赤パンの本棚 akapan's bookshelf

タグ: English reviews

  • “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” Shehan Karunatilaka　(2022) Review | Provocative and real

    “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” Shehan Karunatilaka　(2022) Review | Provocative and real


    The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
    Shehan Karunatilaka, 2022
    368 pages
    Read in 2024.09
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ Magical realism
    ✔ Society and struggles in Sri Lanka
    ✔ Life after death and the world of ghosts and monsters


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ Provocative and rock and roll. It’s a fantasy, a magical realism that really tells the reality of Sri Lanka, through the eyes of this dead unreliable photographer/lover/gambler. It’s a loud music in a book.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    The book I’ve been looking forward to read, though I tried not to know the plot in advance.
    So if you don’t want to know anything else, just know that you will love it, and don’t read further, even if you do, it’ll be beyond your imagination anyway though.

    So, first you are dead, and you need to find out why and who did it.
    There are ghosts and monsters, it’s a mystery, in modern Sri Lanka, in a messy war – you can have these key words and still it’s way over what you might expect.

    It’s difficult to get into the story without some knowledge of Sri Lanka but it slowly takes you to its world.

    It addresses the protagonist as “you” so it feels like you’re discovering it all with him. Him being a lousy war photographer, gambler and a unfaithful lover who’s gay; he is an anti-hero who is rather hateful, but, somehow becomes not so hateful after you spend 7 moons with him.

    It’s provocative, anything can happen here.
    It’s a fantasy as much as it’s the reality in Sri Lanka.
    Non stop greatness that you can’t pigeon hole it, a reading experience that’s similar to being in a room with loud rock music, or whatever your favourite music is.

    Booker Prize winner

    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida: Winner of the Booker Prize 2022 

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Le sette lune di Maali Almeida (Italiano)
  • “The History of Mr. Polly” H. G. Wells (1910) Review | Life started late

    “The History of Mr. Polly” H. G. Wells (1910) Review | Life started late


    The History of Mr. Polly
    H. G. Wells, 1910
    Herbert George Wells
    318 pages
    Read in 2024.10
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ Novel about midlife crisis
    ✔ Written by Wells, the father of SF
    ✔ Awkward comedy that’s encouraging


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ Midlife crisis. Mr. Polly was tired, he wanted to change his life but too tired to try any more so he decided to end it all… that’s when his good life really started.

    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    It was mentioned in the mid life crisis book (my review here), and yes it is exactly about that.

    You have a boring life, you don't make decisions but things just get decided and time passes and one day, you want to end it all.
    You want to "change it" but you are so tired that you just want to end it - but THAT is when the life starts again. 

    The first half of this book is boring to read because his life was boring, but weirdly when he tries to end it the words in the book also gets more exciting and enjoyable, just as he enjoys the view of the countryside - then comes the tranquility of life, satisfaction, of letting it all go.

    It was worth reading the boring bits because that is life, it's unpredictable.

    Also worth knowing that the author is actually a popular SF writer.

    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The History of Mr. Polly

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The History of Mr. Polly

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    The History Of Mr. Polly (English)
  • “Blood wedding” Federico García Lorca (1932) Review | Honour and revenge

    “Blood wedding” Federico García Lorca (1932) Review | Honour and revenge


    Blood wedding
    Federico García Lorca, 1932
    Bodas de sangre
    Spain
    80 pages
    Read in 2024.09
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ Tragedy written for theatres
    ✔ Mediterranean life and society
    ✔ Honour and revenge


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ A very Mediterranean story. Struggle of lovers and mothers, and the men who live and die for honour and revenge. One day hopefully on a stage.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
    It’s a lot shorter than I thought, it’s a play that’s considered the classic and has powerful emotions.
    It’s the wild emotions of the lovers and mother, it’s the cry of those who lost loved ones in the Mediterranean countryside where honour and revenge are the purpose of living, and worth dying for.

