This book was simply amazing to read. I chained it on the train from Copenhagen to Hamburg to Vienna, I simply could not put it down. Spanning 5,000 years, set on Earth as well as in Space I was gripped from start to finish.

Telling the story of a group of scientists trying to save the future of the human race against an unthinkable catastrophe, compounded by ethics and politics it was really engaging watching the story play out across time, with respect to all the individual decisions made along the way.

Vienna was definitely one of the coolest cities I went through as I traveled, and I didn’t even get to scratch the surface. After a beautiful 8 hour train journey from Hamburg, Germany, I landed in the capital of Austria only to discover it was Eurovision that day and everywhere was full. Other than possibly one of the most expensive hotels in the area so I had little choice in the matter and had to stay in a gorgeous $500 a night suite 😀

This was a really fun read, although it was aimed more at teenagers and I was expecting something more adult, the only other Neil Gaiman book I’ve read was his collaboration with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens.

The story is a dark one, with death, suicide, witches and a portal to another world, told through the eyes of a 40 year old recollecting his child hood at the age of 7.

Mark Manson keeps popping up on Facebook as a suggested friend, as we have many friends in common. I have never met the guy, so I haven’t added him, but I did decide to read his book to see what he was about.

It’s a pretty cool book.

The secret is in the title, the entire book is about being honest with who you are and what you like, then expressing that, honestly, in order to be attractive to women. No secrets, no tricks, just honesty.

This took me much longer to read than it should have. I started it in September 2014 and finished it in May 2015 whilst on the train to Vienna. I think I found the writing style disengaging. The book though does contain awesome stories of success as well as insightful information, the biggest takeaway being

Change your job to change your life

Something I tried to do back in 1998, but thanks to being guilt tripped in to living up to my parents expectations it took me 16 torturous years before I was finally able to quit and change things. Now it is actually too late to do what I wanted to do with my life so I’ve had to pivot and do something else that’s awesome instead.

Copenhagen is continuously voted the happiest place to live in the world. Some attribute this to the social system that takes care of everyone, others say it’s due to the lack of corruption in the government. Definitely 2 things the US and the UK need to learn from. I say it’s because they are quite liberal and put posters of boobs on buses, and pretty much anything else with a large enough surface.