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This guide to train travel in Europe gives both a good overview of what you need to make a successful holiday traveling by train and it shows detailed route descriptions and suggestions.

This entire book is worth it just for the map at the very start of the book. It shows six grand rail trips across Europe. Starting from up in the North going South or West to East. Each of these trips would take you a month or more if you really wanted to experience everything along that route. It's a great starting point to pick the sections that sound interesting to you and that match your schedule.

Each of those trips contains an overview of the most important cities you'll encounter and gives multiple alternatives to travel between those cities. Each important landmark also gets a brief description of why Lonely Planet considers it important.

Apart from the trips, there's also a large introductory chapter on train travel in general. Consisting of practical information, such as the different types of trains you'll encounter and what to watch out for when making a booking (or just winging it if you prefer)

There's a lot of inspiration to be found here, which leads me into my only grip with the book. Sometimes the information is a bit too dense. You'll need to consult additional sources to really plan your trip. Usually that's ok, but for some sections a little bit of extra detail would be handy. Just an example: at one point the guide mentions the Bernina Express in Switzerland as in interesting slow travel option. However, when you start researching it, it is far from obvious how to incorporate it into you journey (neither start/end point nor way of reserving an actual seat are easy to figure out at all) A little warning or some more detail would have been helpful (as a tip from me: check out seat61.com, it's a treasure trove of extra information).

If you're considering skipping the plane for you next holiday, I would strongly recommend this book to get an idea of what's possible using trains in Europe.

This was such a delightful read. Mr Hall's style is spot on.

The book consists of three parts. It starts with an overview of what SF writers and futurologists in the 50s thought we would have by now (hence the flying car in the title). It continuous with the second part that describes today's status and why we don't have certain things that we were promised (such as that flying car on the cover) And finally it ends up with what's ahead for the future, should we choose to go the route that Hall wants us to take.

While I don't agree with everything in the book, I still found it fascinating and thought provoking.

If there is one gripe, it would be the technicality and the lack of explanation in some of the later chapters. Right now, it's just a starting point for long "Google sessions", I think a bit more depth would have been nice.

This book is a definite recommendation for any one interested in technology in the most general sense of the word.

The three body problem is all about the physics problem of how 3 bodies movies in respect to each other. If you check out the WikiPedia page on it, you'll notice that there is currently no known general solution.

So is this a Physics book? Not really, as the story progresses, you'll certainly get some deeper insights into the problem, but there is most definitely a lot more going on.

If you like [a:Andy Weir|6540057|Andy Weir|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1382592903p2/6540057.jpg]'s books, but you always thought, this needs a bit more Chinese culture and more science, you are in for a threat. Regarding the Chinese culture and history, the translator helpfully added footnotes to explain some of the names and word plays that were used in the book. It was very interesting to learn a bit about some of the Chinese history I knew nothing about.

On top of that, the chapters are written in the perfect order. Throughout the book you're just as puzzled as the main character, trying to make your own hypothesis of what actually is happening. It was truly involving.

The book is most certainly not for every one, but those who will enjoy it, will enjoy it tremendously.

Andy Weir is back with a new sci-fi/near future story.

Ryland Grace wakes up with no recollection of where he is and why he's there. It turns out he's on a space ship with a mission to save earth.

I don't want to spoil the story, so it's hard to say much more about it, however, rest assured it has many of the same elements that The Martian has. If you enjoyed that one, you will definitely enjoy Project Hail Mary.

So why does this book get one star less? It's mostly because of the first third of the book. Although it's an interesting part, it does drag on a bit too long for me. It shows that Weir really enjoyed thinking through how that situation could be resolved if it really happened (Encountering an alien species and trying to communicate with it). For me, it took a bit too long.

However, after that setup, the story really gets going and I rushed through the pages, wondering how Grace would get out of the trouble he got into and if he could save the earth.

Hunters of Dune continues the story of the Dune universe. It picks up after the cliffhanger of Chapterhouse.

Unlike the first five Dune books, this one is really the second part of a trilogy that started with Chapterhouse. For instance, it explains why Scytale was still part of the story in Chapterhouse. Yet again, he is pretty much ignored and he's just in the story for "that one important thing". This brings me to my main gripe with the book. It feels as many different plots going in somewhat random directions. One can only hope that things will be tied together in Sandworms, the final book.

With that bit of negativity out of the way, I still think this is a solid continuation that fits very well in the Dune universe. I really liked how the Tleilaxu way-of-life was contrasted with the new sisterhood. I'm looking forward to reading Sandworms, the final (chronologically) book.

BTW Since this was my first Brian Herbert Dune novel, I feel like I missed some of the backstory that was developed in the many prequels he wrote. However, the book comes with a (very) short history that helped me along in understanding the ending of the book.

In the final book by Frank Herbert in the Dune saga, we follow the trials and tribulations of the Bene Gesserit. They are up against extinction by the Honored Matres. A faction returning from the Scattering with only one goal in mind: destruction.

Throughout the book we learn what motivates the different factions and the people in those factions. This all concludes in a big face-off between the two sisterhoods. And ends in a giant cliffhanger.

The style of this book is exactly the same as previous books. It has parts that tend to drag on just a little too long and a few pages later it has you turning pages as fast as possible.

It's a great continuation of the story, but it is most definitely not a conclusion. In fact, there's a lot of hinting at what could happen next, which kind of got on my nerves by the end of the book.

There's also Scytale which seems like a completely superfluous character with no real development throughout the book. Although he gets quite a number of pages in the book. I suppose this is a setup for later books which never got written (or maybe Brian Herbert did? I will need to find out)

This book will really get you interested in the Dune universe and where it's heading. It saddens me that there are only two books chronologically after this one and they are not by Frank Herbert himself.