    It’s most definitely to be enjoyed as a theatre piece so reading it might not be the best experience of it and of course translation might lose its true colour, but being so short it felt like I needed more for me to go deeper into it.
    So yes on a stage one day.

    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Blood Wedding: A Play (Faber Drama)

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Lorca: Three Plays (Blood Wedding, Yerma, The House of Bernarda Alba) (NHB Drama Classics) (Drama Classic Collections) 

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Nozze di sangue (Italiano)
  • “Shattered Lands” Sam Dalrymple (2025) Review | Making of new Asia

    “Shattered Lands” Sam Dalrymple (2025) Review | Making of new Asia

    Shattered Lands
Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
Sam Dalrymple, 2025
UK
528 pages
Read in 2025.09
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ History of Asia and British empire
✔ Partitions around Indian empire 
✔ Colonisation, independence and new tragedies


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★★  5 Partitions, not just one. From Yemen to Myanmar, The British India was one entity where cosmopolitan people had lived in a sort of harmony. An important history that was until now "forgotten", and an important book.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

A great book on the topic that is shamefully unknown to a lot of us, even though it's not so long time ago and even though it totally shaped Asia today.
All the problems in Asia that we see on the news today are not simply because the local people are "naturally" violent, of course not, there is always a cause. 

And the cause is, this. The British Empire had ruled and gained much from the British India and local Princely States (so very wide, from modern day Yemen to Burma, to Qatar. Qatar! And British Empire had 25% of the world population back then) until one day they couldn't financially support it so they dropped the ball, without thinking of the very probable consequences, namely, the shattered lands and shattered people.

The book carefully follows 5 Partitions, rather than only the more widely known THE Partition between today's India and Pakistan. 
Myanmar, Arabian peninsula, India-Pakistan, Princely States, and Bangladesh.
People like me who knew so little would be surprised at how everything fell apart quickly, and be utterly shocked how millions of people crossed newly drawn borders each time. And every one experienced some horror; the violence, looting, rape, and many killing.
The consequences of the relocation, the migration, and of course of refugees like Rohingya people still remains as huge problems. 


    Stereotypically, British officers’ works were full of lies and betrayals, their selfishness with their strong interesting in keeping their hands clean.
    As a predicable result, people who lived in cosmopolitan societies, were suddenly put in various corners of Shattered Lands, and they turned against their neighbours because they now became their enemies.

    What got me thinking most throughout my reading was how pre Partitions era things were more secular, and as the lands got divided it firmly became a matter of religions and ethnicity, it was all about nationalism, of the new nations that were born out of the shattered lands – again and again in the each phase of the Partitions.
    Not that the colonisation era was good, but you cannot stop wondering, if we now want to end the fighting in Asia would we have to eliminate the notions of religion and ethnicity?
    Letting go of the sense of community or tradition? The peace of mind it provides?
    Is it really a dangerous thing to have a tradition?

    I heard somewhere that people who experienced the Partitions, probably just like our grandfathers in Japan who were sent to the war, have preferred to keep quiet.
    They chose to take the horror, errors and shame to their graves, and their children also kind of hesitated to insist.
    However, now that it’s their grandchildren’s generation, things are now becoming uncovered and dusted off because they are finally opening their mouths to tell us.
    And this might be one of the reasons why this book is written now at this moment in time, by this brilliant author who is in his 20s, and this is one of the reason this book will remain in the history to come.

    The book has great details with wonderful storytelling skills, and most notably it has the marvelous sense of humanity, just like his father, Sam Dalrymple is such a humane human full of compassion and passion, with giggles – but he is already on his own feet, and how exciting is it that two Dalrymples are on the chart? Very.

