P43 If you can think of five ways for the brain to do something, it does it in all ten. The five ways you've thought of, and the five ways you haven't thought of yet.
P68 Freud... always argued that his psychoanalytic concepts were place holders until science could do better. ... to replace the psychological terms by physiological or chemical ones.
🔽 関連ページ 🔽 English review "The Autistic Brain" Temple Grandin (2013) Review | To know the differences physiologically
Confessions
Kanae Minato, 2008
告白
湊かなえ
240 pages
Read in 2026.03
Check the synopsis and details on amazon.com
✔ A teacher declares that her daughter was killed by someone in her class ✔ People then confess what they did and saw ✔ Japanese school life at extreme
★★★★★ A teacher confesses her daughter was killed by someone in her classroom, then in the form of confessions the twisted truth will be told. Irresistible power of storytelling.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Irresistible power of storytelling.
I first thought it was a confession from the teacher that she knows someone in the classroom killed her daughter.
No it's more complicated as suggested by the English title this is about "confessions" plural.
There are numerous confessions, they tell us what they did, saw or think, but what if they actually don't know the truth, or maybe they're not saying the truth?
It doesn't only reveal the crime scene but reveals the truth about the people they thought they knew well, or their weakness.
Confidence, friendship, motherhood, and the crime itself.
You cannot put down the book until you are sure of what really happened.
The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath, 1963
244 pages
Read in 2026.03
Check the synopsis and details on amazon.com
✔ A modern classic about a young woman and her uncertainty ✔ She seems to be successful, yet her mental health falls apart ✔ Though it's more than 60 years old still relevant
★★★★★ A summer job at a magazine in New York, all looks well yet nothing is going well. Modern classic coming of age novel about young women's fear and anger, still very relevant today.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The famous, the classic.
A young woman from a poor family studies hard and wins all prizes including a summer job at a magazine in New York.
All looks well, except nothing was actually going well and she ends up in an institution.
I am glad I didn't read this in my 20s because I'm not sure if I could take it.
Esther's fears are what any young women fear, and her anger, hopelessness, hatred, they are all familiar.
She's determined but if you let go one small rope, you lose yourself in the ocean.
Seemingly successful doesn't always mean happiness.
The author herself took her own life a few weeks after the publication.
It was written in the 60s so the world around these issues has changed, a bit, it's kinder now.
But 60 years on, it's still not that crazy to feel how she felt.
As long as there are girls in this world, this book will be read.
🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽
●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●● The Bell Jar: A Timeless Coming-of-Age Classic (Perennial Classics)
★★★★★ In theory, sure the trick is possible but in reality it's not doable. Now that the team has become more dynamic, they face the undoable murder. A Detective Galileo series.
🔽 log 🔽 Salvation of a Saint Keigo Higashino, 2008 Read in 2018 check on amazon.com
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A man was killed, the only possible suspect is the wife but she was miles away. In theory, sure the trick is possible but in reality it's not doable. This time Galileo faces the unrealistic mystery.
He and the detective Kusanagi have been mates since university, but now a young female detective Utsumi joins (this character was added to the TV series first and the author brought her to the novel) Now that the team has become more dynamic, they face the undoable murder. It's a good example of how the author also focuses on entertaining his readers not only with the fabulous strick but playing with other elements like its TV series.
It's refreshing to see the young Utsumi doing her job well despite the misogyny in the institution, and it emphasise Kusanagi's sense of justice. But, he fails at one thing, he starts to have tender feelings towards the suspect.
Of course the part of the solving is good, obviously, but it's fun to see the trio.
Here are 3 books picked by me, akapan, to pile up in your bookshelf to create an amazing tsundoku, or actually read them, of course.
"Cheerleaders!" Not all cheerleaders wear uniforms
1. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen, 1813 UK 367 pages [my comment] How to humiliate a rich guy and to marry him in the end. What a girl. She cares about people around her, but knows what she wants. She brings everyone forward. [check on amazon.com]
2. Klara and the sun Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021 UK 307 pages [my comment] Artificial Friends; are they friends, or pets or toys? Klara exists only to support her assigned owner. Her dream is purely to support. [check on amazon.com]
3. 100 Nasty Women of History: Brilliant, badass and completely fearless women everyone should know Hannah Jewell, 2019 UK 376 pages [my comment] These brave women are buried away in history. Women are always less, they succeed "by chance" or are just "nasty"? No. They are the true inspirations, the heroes, they made our history. [check on amazon.com]
Here are 3 books picked by me, akapan, to pile up in your bookshelf to create an amazing tsundoku, or actually read them, of course.
"Women and Crimes" They got involved too much
1. Butter Asako Yuzuki, 2017 柚木麻子 Japan [my comment] Kajimana adores butter and hates feminism. From her prison cell, she has control over everything Rika does with her pale chubby arms. It questions Japan's expectations on women. [check on amazon.com]
2. The Paying Guests Sarah Waters, 2014 UK 595 pages [my comment] The woman who lives quietly with her mother falls in love with a beautiful young wife of the new tenant, their love led to a murder. Who's in control? [check on amazon.com]
3. The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith, 1955 US 252 pages [my comment] It focuses a lot on what's on Ripley's mind, how he's cold and nervous, contrary to the blue sky of Italy, but it's Merge who is involved and used to it a perfect crime. [check on amazon.com]
★★★★★ A deep affection of the "family" that is beyond "common sense". A complex mystery with scientific tricks, solved by a physics professor Yukawa, a.k.a. Galileo.
