Take a photo of a barcode or cover
icanforliketoread 's review for:
Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle
by Daniel L. Everett
I was absolutely facsinated to learn about the Pirahã tribe, to begin with I couldn't make up my mind whether this was the most advanced race of people on the planet or the most primitive, or whether those are actually the same thing. Their culture of living almost exclusively in the present, with few memories of the distance past to hold them back or unnecessary worries about the future to stress them out, might explain why these people seem so happy and full of laughter.
As for the book itself, I loved Part 1 (Life), which detailed the author's experiences while living with the Pirahã. I couldn't wait to turn the next page and discover the next amazing thing about how these people exist... like how ... wait that would be ruining the book if I mentioned any of them here.
For me, Part 2 (Language) would have found more belonging in a academic journal of some kind. It was extremely dry, and unless you want to read the word "recursion" 700 times, or get into an indepth analysis of why we have verbs and nouns and which order they go in, you might be like me and skim read this part hunting and gathering more antecdotes from Pirahã life.
In Part 3 (Conclusion) the author briefly touches on the loss of his faith and the break up of his family.
Overall this book gave me a lot of food for thought, bored me with linguistic theory and entertained me with stories from another lifestyle.
As for the book itself, I loved Part 1 (Life), which detailed the author's experiences while living with the Pirahã. I couldn't wait to turn the next page and discover the next amazing thing about how these people exist... like how ... wait that would be ruining the book if I mentioned any of them here.
For me, Part 2 (Language) would have found more belonging in a academic journal of some kind. It was extremely dry, and unless you want to read the word "recursion" 700 times, or get into an indepth analysis of why we have verbs and nouns and which order they go in, you might be like me and skim read this part hunting and gathering more antecdotes from Pirahã life.
In Part 3 (Conclusion) the author briefly touches on the loss of his faith and the break up of his family.
Overall this book gave me a lot of food for thought, bored me with linguistic theory and entertained me with stories from another lifestyle.