Perfect for a trivia night or a long trip, #TrainTeasers will both test your knowledge of this country`s rail system and enlighten you on the most colourful aspects of its long history. Meet trunk murderers, trainspotters, haters of railways, railway writers, Ministers for Transport good and bad, railway cats, dogs and a railway penguin. This is NOT a book for number-crunching nerds. Many of the answers are guessable by the intelligent reader. It is a quiz, yes, but also a cavalcade of historical incident and colour relating to a system that was the making of modern Britain. The parts were she talks highly about knowledge acquired through books has got to be my favorite as I deeply related to what she was describing.

U obliku eseja Elif u nekoliko poglavlja tematizira osjećaje razočaranosti i zbunjenosti, tjeskobe, ljutnje i apatije, te u konačnici donosi svoja razmišljanja o informacijama, znanju i mudrosti. In How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division, Shafak – a political theorist and Booker Prize-nominated novelist – observes that, with rising unemployment, economic inequality, environmental catastrophe and now a pandemic, a parent can no longer assume their children will have more than they did. Indeed, before telling us how best we might cope in the face of assorted crises, the author explains how, given the extent of misinformation, polarisation, corruption, injustice and inequality at the moment, we are justified in feeling utterly depressed. Elif Shafak investigates in this short bundle what is still possible against decisive powers that affects the "old" narrative that progress is unavoidable and liberal democracy is the only viable way (as most clearly represented by The End of History and the Last Man of Francis Fukuyama). When Elif Shafak’s mother married, she dropped out of university to focus on being a wife. Later, she got divorced and returned to university to finish her studies, leaving her daughter temporarily in the care of her mother. After passing her exams, she thanked her mother for helping to raise Elif. “Don’t thank me,” came the reply. “You focus on improving your daughter’s life. We inherit our circumstances, we improve them for the next generation. Now you need to make sure your daughter has more than you had.”Naar aanleiding van de coronacrisis schreef de Turkse activiste dit zeer persoonlijke essay. De hoofdvraag lijkt te zijn: Als dit allemaal voorbij is, hoe wil je dat de wereld er dan uitziet?

u doba u kojem je previše informacija, manje znanja i još manje mudrosti... Znanje zahtijeva čitanje. Knjige. Dubinske analize. Istraživačko novinarstvo. Zamislite načas: svijet bez knjiga, bez pripovijedanju, svijet bez empatije bio bi mnogo podjeljenije i samotnije mjesto za život. "

This book has by no means solved world peace but it certainly makes us as readers in the modern world feel heard, understood and that our feelings are valid. The title literally says it all. We must strive to become intellectual nomads, keep moving, keep learning, resist confining ourselves in any cultural or mental ghetto, and spend more time at margins where the real change comes from. Off course she already did this stunningly in her Ted talk ( https://www.ted.com/talks/elif_shafak...) but we are fortunate enough to have a bit more of her magic storytelling, and we can in only a few hours feel uplifted and more empowered. She also puts current events into a broader context, looking at power, wealth, technology and mental health. She argues that narcissism is less a problem of the individual than a collective affliction, exacerbated by social media, which creates ideological echo chambers and discourages us from engaging with theories and arguments that are not in line with our own. “If wanting to be heard is one side of the coin, the other side is being willing to listen,” she explains. “The moment we stop listening to diverse opinions is also when we stop learning.” How To Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak, published by Wellcome Collection In How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division she pleads for the power of pluralism and she looks into the power of story telling and language for both progressive and regressive purposes.