🔽 log 🔽 A Midsummer's Equation Keigo Higashino, 2011 368 pages Read in 2018 check on amazon.com
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A Detective Galileo series, book 3. There is no mistake with this series. A complex mystery with scientific tricks, solved by a physics professor Yukawa, a.k.a. Galileo.
The series usually focuses on human relationship, this time a family, but not bound by blood. A man is killed in an old resort town where Yukawa was visiting. As he uncovers the mystery of the murder he also uncovers the town's tragic past. A deep affection of the "family" that is beyond "common sense"
Yukawa normally dislikes children, but here you see his affection towards one boy who is in the middle of everything, and I think that's represented by the beautiful sea the townpeople are trying to protect.
🔽 Related pages 🔽 『真夏の方程式』 東野圭吾, 2011年 感想 | "家族"の深い愛情
"Mother and Daughter" Relationship too close and struggling
After picking these 3 I realised that they are not Japanese books but are all related to Japan and its history. A mother in England reminiscing about her hometown Nagasaki and the woman she met during the war, a Korean mother who lived for her family in Japan throughout the war, a mother who was a popular prostitute in Indonesia colonised in Japan - and their daughters. Powerful.
1. A Pale View of Hills Kazuo Ishiguro, 1982 UK 183 pages [my comment] Etsuko now lives in England, she thinks about her lost daughter while reminiscing about Nagasaki, about a strange woman and her daughter she met. The women's past, future and regrets. [check on amazon.com]
2. Pachinko Min Jin Lee, 2017 US 512 pages [my comment] A young Korean woman crossed the sea to Japan. She lived in the war time Japan as a zainichi, lived entirely for her family. Endless struggles and little happiness. The way of living passed down to her daughter. Life is a pachinko. [check on amazon.com]
3. Beauty is a wound Cantik Itu Luka Eka Kurniawan, 2002 Indonesia 480 pages [my comment] Mixture of history and race, religions and politics and power, and living among men abusing all above. An epic drama of strong beautiful women. Her only hope is her ugly daughter. Blessed ugliness. [check on amazon.com]
1.カズオ•イシグロ 遠い山なみの光, 1982 A Pale View of Hills Kazuo Ishiguro 183 ページ (英語) 【おすすめポイント】 故郷長崎の戦時中に出会った女性と娘を想う悦子。戦争の空しさと苦しみ。女たちの過去、未来、後悔。終わらない母の苦しみと降り積もる娘の苦しみの物語。 【amazonで見る】
2.パチンコ ミン・ジン・リー, 2017 Pachinko Min Jin Lee 512 ページ (英語) 【おすすめポイント】 1910年の韓国から日本に渡った女性。在日コリアンとしての彼女の人生で絶えることなく続く苦労と小さな幸せと愛。母から娘へ続く生き方。人生はパチンコの如く。 【amazonで見る】
3.美は傷 エカ•クルニアワン, 2002 Beauty is a wound Cantik Itu Luka Eka Kurniawan 480 pages (英語) 【おすすめポイント】 インドネシア。この地に宿る魂の苦しみ、植民地としての過去、蔑ろにされる女性の尊厳、生きていくための手段。暴力と愛と呪い。最後の望みは醜く生まれてくれた娘。強く生きる女たちの壮大な物語。 【amazonで見る】
★★★★☆ A collection of short stories that makes you simply sad. It gets you excited a bit, then in the end you face the cold reality, that you are merely insignificant being.
🔽 log 🔽 Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri, 1999 Read in 2018 check on amazon.com
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A collection of short stories that makes you simply sad.
The author herself is of Indian origin so protagonists are Indian or Indian origin, if not someone looking at Indian.
She depicts these Indian characters as some kind of aliens, someone we cannot understand.
The stories get you excited a bit, then in the end you face the cold reality, that you are merely insignificant being.
It won Pulitzer and other awards so I'd love to read this in English.
★★★★★ The dynamics of the 3 generations of these women, these proud, bold, beautiful, lovable women. They all want to live their lives fully.
🔽 log 🔽 The Persians Sanam Mahloudji, 2025 384 pages Read in 2016.02 check on amazon.com
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I've set a theme for this month which is women, and what a perfect start.
A noble, or ex-noble Valiat family, a family that produced a national hero,. The story is about their women who left for America, and those who stayed in Iran after the revolution. It definitely reminds you of Persepolis, but this one has even more incendiaries. The dynamics of the 3 generations of these women, these proud, bold, beautiful, lovable women.
By following the perspectives different women, it shows you the very different lives they've led, how the women in Iran really lived behind the veils, against the money-making shallow lives in America. But it's not only the countries that determine their lives, like Elizabeth being a woman in Iran in the 1940s is different from being one during the 80s, like Niaz.
But one thing is common between these women across 3 generations, they all want to live their lives fully. They want to love freely, they want to discard freely, and they want to embrace each other despite their regrets, grudges, and lies.
Afterall, as Shirin the entrepreneur says, America is younger than their favourite jewellery, so of course their lives are extravagant. Just that their extravagance is not shallow.
