Reviews

How to Become an Intellectual by Nick Kolakowski

specificity's review against another edition

2.0

it started out funny but for something that's supposed to be satire it starts taking itself awfully seriously real quick. that's not even touching upon the fact that all his suggestions for lit and film are exclusively white men's work. dnf at 25% when he unironically suggested woody allen (who, apart from being a horrible person, is a horrible director too)

fdterritory's review against another edition

5.0

As a reader who personifies a lot of the features mentioned in this book, a lot of the things that Kolakowski mentions hit awfully close to home...to the point where I'm not quite sure at times whether the author is seriously recommending that I do these things, or that he's parodying these features as things that intellectuals are SUPPOSED to do. But I think that very truth is what makes this book so effective. It's able to be serious but not TOO serious, exacting but not overbearing, intelligent but not haughty. There are a lot of good ideas in here, and anyone who has made a point in life to read big books and think about them way too much will find a lot of themselves here. At the same time, those who would like to be a bit more brainy will find easy-to-follow tips that can be applied gradually as a sort of self-help book.

Either way, there's a ton of value here. Highly recommended.

tara_dear's review

2.0

Some parts of this book were really funny, and it wasn't badly written. It was a book I chose to read on a whim, and when that whim passed, it was hard to keep reading.