The Jared Diamond Quicklet Bundle (Guns, Germs, and Steel, The Third Chimpanzee, Why is Sex Fun?)

Save more than 54% off our popular Quicklets of Jared Diamond's best books!

This popular bundle includes the following books:

Book 1: Guns, Germs, and Steel
Book 2: The Third Chimpanzee
Book 3: Why Is Sex Fun?

More details below!

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EXCERPT FROM BOOK 1: GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL

This dystopian theme is fairly common in literature, evident in such enduring classics as George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, but what sets The Hunger Games a part is its use of children. Hardly any glimpse of a possible future seems worse than one in which we pit young children against each other.

Reality Television

Perhaps the most chilling reference to our current culture is Collins critique on reality television. While we would abhor the thought of the Hunger Games as a form of actual entertainment, we still enjoy watching real people humiliate themselves, fight each other (thankfully, not to death), and suffer. As troubling as it may be, the Hunger Games do not seem like such a radical extension of our society’s obsession with sensationalist television programming…

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EXCERPT FROM BOOK 2: THE THIRD CHIMPANZEE

When I hear the screams of the crowd, I think it’s because I must look stunning. Then I notice something is rising up around me. Smoke. From fire. Not the flickery stuff I wore last year in the chariot, but something much more real that devours my dress… For a split second I’m gasping, completely engulfed in the strange flames. Then all at once, the fire is gone… I’m in a dress of the exact design of my wedding dress, only it’s the color of coal and made of tiny feathers… except for the white patches on my sleeves. Or should I say my wings. Because Cinna has turned me into a mockingjay.The Mockingjay: by far the most weighty theme on the Hunger Games trilogy. The symbol of a mockingjay first comes into play early on in The Hunger Games when Madge gives Katniss a mockingjay pin that we later learn was worn by her aunt who died in the Hunger Games in which Haymitch was the victor. At the end of the Hunger Games, when Katniss defies the Capitol by making them believe they will both commit suicide by eating poison berries rather than kill each other, Katniss, and her pin in turn, become symbols of resistance. In Catching Fire, we see the mockingjay as a hologram on a pocket watch, stamped into a wafer, and on Peeta’s locket. While it is obvious that in the Capitol the mockingjay is being worn as a fashion statement, in the Districts it is the symbol of rebellion. By the end of Catching Fire, Katniss releases this, even if she has not accepted her role in the resistance. This author counted the word “mockingjay” mentioned at least 25 times in Catching Fire alone…

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EXCERPT FROM BOOK 3: WHY IS SEX FUN?

Being an experienced swimmer, Katniss is one of the first to reach the Cornucopia. There she nearly attacks Finnick but sees him wearing Finnick’s bracelet—a clear indication that she is to ally with him. Finnick retrieves Peeta (who cannot swim) and together with Mags they enter the jungle. It doesn’t take Katniss long to identify the force field at the edge of the arena and recognize that the arena is round. When a deadly fog begins to cause them to affect their nerves, Peeta is unable to walk. Finnick carries him and Katniss carries Mags, but when Katniss and Finnick grow too numbed by the fog to carry both Peeta and Mags, Mags walks into the fog, effectively killing herself.

Eventually the fog recedes and Katniss discovers saltwater leeches the poison left by the fog. Later, when they are all recovered, Peeta is attacked by savage monkeys and one of the District 6 morphlings saves him, dying in his place. Johanna Mason along with Beetee and Wiress join the alliance. Wiress, who appears mentally unstable, continues to repeat “Tick Tock”.