Amusing - book review

For the past week or so, I have been getting up between 5.30 and 6am to try and catch up with reading and creative pursuits so I actually achieve something before the mundane chores of the day take up my time, motivation and enthusiasm for them!

One of the books I've made some headway in reading because of this is The Penguin History of the World: 6th edition (2013). It's good for understanding themes, and the gist of the changes that evolved over time, but I am going to read it concurrently with another book that highlights discrete dates and events. Hopefully I'll update this once I've read it all. One of the reviews of the previous edition really made me chuckle. Here it is, copied and pasted from Amazon UK.

44 of 50 people found the following review helpful

 Warning: No penguins, 13 Sep 2011

By 

Daniel Owen

This review is from: The New Penguin History of the World (Paperback)

This is an excellent book - thorough, detailed, well researched and well written. If you want to know about the history of the world, this book delivers. However, I have one gripe: despite the title, this book is, in fact, a history exclusively of humans in the world. When I got about six chapters in, I started to wonder when penguins would arrive on the scene. By about halfway through, I realised that the title is just false advertising - a cheap effort to hook you in, make you buy the book thinking it's about penguins, and then hope you won't notice because it is, otherwise, really good.

If you're looking for a penguin history of the world, look elsewhere. There are no penguins here. No discussion of significant penguins in world history, penguin culture or religion, or any analysis of a penguincentric historical timeline. I think this book should be renamed The New Human History of the World, to avoid this confusion. I can't be the only one disappointed at the lack of penguins.

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