★★★★★ A NHS, public hospital is chaotic everyday but in the Christmas season it goes haywire. He has to pull out everything from all the holes of human bodies, from babies to candies.
🔽 log 🔽 Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas Adam Kay, 2019 160 pages Read in 2019.12 check on amazon.com
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A diary of a junior doctor who did Christmas shifts for 6 years, and it's brutally funny, don't read this in public.
A NHS, public hospital is chaotic everyday but in the Christmas season it goes haywire.
He has to pull out everything from all the holes of human bodies, from babies to candies.
I have spent a lot of time at NHS (National Health Services, public service, yes, free) hospitals and I've never seen a group of people so funny.
They live their lives next to life or death so nothing surprises them.
As the author says, yet, nobody thanks them, not the government nor the patients, so they only way for them to survive is to laugh.
I actually read this during Christmas, a perfect seasonal reading.
Nothing but respect for NHS staff.
🔽 Book reviews and notes 🔽 Here are 3 books picked by me, akapan, to pile up in your bookshelf to create an amazing tsundoku, or actually read them, of course.
Women and Madness Women against the social expectations
1. The Woman Dies Aoko Matsuda, 2021 Japan 女が死ぬ 松田青子 [my comment] In Japan it's still normal to say "typically female" or "it talks to the female sensitivity" in ads or magazines. These women won't give in. Anger, fabulous. [full review page] [check on amazon.com]
2. Little Fires Everywhere Celeste Ng, 2017 US 400 pages [my comment] It starts slowly in everyone. 2 families, opposite ideals, and different mothers different daughters with different fates. [full review page] [check on amazon.com]
3. Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf, 1925 UK 240 pages [my comment] Clarissa is on the verge of falling apart, she's physically unwell but holds it together, on the outside. Nothing seems to happen, yet there's a storm in her head. [full review page] [check on amazon.com]
★★★★★ Dystopia that could happen in near future. This is the terminal point of misogyny. Women are no longer human but tools to perform some roles. Interesting yes, very much, but above all scary.
🔽 log 🔽 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood, 1985 337 pages Read in 2018
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I borrowed it from a Canadian friend of mine who is a big fan of Atwood, I must say, I was actually staying in a hospital for weeks that time so it was pretty heavy!
Offred is one of very few fertile women left so she has been enslaved to reproduce a child for a commander and his wife.
Not so long ago she had her own life with a husband and a child and she cannot easily let it go.
This is the terminal point of misogyny.
Women are no longer human but tools to perform some roles.
Even wives are just a role, there is no affection between married couples.
You could write a few books dissecting the theme, but let's pause and ponder that Atwood wrote this story in the 80s.
The story is obviously awfully interesting but it's at the same time scary that maybe in 20 years or so, this could be reality somewhere in the world.
✔ Kerala, south India ✔ Childhood memories and struggle of a broken family ✔ Tradition and expectations
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ Knowing you are loved less, jealously, love, taboo, nothingness, coldness, honesty - through these feelings and environment the life slowly falls apart. Haunting, emotional and beautiful.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A friend of mine recommended this book, so I started reading it without knowing anything about it - what a glorious and emotional surprise.
It is difficult to read. First of all because it's not chronological, chapters and plot jump around and second of all, if you don't know much about Indian culture, ideas and terms, you feel left behind. So, I ended up googling a lot while reading, but it was definitely worth it.
You don't really understand what happened in earlier chapters until the end. It reminds us of the way our minds work, when you are traumatised you first feel the strong sense of fear of the moment, and slowly you establish the surroundings, it's never like, A happened thus B happened, followed by C.
The meaning and significance of the fact that it was written by an Indian woman living in India. The emotions, perspective, way of descriptions that she has as an Indian or Asian woman cannot shine through fully if she was brought up in the West. Physically living a life where you have the Caste, as a mother, as a woman, as an obstacle. The acknowledgement that you are loved less as a child, jealously, love, taboo, nothingness, coldness, honesty - through these feelings and environment the life slowly falls apart.
The best part of reading this book is to try to follow these small things. Of course it won Booker Award.
Also after reading the book I really wanted to see Kathakali, and yes I managed it, I did go to Kerala and saw it.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽 Here are 3 books picked by me, akapan, to pile up in your bookshelf to create an amazing tsundoku, or actually read them, of course.
"Strong Female Characters" Yes, yes, it's rather common, I know, but I wanted to pick some quirky ones because strength comes in different shapes!
2. Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata, 2016 コンビニ人間 村田沙耶香 [my comment] She's not married, not doing a "grown up's job", no kids, no boyfriend, also she doesn't give a sh*t, she is clever and quick. she didn't just end up being a convenience store woman, this is her true self. [check on amazon.com]
3. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte, 1847 624 pages [my comment] I have to add this classic in the list. A woman who doesn't obey? A woman who says no? All with her plain childish looks? How dare. [check on amazon.com]
1.高慢と偏見 ジェーン•オースティン, 1813年 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 367 ページ イギリス 【おすすめポイント】 お金のため結婚なんかしない。負けん気が強いエリザベス、あれだダーシーをけなすのに結局は愛を見つけ出す。古典中の古典だけどここは押さえておかないと。 【amazonで見る】
★★★★★ She was sent to pose as a maid, but their relationship becomes more than that, a lot more. It feels like many books in one; Victorian London, girls, crime, and love - girls in crime and in love.