Her writing is emotional and hope filled in a way we are not so accustomed anymore; how many people do we still know who can convincingly (and without irony) plead for the value of liberal democracy? It is not, of course, quite so simple. If (to reverse the logic of her argument) having the privilege of being able to tell your own story were a sufficient qualification for being a good listener and nuanced debater, then many of those on the current Tory frontbench should be some of the best listeners we have. They are not. And historians may bridle at her sweeping claims about “power and wealth” now being “increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few”, or about the “growing number of citizens” who feel excluded. Try telling that to a 17th-century slave or peasant: for all its faults, the culture of the last hundred years has spread power more widely than almost ever before.The speed at which people are judged, stances are taken and strong opinions are expressed against other people on social media platforms purely based on a single tweet or a couple of tweets, without ever having interacted with them in real life, continues to disturb me. In real life, I find people to be so complex and multi-faceted that it often takes several in-person interactions to be able to understand them, their character and their motivations. As Shafak says in this book, “ Be afraid of people who promise an easy shortcut to simplicity”. She urges everyone to always embrace complexity over simplicity. I definitely wouldn’t class this as a self help book because it’s not full of advice on how to live your life. It’s more comforting and gives that feeling of a mutual understanding that the world is overwhelming and that we are not the only ones experiencing this crazy ride called life. But Shafak hasn’t set out to offer an overview of world history. As the example of young Facebook and Like reminds us, she is really pointing to the revolutionary expectations that were raised but never fulfilled by the advent of social media – and to the disappointments as well as to the achievements of the last century of western liberal democracy, which have obviously left much of the traditional power structure (and traditional exclusions) more or less intact. A better title for this book would be, "How to Reiterate Ideas We're All Likely to Agree With for Fun and Profit". (The one in English is, "How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division".) Sinds ik Elif Shafak hoorde spreken op het Festival van de Gelijkheid in Gent (2019), ben ik fan van deze auteur. Niet alleen schrijft ze prachtige boeken - 10 minuten 38 seconden in deze vreemde wereld vond ik fantastisch - ook is ze een bevlogen sociaal-maatschappelijke schrijver die ijvert voor een betere wereld. How to stay sane in an age of division is het eerste non-fictie boek dat ik van Shafak las.

If you are looking for the advice promised by the title, How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division, then “channelling anger” into a calmer and more productive force is one part of it. So too is the embrace of complexity over simplicity (“Be afraid of people who promise an easy shortcut to simplicity”) and the cherishing of multiple identities and multiple “belongings”. For Shafak, identity is not so much a badge of who you are or stamps in your passport, but a fluid set of relationships, or of stories you tell about yourself, that bring you closer to – rather than divide you from – your fellow occupants of the planet. And with one eye on the aftermath of pandemic and the other (I couldn’t help thinking) on some of the worst modern cliches of “well-being”, she invites us to accept that we shall feel despondent in the face of real disasters in the outside world. Or, as she observes: “It is totally fine not to feel fine.” In a world that has increasingly become complex and challenging, group narcissism has become a compensation for personal failures, flaws & frustrations. The solution that she suggests for all of this is to get comfortable with experiencing the negative emotions first. Become more aware and mindful of them. Sit with them a bit longer until they calm down. Seek in-depth knowledge on current issues via books and investigative journalism. And ultimately, channel the outrage into more productive outlets. “ We live in an age in which there is too much information, less knowledge and even less wisdom. That ratio needs to be reversed. We definitely need less information, more knowledge, and much more wisdom.” Turkish-British author Elif Shafak (author of the Booker nominated 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (2019)) provides an affirming essay about the importance of education and the amplifying of unheard voices in the current age. Providing a partial glimpse into her own multicultural upbringing she takes the reader through stages of "Disillusionment and Bewilderment", "Anxiety", "Anger", "Apathy" to "Information, Knowledge, Wisdom."Kad uzmete novu knjigu u ruke, što prvo učinite? Čitate kratak sadržaj, tražite broj stranica, možda dojmove o knjizi? Ja okrenem posljednju stranu i pročitam životopis autora/-ice. O Elif sam znala da je aktivistica i govornica, da je turskog podrijetla. Činjenica da je doktorirala polit. znanosti i predavala na raznim sveučilištima daje joj kredibilitet govoriti o trenutnom političkom, društvenom i kulturnom stanju u kontekstu globalne pandemije. Ali ne ulijeva nam povjerenje zbog toga. Ono što nisam znala o Elif je činjenica da ju je 2017. časopis Politico uvrstio među dvanaest osoba na svijetu "koje će vašem srcu dati veoma potrebnu radost". Vjerujemo joj jer, dok propituje osjećaje oko nas i unutra nas samih, njezini tekstovi odišu racionalnošću, ali i toplinom, imaju dušu. Ne zaboravlja na srce. In a world that is ever shifting and unpredictable it is totally fine not to feel fine. It is perfectly okay not to be okay. Purposeful quotes from her own grandmother to recent writers are sprinkled throughout: 'Don't thank me, ' Grandma said. 'You focus on improving your daughter's life. We inherit our circumstances, we improve them for the next generation. I had little education, I wanted you to do better. Now you need to make sure your daughter has more than you had. Isn't this the natural way of the world? - excerpt from pg. 51 I get angry about things, then go on and work. - Toni Morrison What we call the beginning is often the end... Very beautifully gives context to the complexity and fluidity of the human nature whose in distraught today because we’re constantly conditioned to find our box, label ourself in permanent tattoo and never dare to change because that would make us a traitor. Which in reality has just made us strangers in our own homeland and even skins. Shafak’s writing in support of pluralism, democracy and moderate standpoints is a warm bath in these troubling times