This is one of the ones that got away in my 2024 reviewing. I read this book ages ago, but never got around to reviewing it for some reason which is shocking, for it is fascinating. Each of the twelve chapters takes one skill from its historical peak, then charts how we’ve let it go, considering how we can regain or reverse the decline, and concluding with some personal action points.
He begins with a straightforward skill: navigation, of which the Polynesians were the acknowledged experts, combining all their knowledge into dynamic mental maps known as ‘Etak’, planning journeys in stages with known landmarks such as islands, knowledge of currents and wind systems, and including observations of things such as bird migration too. Apart from switching off your phone, and using good old-fashioned maps, Lee suggests getting to know all your local landmarks, getting deliberately lost, memorising routes etc. I really enjoyed this section – a good start.
The next few chapters consider reading, writing, solitude, conversation and motion similarly, even though they are more conceptual skills, before returning to craft. We then go off down the more conceptual route again to look at memory, and here he cites the sheer volume of lines having to be remembered continually by Shakespeare’s players: a skill that Judi Dench also shares. Dreams, thought and time complete the chapters. The chapter on thought is also interesting because it deals with AI and biases, and how you can deal with it – he suggests tweaking questions asked of AI tools, as rephrasing often gives noticeably different responses, for instance.
This book gives plenty of food for thought, and skimming through it again some months after initially reading it, I was reminded how much I enjoyed reading it the first time. My apologies to MO’M Books for leaving my review so long.
Source: Review copy – thank you. Michael O’Mara hardback 2024, 320 pages.
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