🔽 log 🔽 Fingersmith Sarah Waters, 2002 582 pages Read in 2020.10 check on amazon.com
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I actually watched the Korean film The Handmaiden first. I watched it when I was heavily pregnant so it's a bit blurry, but I was astonished to a point that I had to look for the original book.
A family of thieves sends their girl to a rich family, for her to be a maid of the naïve gentlewoman aiming for her eventual inheritance, but slowly their relationship becomes more than that - a lot more. In the film her uncle collects paintings, ukiyoe, which suits the film as it's set in Korea, but in the book in Victorian London he collects words.
So naturally I kept comparing it to the film, which is always an error because films tend to be more dramatic or exaggerated, but the madness is definitely there in the book. It feels like you're reading many books, because there are quite a few twists and everything builds up so well; the girls, the crime, and the love.
Also the historical background is intriguing, it depicts different lives in the backstreet in London, that's one reason it feels like you are different many books in one.
At first you think one is tricking another, but oh no you are wrong, but wait it's changing again, now what, oh what is going on NOW. I don't want to spoil it but you'll see what I mean by this - she's not just a pearl, she's what she's made herself to be but now with pride.
★★★★☆ You must first know The Gita, then read this to understand further. But you do get the basic ideas and philosophy behind it. Now I'll need to read the actual Gita.
🔽 log 🔽 My Gita Devdutt Pattanaik, 2015 256 pages Read in 2020.10 check on amazon
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Technically it shouldn't be a difficult read, but unfortunately didn't understand it fully and it's my fault. The actual Bhagavad Gita is not in this book, insted it expects that you already know it, so totally my fault. I didn't. So it's reading the description without actually knowing the thing.
But you do get the basic ideas and philosophy behind it. That there are several scriptures but The Gita talks about the social responsibility, it's about actually doing things because it's your duty. Arjuna must fight, leave all the worries to Krishna and he must do the actions, because it's his duty. The most interesting part was that a relationship with gods is a two way relationship. A god needs love and respect, and a god loves and respects, both ways.
★★★★☆ The book of Taoism written in 400 BCE. A very short version with the translation and short commentary for each passage. Something to come back to time to time in life, with more knowledge.
The book of Taoism written in 400 BCE. This edition is very short, with the translation and short commentary for each passage. It's said to be written by Laozi around that time, but there's an ongoing argument about if it was written by him, or if he actually even existed.
It makes more sense now that Japanese Buddhism turnout out to be different from the original version, the antient Chinese philosophy is very strong and great. With the Chinese filter, of course it's evolved by the time it got to Japan.
It's something to come back to time to time in life, with more knowledge for sure.
(I don't have BCE in the published year so I just added this to 1-1699)
✔ China, Japan and the war
✔ Nostalgia and unreliable memories from childhoon
✔ Friendship between British and Japanese in China
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ Nostalgia, it is the big theme in this book. Christopher and Akira playing innocently in their childhood in Shanghai. Full of fun and tender memories. But are they?
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
It's a book from Ishiguro, so the writing is beautiful, that's given.
Nostalgia, it is the big theme in this book, full of fun and tender memories.
Christopher and Akira playing innocently during their childhood in Shanghai. After growing up to become a detective in England, though through some slow confusions, Christopher finally decides to take on a mission, the reality, of the disappearance of his parents.
Ishiguro doesn't explain things in a chronological order.
How much is real, how much is carefully made up?
He goes wondering around the city of Shanghai blindly without a solid clue or valid understanding, as he is wondering around in his memories.
Beautifully written.
✔ South London ✔ Childhood love story and coming of age ✔ Father son relationship
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ Very poetic. His big world is loud and violent, but not his small world, it's a place of love, tenderness, freedom, family, dream and grieve. It leaves you with a great feeling of understanding and belonging.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽 Very poetic. From a quick glance of the cover, you don't expect it - immigrants, Black, south London, music, you'd expect something loud and violent.
Loudness and violence are there, but it's the big world they lived in. While in his small world, it's a place of love, tenderness, freedom, family, dream and grieve. He is in love with his childhood friend, he struggles in his relationship with his father who seems to be closed up, it's the story we all share, but the story is told in a mix of rhythm and tenderness.
It leaves you with a great soft feeling of understanding and belonging.
★★★★★ Your fiancé tells you he has betrayed you. 2 weeks to your wedding, will you break the perfect life you have created, or will you cling to it? A woman struggling with the expectation of others and her own. Girl, we hear you.
✔ Female rage ✔ Life in London as a young woman with career ✔ Food
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽 A book about female rage. About trying too hard and about creating life based on others. And eating. It's a story of a woman who is about to get married, so the tension is at its peak when he confesses his betrayal, what now? The need to show you're up to their expectations, because you carefully fabricated that image. And godforbid she lives the life of her own lower class family. It's all represented in the food and eating. Look at me buying good stuff from waitrose. Look at me cooking and baking fancy stuff. Very real, it's what womanhood is today.
★★★★☆ Classic Seicho Matsumono, tangled up men and women, money, man's pride, all the good stuff in these 4 short stories. He always brings in new phenomenon that's happening in Japan. True. Like a posh trip to a remote island, so 60s.