    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Shattered Lands: INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AND PRIZE SHORTLISTED NEW HISTORY OF FIVE PARTITIONS AND THE RESHAPING OF MODERN ASIA

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Shattered Lands: INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AND PRIZE SHORTLISTED NEW HISTORY OF FIVE PARTITIONS AND THE RESHAPING OF MODERN ASIA
  • “The Overcoat” Nikolai Gogol (1842) Review | Life is unfair

    “The Overcoat” Nikolai Gogol (1842) Review | Life is unfair

    The Overcoat 
Nikolai Gogol, 1842
Шине́ль
Russia
112 pages
Read in 2024.10
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ Russian classic tragedy
✔ Life of a simple officer 
✔ Russian bureaucracy and frustration


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★☆ Life is not fair. A tragedy but also a sad comedy. Russian literature is bottomless. A man saves money for ages and buys a new coat, and it gets stolen. Regardless of time and society we live in, we share the anger and desperation.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Short stories of the famous Gogol. 
You do see a lot of Dostoyevsky in his stories, that the life is unfair, and stories are tragedies yet sadly comical.

Written in this period in Russia, the stories are critical of the bureaucracy and of higher ranked officials.
A regular official saves up to get an overcoat and gets robbed, it's simple as that, and though it's keeping it subtle it is fully miserable, and universal, we totally understand how the protagonist is feeling at every stage of the story.

The story is ridiculous yet believable, and again universal.
Russian literature is bottomless.


    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Overcoat and Other Stories

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Overcoat and Other Short Stories (Thrift Editions)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Il cappotto (Italiano)
  • “Ikigai” Ken Mogi (2017) Review | Little Happiness

    “Ikigai” Ken Mogi (2017) Review | Little Happiness


    Ikigai
    Ken Mogi, 2017
    茂木健一郎
    208 pages
    Read in 2020.05
    check price on amazon.com
    ✔ Essay on Japanese way of life
    ✔ The term "ikigai" became known in English 
    ✔ By a neuroscientist


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ A book about how to live a life with "ikigai" which is a Japanese notion of "little happiness". Written by Japan's favourite neuroscientist, it's both logical and entertaining.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    A book about how to live a life with "ikigai" which is a Japanese notion of "little happiness" in a very broad sense.

    It was originally published for UK readers, so it's a lot about introducing Japanese culture and traditions while showing how the notion of "ikigai" is born and appreciated there.

    It'd help non-Japanese to solve mystery of the mindsets of Japanese people. 
    Ridiculously detailed work by craftsmen and (apparently) uniformed lifestyle of salarymen - behind all that there is the "ikigai" to keep them going.

    After reading this people would definitely like Japan more. 
    It is in a way a PR for Japan, but because it is written by Japan's favourite neuroscientist, it's both logical and entertaining.

    p.s.
    I love how US title is different from the UK title, American version focuses more on purposes, while British more on "little" happiness.
     
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
    Awakening Your Ikigai: How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day
    Awakening Your Ikigai: How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Little Book of Ikigai: The secret Japanese way to live a happy and long life
    The Little Book of Ikigai: The secret Japanese way to live a happy and long life

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Il piccolo libro dell'ikigai. La via giapponese alla felicità
    




    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Grave of the Fireflies” Akiyuki Nozaka (1968) Review | Guilt disappears
    
			
    “Grave of the Fireflies” Akiyuki Nozaka (1968) Review | Guilt disappears
    
			
    

    Grave of the Fireflies
Akiyuki Nozaka, 1968
アメリカひじき
火垂るの墓
野坂明之
Japan
Read in 2024.10
check on amazon.com (movie, not book)


    ✔ Made into a Ghibli movie
✔ Effect of the war on children 
✔ Collection of short stories


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★★ I still cannot watch the Ghibli film. Guilt disappears, but your hunger doesn't. You can visualise the horrible views the kids are seeing, and smell the death. They cannot live without help and death is too familiar.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The Ghibli film is too well known, but I still cannot watch it and even less now that I have kids of my own.

Poverty, but extreme poverty where the war took everything and there's no other way than eventually die.
There are no beautiful things like family or childhood, it's about how to survive that day, and if possible saving the little sister also.

