" because apparently Jobs "limited his own children's access to Apple products." Lol okay. So Kagge has really done his research on Jobs, then.
Read this book if you're looking for profound and striking wisdom like, "The most important book you can read is one about yourself," "The best things in life are sometimes free," "We prefer the hunt for the rabbit over its capture," and "Silence is more exclusive and long-lasting than other luxuries" -- and other things only wealthy people have ever said.
Kagge is an explorer and entrepreneur whose worldview is close to 180 degrees away from my own. He seems earnest, but entirely humorless and enraptured by rich people problems. He also, in my mind, has never met an anecdote from which he can't draw the wrong conclusion.
He starts the book with a story about his teenage daughters at dinner expressing a disdain for silence and wanting to "quickly pull their smartphones out to find the answer." To shock them into valuing silence over technology, he tells them a story about a friend of his who climbed Mount Everest. Before dying in a sudden snowstorm, the man was able to use a satellite phone to call his pregnant wife and name their child together in the minutes before he perished. His corpse is still "freeze-dried" partly up the mountain, "lying there in silence." Upon completing this story, Kagge describes his children as sitting in silence as well.
First of all: yeah, I bet. Fun dinner table convo. Second: Kagge tries to use this story to make a point about the evils of technology, but isn't the actual takeaway here that technology is AMAZING and allowed a DYING MAN TO NAME HIS CHILD ON THE PHONE WITH HIS WIFE FROM MOUNT EVEREST? Dude. There are about 10,000 anecdotes one could use to prove the perils of tech, and you're going with this?
Kagge also tries to use Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" to boost his case (weird, as music, including that song, is somewhat of a sound-based phenomenon), and says things like, "I have more faith in Steve Jobs as a responsible father than as a visionary marketing genius" because apparently Jobs "limited his own children's access to Apple products." Lol okay. So Kagge has really done his research on Jobs, then.
Read this book if you're looking for profound and striking wisdom like, "The most important book you can read is one about yourself," "The best things in life are sometimes free," "We prefer the hunt for the rabbit over its capture," and "Silence is more exclusive and long-lasting than other luxuries" -- and other things only wealthy people have ever said.
jlsjourneys's review
3.0
Philosophical meandering … not life changing for me, but brief and paired well with a rainy day in the fjords.
fauxclore's review
3.0
Estive todo o livro à espera que este me surpreendesse com um aforismo que realmente me fizesse pensar sobre o Silêncio.
Nunca aconteceu.
Lê-se facilmente, mas não traz nada de novo sobre o assunto.
Nunca aconteceu.
Lê-se facilmente, mas não traz nada de novo sobre o assunto.