🔽 log 🔽 The fire and the sea Seicho Matsumoto 火と汐 松本清張 Read 2024.1 Not available in English
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽 Classic Seicho Matsumono, tangled up men and women, money, man's pride, all the good stuff in these 4 short stories.
He always brings in some new phenomenon that's happening in Japan to his stories. True. Like a posh trip to a remote island, so 60s. His stories takes you to "somewhere not here", like the trip, or a day out on a yacht. It might not as "fancy" as it was in the 1960s, but you can still feel that excitement. His books never miss.
🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽 Not available in English
✔ Life in Kalimpong, India, historical fiction
✔ Class struggle and love story
✔ Gurkha movement and immigration
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★+♥ One person is so small and can be crashed in a second, so is there any hope? In spring the Himalaya brings fragile hope, but with the rain it makes everything rotten. We live at the mercy of something we cannot control. Powerful.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Recommended by a friend so I realised only later that it was in Kalimpong.
Through eyes of a well to do orphan girl, it looks at Gurkhaland movement in a non-romantic way; how we live in our own imagination - and how the reality bites back in nonchalant tone.
The orphan girl starts to live with her grandfather, who eats Indian food with a knife and fork, in a big house with his cook/servant.
She falls in love with a young man amid the violent Gurkha movement, and at the same time on the other side of the world the cook's son is fed up with his life in NY that's going nowhere.
One person is so small and can be crashed in a second, so in the end, is there any equality, understanding, or hope?
Everything changes, except for one thing; the Himalayas.
In spring it brings fragile hope, but the rain makes everything rotten, and we all live at the mercy of something we cannot control.
It's a feeling you get when you are in India, you physically feel some superior power, something much bigger than life.
It is comical at times but tragic in a subtle and unkind way. Powerful.
Notes from Underground
Записки изъ подполья
Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1864
Read in 2020.07
check price on amazon.com
✔ Earlier Dostoevsky ✔ Short ✔ "Confessions" philosophical fiction
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ A man who is very negative, jealous, twisted, pessimistic, confused... It's short so you can finish the book before you lose your mind. Notes from a man who's locked himself in a dungeon called ego.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Read it in Japanese translation. A man who is very negative, jealous, twisted, pessimistic, confused - a man who is opposite of likeable.
It starts with a confession that can only come out of an insane person, then it moves on to something more like a story.
It's short so you can finish the book before you start to lose your mind. Notes from a man who's locked himself in the underground, a dark place, a dungeon called ego.
Bisexuality in the Ancient World
Eva Cantarella, 1988
Secondo natura
286 pages
Read in 2025.06
check price on amazon.com
✔ Ancient Rome and Greece
✔ Their separate history and culture around bisexuality
✔ Arrival of Christianity and its moral
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ A man marries woman as a social obligation, a man has a relationship with a younger man for education in Greece, and for his manliness in Rome - and the societies get tired. Fascinating to see we've always suffered from the same things, patriarchy and machismo.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I've had this for long, but didn't really realise it was so academic, written by a university professor in Milan.
Bisexuality here is not the same definition as today, as in, loving men and women at the same level.
It means that men are socially obliged to marry women, but also to love men, for different reasons in Greece and Rome.
In Greece it was about education and sophistication, and only men could educate boys via semen.
Rome was about machismo, men conquer at wars and in life they conquer women and other men.
In the end both cultures were extremely misogynistic.
It's all about how men should be higher than women.
In Rome, then came the religion (made by men of course, then it spread to Greece) misogynistic as ever, but this time to protect men's superiority they told people to focus on reproduction, just marry and have sex with women who will give more births.
She argues that, however it was not Christianity that changed this attitude of loving men, men were already a bit tired of being forced to be macho constantly, times change, people change, so it was more that Christianity came at the right time.
The book expects you to know the basics of the ancient world which I don't so I now need further readings, especially Sappho.
But even after 1000s of years, we're still suffering from the same problems - patriarchy and machismo.
The Golden Road
How ancient India transformed the world
William Dalrymple, 2024
432 pages
Read in 2025.03
check price on amazon.com
✔ History of the ancient India and its soft power
✔ What they don't teach you at school
✔ Insightful history and facts from religion to mathematics
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★+♥ My favourite historian, absolute. It proudly shows off the soft power of Ancient India. It's so vast geographically and in the topics that it leaves you speechless. Powerful and exciting.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
My favourite historian. How lucky are we to have a favourite?
The signed special edition that I finally got my hands on, sure I could buy a regular one on Amazon in Italy, but no, it had to come through the whole long process.
So naturally I had a very high expectation, and, it completely exceeded it
I follow his podcast, tweets and instagram, yeah stalking him, so I knew what kind of things would be in the book, yet, every single page contains mind blowing facts.
How is it that I or we didn't know this history, why was it hidden?
How is it that we didn't know India's soft power spread around south east Asia in an efficient way and the famous ancient Chinese trades were actually via India? Silk road? Yeah it was India who made a huge profit.
Or that "Arabic numerals" are as a matter of fact, "Hindu-Arabic numerals"?
That it originated in India in the first century and Europe only started to use it in 11th, 12th century?