The book also contains other short stories, about kids who did survive - but it doesn't mean they are not struggling.
A vivid complex about the victorious Americans, or the guilt they carry because you are the only survivor among the siblings, or their will to do anything to live in the post war period.

Guilt disappears, but your hunger doesn't. 
What would you do to survive the day, or what can you do if you are only a child?

The most unexpected thing about the book is the description of sex and female body. America Hijiki talks about sex shows, yes that's an obvious one, but in one of the stories it talks about menstruation that starts even if your whole body is burned and wrapped, or they talk about removing ovary, or about pregnancy and raising children in general during the war.
All the things that's absolutely normal, especially if you are a woman, but never talked about in the history, which is more often written by men.

    




    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Grave of the Fireflies Steelbook     (bluray)
    I couldn't find English book link so adding a link to the Ghibli film

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●

    Grave of the Fireflies: Akiyuki Nosaka
    book

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Una tomba per le lucciole (Italiano)
    book
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “In Praise of Shadows” Junichiro Tanizaki (1933) Review | Finding beauty even in toilet
    
			
    “In Praise of Shadows” Junichiro Tanizaki (1933) Review | Finding beauty even in toilet
    
			
    

    In Praise of Shadows, 1933
Junichiro Tanizaki
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
陰翳礼讃
谷崎潤一郎
288 pages 
Read in 2024.11
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ Essay from Japanese master Tanizaki
✔ Japanese aesthetics 
✔ Eastern aesthetics against the Western convenience


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★★ Obsessively white tiles cannot give the warm beauty that old wood could. Japanese sentiments find beauty in shadows and in old. Masterpiece essay from Tanizaki, I mean he even writes beautifully about toilet.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A masterpiece essay from Tanizaki to praise the shadow, darkness and old. 

He's not just saying how darkness is good; he talks about the sentiment Japanese people have to feel that the cleanliness of white tiles cannot give the beauty that the old brown wooden board could give.

Japanese are used to living in the dark rooms and they don't force the room to be brighter but they find beauty in the darkness.
Women's clear skin is beautiful because the room is dark, and the custom of ohaguro (women paint their teeth black) also emphasises the pale skin.
Same for some Japanese traditional art, like kabuki, the costumes are so bright, because back then the stage was darker.

Now, almost 100 years on, I'm not sure the Japanese living today still have the same feeling towards darkness.
But it's not completely gone, so hopefully this very Japanese sentiments stay with us.

The book is a collection of his essays, so it talks about various things like traveling and how he hates guests, or about toilets.
It's fun reading the grumpy Tanizaki whining about how he hates having guests, the book overall is not too serious.
When he goes on and on about toilet, in his wonderful way of writing, you just have to smile - ah granddad!

    




    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    In Praise of Shadows

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    In Praise of Shadows (Vintage Classics)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Libro d'ombra (Italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” Truman Capote (1958) Review | Holly the icon
    
			
    “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” Truman Capote (1958) Review | Holly the icon
    
			
    

    




    Breakfast At Tiffany's
    Truman Capote, 1958
    176 pages
    Read in 2020.05
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ Popular film with Audrey Hepburn
    ✔ Capote's masterpiece 
    ✔ A young woman in New York


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ Everyone has seen the film, or at least recognise when they see a picture or scene. The free spirited Holly is fragile, she's only 20. Everyone loves her but does anyone care about her?


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Everyone has seen the film, or at least recognise when they see a picture or scene.

    But I didn't remember it being so dark towards the end?
    Probably it isn't in the film.
    As many reviews say "you will fall in love with the book", and yes you do. 
    The free spirited Holly is actually fragile, especially in the book, she's 20. 
    She makes mistakes, yes, but she moves on, quickly. 

    Everyone loves her but nobody really cares about her. 
    The iconic romantic story. 

    There are 3 more short stories and they kind of share the same feeling of bitter romance.
     
