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★★★★☆ Now I know that Comp. Lit is similar to Film Studies, what I studied. To study it, you have to study everything. A book that explains something so abstract.

🔽 log 🔽
Comparative Literature
A very short introduction
Oxford University Press
Ben Hutchinson, 2018
160 pages
Read 2025.09


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Comparative Literature has always been something very mystical for me.
I’ve never studied Literature, but as I read this, I kind of got the idea, it’s like Film Studies that I did.
It’s so vast, you have to know the history, the languages/techniques, then theories such as colonialism, socialism, feminism, consumerism, West, East, you name it.
As the society invents more “isms” we have more criteria landed on our desk to compare the work using that. Endless.

Also, I see now a reason of not getting the fuss, it is because I’m from non Anglo-Saxon or Eurocentric culture, yet I had education in Anglo-Saxon societies since high school.
Japan has its own culture in Literature and beyond (very typically, noh or kabuki).
If you are interested in Literature as a Japanese, by default you are somewhat into Comparative Literature, you KNOW there’s much more out there, there’s China, the Europe, unlike West Europeans where they only focused on their little corner of the planet.

This book explains something that is so difficult to grasp in a clear and concise way.

It’s human nature to compare.
If you know something, you want to compare with something else, it’s simple as that.
Then, what.
Our question now is, then what do we get from comparing?
And what is the limit?
The age of Internet has entered the new phase, the age of AI.
Would classical studies like Comp Lit survive?

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Comparative Literature: A Very Short Introduction

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Comparative Literature: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
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★★★★★ How racism doesn’t make sense scientifically. The author is enjoying seeing racists defeated by the truth. But it is important to keep saying the truth, sharing the truth.

🔽 log 🔽
How to argue with a racist
Adam Rutherford, 2020
224 pages
Read 2023.01


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A very interesting book about how racists don't make sense scientifically. 

His studies focus on genes, so he dismantles how races are not based on genetics (that it's not as simple as saying some one is scientifically different) and racism has no scientific backings, racists simply repeat the incorrect use of science or some outdated arguments that has no scientific evidence. 

Though it talks about difficult topics (DNA, genes, history and prehistory) it is incredibly easy to read, and entertaining. 

You can tell how the author is enjoying seeing racists defeated by the truth.
But it is important to keep saying the truth, sharing the truth.
There are people who are not informed well, who cling to comments that are lies but "feel good" to them, but they have the same right to at least know the truth.
If we overlook it, as we saw in the U.S. we end up with a racist president who repeat his lies that are only convenient for his friends, and lies that his supporters feel good - and even more sadly the uninformed voters actually get nothing than temporary "feel-good".

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

How to Argue With a Racist: History, Science, Race and Reality

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
How to Argue With a Racist: History, Science, Race and Reality

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Cosa rispondere a un razzista. Storia, scienza, razza e realtà (Italiano)

★★★★★  It’s Nietzsche, of course I struggled. But it doesn’t mean I regretted it, no it was interesting and actually entertaining. I picked up a few good ones, so in case you are hesitating, give it a go from here.

🔽 log 🔽
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878
Menschliches, Allzumenschliches: Ein Buch für freie Geister
Germany
304 pages
Read in 2025.10


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

I was too ambitious, even though I did like the shorter version of this book, it's Nietzsche, of course I struggled.
But it doesn't mean I regretted it, no it was interesting and actually entertaining.

It's a collection of aphorisms when he was younger, so it's probably not as "established", the good thing is each aphorism is short, sometimes just a line.
The bad thing is, there are 638 of them and many are deep, you try to understand it, reread it, then he's already on another topic.
When he refers to specific people, like Schopenhauer, whom he seems to be influenced greatly in this period, it's not easy because I don't know them.
But I get the general idea of his thoughts and what he is trying to say here.
A free man, a man who thinks for himself, free from religions and conservative customs.
He's misogynistic but we all know that anyway so nothing new.
There are some phrases that are strangely, awkwardly funny.

After all, the title suggests it, we're all too human




Here are some of the ones I made notes of as FYI in case you are hesitating, it's not scary, it's challenging but worth it, I'll make you laugh too.
(English translation from the version I read, by Marion Faber, Penguin Classics)

58
One can promise actions, but not feelings, for the latter is involuntary. 

61
Passion will not wait

68 
...the victory of Christianity over Greek philosophy is... that something more crude and violent has triumphed over something more spiritual and delicate. 

105
"The wise man punishes not because men have acted badly, but so they will not act badly"

120
If the belief did not make us happy, it would not be believed 

265
European's superiority, compared to Asians, in their learned ability to give reasons for what they believe, which Asians are wholly incapable of doing.
... Asian still does not know how to distinguish between truth and poetry.

303
We often contradict an opinion, while actually it is only the tone with which it was advanced that we find disagreeable. 

335
We hear the hostile mood of our neighbour because we are afraid that this mood will help him discover our secrets.

388
A few men have sighed because their women were abducted: most, because no one wanted to abduct them.

472
...when government feels itself unable to do anything directly to alleviate the private man's inner suffering... and initially unpreventable misfortunes... religion gives the masses a calm, patient and trusting bearing.

494
Many people are obstinate about the path once it is taken, few about the destination. 

499
Shared joy, not compassion, makes a friend. 

508
We like to be out in nature so much because it has no opinion about us.

523
The demand to be loved is the greatest kind of arrogance.

563
A man suffers little from unfulfilled wishes if he has trained his imagination to think of the past as hateful.

589
The best way to begin each day well is to think upon awakening whether we could not give at least one person pleasure on this day. If this practice could be accepted as a substitute for the religious habit of prayer, our fellow men would benefit by this change.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Human, All Too Human

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Human, All Too Human: Friedrich Nietzsche

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Umano, troppo umano (Vol. 1) (Italiano)

★★★★★ Orwell spent a few years in the poverty. No doubt his more famous books are based on what he saw there. It is a failure of the society as a system, rather than a failure of the poor.

🔽 log 🔽
Down and Out in Paris and London
George Orwell, 1933
UK
224 pages
Read in 2023.06


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
He writes about his lives where he spent a few years in the poverty.

He captures the lives lives of those who are at the bottom of the society.
Or below, considering he was "down" below the cities, literally, washing dishes, nothing but cleaning up the mess the higher up society creates.
He describes what he did, where he went in those years, but also he drops some of his own thoughts about the poverty.

No doubts his more famous books are based on the true poverty he saw there and it was clear to him; it is the failure of the society as a system, rather than the failure of the poor.
It is the system that makes sure these poor remain as poor.
His message of hope; a poor man can live with dignity if he keeps his mind busy. 

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Down And Out In Paris And London

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Down and Out in Paris and London: George Orwell (Penguin Modern Classics) 

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Senza un soldo a Parigi e a Londra (Italiano)