As always the history and facts that Dalrymple uncovers for us are fascinating but it's his sheer enthusiasm that is the gem of his work, and the reason he is admired and loved. Who else can be called "rock star historian"? Aren't historian supposed to be boring people?
He's so intelligent and intellectual yet he gets told off for spilling beans on the podcast, that he's not great at simple maths, and that he sometimes gets emotional and cry on the podcast. Rock star yes, but kawaii yes too.
He simply loves history, and can't help to share it with us. And if he didn't know something, he'd go "oh I didn't know that, tell me more" with (I can easily imagine) his twinkling eyes.
Eye opening, mind blowing, brain exploding, curiosity fulfilled, he writes what he loves, so us readers can't help but be fascinated. His books have that power.
It's a love letter to India from a historian who's completely in love and unapologetically curious.
Did I say he was my favourite historian yet? I did, but I'd repeat again and again.
Nihon Zankoku Monogatari 1
(Japan cruel stories 1, Flock of poor people)
Miyamoto Tsuneichi et al, 1959
日本残酷物語1 貧しき人々の群れ
宮本常一 他
Read in 2025.02
check price on amazon.com(Not available in English)
✔ Local Japanese history and anthropology
✔ Focuses on normal people, poor people
✔ History that they don't teach at school
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ Normal, majority of Japanese people were poor. And their lives where cruel to them, yes, but can we just simplify this side of history, the history of the majority. Great Anthropology.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Miyamoto is my favourite Japanese anthropologist.
He focuses on folklores and local traditions, and he firmly believes on going to places on foot to meet the locals to learn about their local customs, of the normal people.
Normal people in Japan were poor. Many foreign travelers from 100 years ago or so all talk about how poor Japan was centuries ago. An English explorer Isabella Bird is a famous one among those.
Just over 100 years ago, majority of people in Japan suffered from poverty, living lives of thefts, killings, selling their bodies, disposing some family members (often their children of elderly) - to survive.
You might have heard of the tradition of getting rid of the elderly in the mountain, or newborns in the river "before they were considered living human of the family" the latter famously being considered incredibly cruel by Western Christians that time.
There are endless examples in this book, examples of how the poorest and weakest of the society had to survive.
In the meantime, today we love to focus on the rich and powerful like samurai, shogun and rich merchants of Edo period, and how Japan was "sophisticated".
That's not the reality, the life was cruel, people were cruel.
But do we dismiss them only as "cruel"?
Parents who had to select which babies would survive, did they have a choice?
What did the government do while the rich had their sophisticated lives?
The sad history of villages attaching trading ships or another village to eat, were they merely cruel?
In one chapter they specifically talk about female.
Female are always the victim, especially when the time is hard.
Female were considered impure and inferior. They were always fighting, in society, in family, with elder female members.
How dare they give birth to more mouths to feed, it's the female's responsibility and "fault" how insane.
A chapter on women working in the mining was also great, they carry their family, society, finance on their shoulders, and my god they were strong.
This is the kind of history we should learn at school, this is the real history of Japan.
🔽 log 🔽 Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World Mark Kurlansky, 1997 Read in 2025.03 check price on amazon.com
✔ World history and wars around cod ✔ Exciting and revealing, unknown history ✔ Some recipe at the end
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ Nobody had imagined that one day, cod would reduce in number and lead us to wars. We had to expose our ugly selves, all because of, yes, cod.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽 Being a Japanese person, cod is not something I understood fully. It's the fish and chips, northern Europe seem to fish a lot, and in southern Europe they eat dried fish as specialty. And yet that IS the history, Spanish eat a lot of cods that they don't have nearby, why. And as always things are so exaggerated with the modern technology that the cod, which thought to be forever plentiful, is decreasing in number and wars occur, and xenophobia will triumph because it's always someone else's fault that there's less fish. Funny yet totally understandable that the most of the Atlantic world eat non-fresh cod, because that's how it fed the mass, and they last long. Expensive bits to the rich, and cheap versions to the slaves in the West Indies' slaves.
It's written in 1997, today it's more commonly known that the most environmentally harmful act is the trawling, scooping up everything from the bottom of the sea. It also leaves the plastic rubbish which we should actually focus more, than plastic straws. Fishermen are not the enemy, the big corporations are, as always.
It's written in 1997, today it's more commonly known that the most environmentally harmful act is the trawling, scooping up everything from the bottom of the sea. It also leaves the plastic rubbish which we should actually focus more, than plastic straws. Fishermen are not the enemy, the big corporations are, as always.
🔽 log 🔽 Smash and Grab Annexation of Sikkim Sunanda K. Datta-Ray, 1984 433 pages Read in 2025.01 check print on amazon.com
✔ History of Sikkim and India ✔ End of the kingdom of Sikkim and political upheaval ✔ No longer allowed to print, thus practically banned book
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ A dynamic history of the kingdom of Sikkim that got annexed by India. I love this area of the east of Himalaya, it's a total mix of cultures. Soon after gaining an independence from Britain, India "colonised" a small kingdom, a dark page of history that nobody should talk about.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽 The book I had to look for everywhere but couldn't find as a physical book as it was practically banned as soon as it was published.
And, no wonder it was banned (well not banned, as that would be too scandalous, they just did not allow to print any more) it is by a journalist who personally knew the Chogyal, the king, so it's detailed and it's what he saw, heard, conversed and felt, as well as collection of newspaper articles.