    




    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
    Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories
    Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Breakfast at Tiffany's: Truman Capote: 4 (Penguin Essentials, 4)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Colazione da Tiffany
    




    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Absent in the Spring” Agatha Christie (1944) Review | A mother’s struggle
    
			
    “Absent in the Spring” Agatha Christie (1944) Review | A mother’s struggle
    
			
    


    Absent in the Spring
    Agatha Christie, 1944
    Mary Westmacott
    UK
    Read in 2020.04
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ Written as Mary Westmacott
    ✔ Female struggle as a mother
    ✔ Travel journal from Baghdad


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ It's the struggle we all go through, especially if you are a mother, imagining that you are a victim. I sacrifice my life for the family, I prepare everything for you so you don't have to make a mistake.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Agatha Christie writing as Mary Westmacott.
    I didn't really know about this when I read it, though it's not a crime story, the brilliance of her writing is there.

    On her way back from Baghdad, she thinks back about her family.
    It's the struggle we all go through, especially if you are a mother, imagining that you are a victim.
    I sacrifice my life for the family, I prepare everything for you so you don't have to make a mistake.
    Her husband is kind so he lets her do her way, that is, do what she thinks he wants, which is, what he really wants.
    But that, is her happiness.

     
    




    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Absent In Spring

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Absent in the Spring

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Absent in the Spring: A Captivating Historical Novel of Self-Discovery by Agatha Christie, Written Under the Pseudonym Mary Westmacott―Perfect for Summer Reading (English)



    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Black Skin, White Masks” Frantz Fanon (1952) Review | Racism and its complexity
    
			
    “Black Skin, White Masks” Frantz Fanon (1952) Review | Racism and its complexity
    
			
    


    Black skin white masks
    Frantz Fanon, 1952
    Peau noire, masques blancs
    224 pages
    Read in 2020.05
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ Thoughts on racism from a psychiatrist
    ✔ French colonisation and Martinique
    ✔ Political philosophy


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ What does it mean to have black skin and live as if you were a white? Or better, live wanting to be white, eternally? Today the racism is regarded with contempt. But are we free?


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    The classic on postcolonial psychology.
    What does it mean to have black skin and live as if you were a white? 
    Or better, live wanting to be white, eternally?

    Fanon is a psychiatrist, he deals with unconscious, that is, a suppressed desire, that is, sexual desire /fear. 
    A black person becomes black only when he encounters the white world and the white world equals the colonisation. 
    The black will always have to live in denial or at best reactionary. And the white will always have to live in fear of the image they collectively created - primitive black, who is always more sexually potent. 
    Because any phobia is actually an anxious fear, he suggests that a racist person has, deep inside, a desire to be invaded.

    Another interesting point was that he talks of French only, for the slaves did not win their freedom through struggles with their blood, it was given by the kind white masters. 

    To a certain extent it can be said to people of other ethnicity, that as long as we live in the West we are conscious of the colour of skin, and the white remains the absolute superiority. 
    But, Japan was not colonised by the white. 
    The colour of our skin doesn't immediately remind them of sin. 

    The colour black constantly appears in the white culture as evil, and it's thus collectively imagined as evil. 

    He concludes saying that he would refuse to be colonised by the colonisation, and the black must be free from the inferior complex and the white from the superior complex, it must be both ways. 

    It was written over 70 years ago. 
    Today the inter-racial communications and relationships have become normal, and the racism is regarded with contempt. 
    But are we free? 
    Fanon was fully aware, that his intellectual discoveries will not make the life of 8 year old boy in cane field any easier. 
    For there are issues in different levels, those of middle class living in the West, and those who are facing the very survival.

    It's complex, we might not find a way to truly free ourselves. But we should not look down, keep questioning, and reading this book is a path.
     
