I enjoyed Sapiens precisely because it exemplifies one of its themes: namely, that telling stories is advantageous (to the teller, the hearer, society, or some combination) because stories are easy to remember and can be used as mental tools to navigate the world and to affect the behavior of others — regardless of whether the stories reflect reality in a wholly accurate way. Thus the book, in its own inaccuracies, is a joke on the reader (and, more broadly, on a swathe of all readers and academics) because it advantages Harari himself to the general economic and temporal detriment of his audience.

I keep Harari's book on my shelf to remember the power of control through narrative, and I get a good laugh whenever I see it there.