And it doesn't look good for India. India, who had until recently suffered the Imperialism is now putting Imperialism on Sikkim. Lies, manipulations, false promises, guaranteeing personal gains, not to mention violence. Anything you can think of that is morally wrong, was done to Sikkim. Cleverly manipulating the media to make people believe the Chogyal was the bad guy. They then tricked the modest simple people - you don't like the monarchy, this bad guy, then vote to be annexed by India. The Indian officer in Sikkim already had all the power he wished, and the last blow was easy, just lie.
As mentioned in this book, the snap referendum was based on manipulations and physically impossible to run it in the remote area so quickly. Of course, if you vote against the annexation you'd likely beaten up, too.
It's very detailed and was difficult to follow for me who had no basic understanding of Indian politics. But what was happening was clear, you cannot believe what you are reading with your eyes, it's incredibly similar to what British did to India; concentration of power in the hands of foreigners and dirty politics. Yes the Chogyal was hostile towards Nepali, but there was certainly a room for compromise and he probably would have been the Chogyal for all. It could have been a republic, also. But no, India wanted it, the perfect location at the border, and took time to absorb it slowly but surely. Now I'd like to know how Indian people think if this today, or maybe first of all if they are at least taught everything.
Fanny Hill
Memoirs of a woman of pleasure
John Cleland, 1749
UK
176 pages
Read in 2024.5
check price on amazon.com
✔ One of the most banned books in history
✔ Life of a woman of pleasure in Victorian England
✔ Female lead, somehow encouraging
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ One of the most banned books in English literature. She's not only a mere woman of pleasure, but she gets rich! A free and lively woman who gets rich, yeah an enemy of the decent society.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
One of the most banned books in English literature.
It took a while to properly start reading it, but for me it's excessive.
That is the point of this book as it's said to be the first pornographic novel, but, less descriptions would have made the book more interesting, to me, but obviously that would reduce the charm and the meaning of this book.
One of the critics says the writer is a homosexual, because of the obsession with the description of male bodies, yes it's obsessive compared to that of female bodies.
Well, it was written centuries ago so it must have been shocking, that the women find pleasure without any regret or shame!
Normally these femme fatale stories end with the woman regretting her past, or getting punished.
Take Lolita, she is made to be happy by settling in the countryside as a wife (while Tanizaki's Naomi continues with her life style, that's what makes Tanizaki great)
Here, Fanny does not regret, but not only that she even gets rich, such a bad ass enemy of the (patriarchal ) society.
🔽 log 🔽 A BRIEF HISTORY OF TEA: Addiction Exploitation and Empire (Brief Histories) Roy Moxham 2003 258 pages Read in 2020.08 check price on amazon.com
✔ History of tea ✔ British, Chinese and Indian history, colonial history ✔ Insightful and revealing
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ An informative history book around tea - which obviously focuses heavily on Britain, China and India. It is a nasty colonial history that we must not forget.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Very informative, it calls itself "brief" because it's the name of this series but it's not that brief, don't take it lightly.
A history book around tea - which obviously focuses heavily on Britain, China and India. How British spoiled and destroyed the moral of China, with the famous final blow with the Opium War, and how they took advantage of India completely and systematically, simply for the benefit of British. It is a nasty colonial history that we must not forget, that Britain today is based on.
Almost the same fate as chocolate, it's originally outside the European vicinity, so they decided to move to Africa which is close enough for easy trade and of course the cheap labour. Cheap tea is made closer to to Europe, in Kenya today.
(茶の歴史 中毒と搾取と帝国) ロイ・モクサム 2003 A BRIEF HISTORY OF TEA: Addiction Exploitation and Empire (Brief Histories) Roy Moxham 2003 2020.08 読了 アマゾンであらすじと詳細を見る (日本語未出版)
Hotarugawa, Doro no Kawa
Teru Miyamoto
螢川
宮本 輝
208 pages
Read in 2025 .01
(Not Published in English)
✔ Post war in Japan
✔ Children's views of poverty
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ What is means to live in the post war Japan, to live at the bottom of the society, and to be awaken to the bitter sweet but honest self discovery. It's a layer of emotions, that blossoms in the end with fireflies.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Short stories, Doro no Kawa "muddy river" won Dazai Osamu Award and Hotarugawa "River with fireflies" won Akutagawa Award.
Doro no Kawa tells a story of post war Osaka. A boy from a modest family befriends with a family one summer; a girl, her younger brother and her mother who is a prostitute, who live on a boat floating on the muddy river.
What is means to live at the bottom of the society during the post war, where everyone was poor, and a delicate momories of growing up. It's so calm and subtly unforgettable.
Hotarugawa is about an adolescence. The protagonist is already big enough to know love.
His detest towards his old father whose business got busted, and his frustration towards the fact that his best friend fell in love with the same girl he loved - the messed up adolescence, the tangled up layers of emotions that everyone experience, but one day, your life will flourish, the cloud of the post war will clear.
what is amazing is the description of the scenes the characters are watching, you experience the post war Japan together, and in a weird way you feel nostalgic of the past you didn't experience.
★★★★☆ What's important is what works for the large population, rather than only clinging to an idea. And the collective power can bring a bright future.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
To think it was published in Obama era, that was actually a good old time, even though people did have different political ideas. With Trump it's way beyond just a difference in political ideology, what he promotes is selfishness. (*I read it in his first administration)
Chomsky believes in the ideology but he is also a practical man, what's important is what works for the large population, rather than only clinging to an idea. And the collective power can bring a bright future.
It is a difficult book to read for someone who never really studied about the various political thoughts. Had to skip good chunk of Spanish civil war bits simply because I had zero knowledge!
★★★☆☆ A little book about boyhood, growing up, London and rock'n'roll.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A little book about boyhood, growing up, London and rock'n'roll.
I wanted the brilliantness of My Beautiful Laundrette, but here there's only the ode to pop culture and music.
It's a fairytale, of a modern and urban, specifically London, family life seen from a boy's perspective whose parents were living rocknroll lives knowing rocknroll people back then. Which, in itself perfectly likeable if you are into it, just that I'm not familiar with that vibe.
✔ Jack Reacher series
✔ Hard boiled, action, police, crimes
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ Jack Reacher series. Explosion of adrenalin. Murder, violence, good women, all the cool elements but not much story, but maybe that's not what's expected in the "hard boiled" - it's an action movie in a book.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The first book of Jack Reacher.
It was recommended by someone ages ago, and didn't realise it was that Reacher.
I think it's better in movies/TV, it's got actions, excitement and adrenaline.
Killing and violence and good looking women. But not much story, not much tangling up of people's melodrama, that I always seek and love.
The only interesting character was Finlay, the chief detective who actually had a story to tell.
Good ol' hard boiled action thriller, that rightly Tom Cruise played.
It's not that it's not good, it's just not my type, but maybe it gets better as it develops.
✔ Young adult series
✔ Adventure of a not so confident boy
✔ SF, magical, coming of age
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ Second Myrthali book. The first was more physically challenging and about finding his stronger self, and the second is more about doubting, the scenes are darker.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Second Myrthali book.
The first was great, and this second one is even better.
As it was suggested, this is certainly darker, and it makes sense as Krish has grown up since his first adventure.
The first was more physically challenging and about finding his stronger self, and the second is more about doubting, the scenes are darker (also literally, it's the endless nighttime) and the protagonist more mature.
Must say, I simply love that his partner came back!
I love the fact that the story background subtly challenges the "typicalness" - his own race (though importantly, this is not a story of "a journey of an Indian boy" it is a "journey of a boy who wants to save his mother") or that disability of some characters are clearly stated, and it quietly challenges the gender stereotype, as well as other stereotypes like age or ability, without making it about it.
It's full of imagination, I'd say more than the book 1, it is rather long-ish being over 500 pages, but doesn't feel like it, it's full of thoughts and actions... and well, we'll all have to wait for the book 3!
The Wisdom of Psychopaths
What saints, spies, and serial killers can teach us about success
Kevin Dutton, 2012
Read in 2025.02
check price on amazon.com
✔ How psychopaths could thrive in the society
✔ Interviews with psychopaths
✔ Analytical
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ Attractive and decisive. If you add violence they become a criminal, if they can control it they become socially successful people. And yes, you can create a psychopath.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The book is not about how Psychopaths are psycho and dangerous and crazy. It's more about how these psychopaths are among us, and usually as our leaders.
Decisive, attractive, focused, adventurous, and doesn't care about other people's opinions.
If some kind of violence is added to the character, they become criminals, but if they can control that themselves, they become socially successful.
For example, they can be those people who can easily fire their employees because they simply focus on the company's profit.
The book talks about nervous system, and that if you can manage to give the right nudge, the person could be a psychopath temporarily.
Yes, that you can make psychopaths.
Another interesting point is that a saint "as an occupation" is suitable for a psychopath. Yeah maybe it makes sense that those who have been enlightened have the same characteristics as psychopaths.
They can focus "now" and "here", without meditation or trainings.
So psychopaths are not always "bad" for the society.
The problem comes when these clever folks decide to abuse their ability.
It's not that this book is teaching us how to be psychopaths, but rather if you could think like psychopaths, you could be socially successful. Not sure if I'd like to though.
✔ Biography of a Jamaican nurse ✔ Often compared with Nightingale ✔ Insightful and encouraging life
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ Jamaican British nurse whom British and Nightingale rejected for being non-White, but she pushed her way through serve her mother country in Crimea regardlessand was loved.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Biography of a Jamaican British nurse who pushed her way through to Crimea to serve her mother country.
Contemporary to Florence Nightingale, Seacole chose to be closer to the battlefield, not only financially funded her way through to the battlefield, she established a sort of restaurant business to support herself while working as a nurse.
Why did she have to make her money to help the wounded British soldiers? Because the British government and Nightingale rejected her, precisely for being non-White.
It's a revelation of the dark side of Nightingale, as well as the determination of the mixed race woman, who paid little attention to the colour of her skin but more to serve the Britain and her dying and wounded "sons" (she called soldiers sons).
But Britain did not show the gratitude she well deserved. As it's been said many times elsewhere, it's not correct to refer to her as "a black Nightingale", they were very different and the impression we get today from the record is, a very strict Nightingale didn't appreciate Seacole much who gave not only care to the wounded but also joy.