    




    🔽 Related pages 🔽
    Orientalism
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
    Black Skin, White Masks 
    Black Skin, White Masks 

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Black Skin, White Masks (Penguin Modern Classics)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Pelle nera, maschere bianche 
    




    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Mrs. Dalloway” Virginia Woolf (1925) Review | Stream of consciousness
    
			
    “Mrs. Dalloway” Virginia Woolf (1925) Review | Stream of consciousness
    
			
    

    Mrs. Dalloway 
Virginia Woolf, 1925
240 pages
Read in 2024.10
check price on amazon.com

    





    ✔ Stream of consciousness
    ✔ Female struggle 
    ✔ English literature classic


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ In the room nothing seems to be happening, but in their heads their worlds are turning. Things that happen in the day seem like unrelated but they are within their consciousness. Story about her mind ready to explode.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
    My first ever Virginia Woolf.

    As expected it was a hard read, in terms of the timeline it happens all in a day, but in the meantime the main characters think and remember a lot - ”Stream of Consciousness”.

    It's very internal, this is continuous flow of what they are really thinking while the time passes, and what they think is a lot more than what it appears in the very English society. 

    Nothing really happens in the day, but a lot happens in their heads, a big storm.

    (warning; revealing a bit of the plot, but I assume it's well known after 100 years)
    Clarissa is on the verge of falling apart, she's physically unwell but holds it together, very well aware of potential mistake of letting go the man she truly loved but also her duty as a wife. and Septimus, who had little to do with the party until his name is mentioned, had been at the verge and he eventually crosses the line.

    By showing his death and his tension that was accumulated to the point of death, the book shows the nervous environment, or the consciousness of Clarissa, of what seems to be a boring, pretentious evening.
    Definitely must read more of her books.
    




    




    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Mrs. Dalloway: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Mrs Dalloway Virginia Woolf (Wordsworth Classics)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    La signora Dalloway (Italiano)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Power, Politics and Culture, Interviews with Edward W. Said” (2001) Review | Coexist
    
			
    “Power, Politics and Culture, Interviews with Edward W. Said” (2001) Review | Coexist
    
			
    

    Power, Politics and Culture
Interviews with Edward W. Said, 2001
US
512 pages
Read in 2024.11
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ Collection of interviews
✔ Palestinian professor in the US
✔ Problems in Palestine


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★★ A Palestinian academic in the US, prof. Said. Many admire and are inspired by his passionate humanism. The second half is about political conversations. Two state solution. Geography rather than history or myth. So we should and can coexist.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Collection of interviews with 2 sections, first focuses on arts and culture, about literature, music or arts, then the second is more political. 

I must be honest, the first part was difficult as I have little knowledge in the field, but the second part is something very, very real to us, who doesn't see what's going on in Gaza?
"They can't possibly eliminate us all" - what he and many thought impossible is happening today. 
Genocide of Palestinians was out of question for anyone with common sense, yet, it's happening.

He calls himself an incurable optimist. 
Some consider him an enemy or a terrorist. 
Many admire and are inspired by his passionate humanism. 

He was not an advocate for Islam, and was not rejecting the right of Jews.
What is clear and consistent is that he was interested in coexistence of contradictories, he detested the idea of "pure" he dismissed the myth and focused on the lives of people now. 
Geography rather than history or myth. Two state solution.
He knows that people are more complicated than we seem, exactly as he argues in Orientalism where the Other is depicted in a simplified way, that is simply not true.
No, we are human, we live, we are complicated, and we must try.

The curse of the powerful U.S. is that it hates to admit the mistakes and misunderstanding of the past.
Rather than admitting their error they keep on depicting Arab as terrorist, probably as long as they physically can, because, as we all know, it brings a lot of money to a few in the US.

It's been more than 20 years since his death, since we lost the lighthouse of compassion and common sense.
He said, "Israel can't keep on kicking us, they have to admit we exist, not like they can kill off all Palestinians", well, the unimaginable is happening in front of our eyes.
Can't we hear the voices of calm and humane intellectuals any more? 
Of common sense?
    




    




    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Power, Politics, and Culture: Interviews with Edward W. Said

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Power, Politics, and Culture: Interviews with Edward W. Said

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    --

    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Kokuho (National Treasure)” Shuichi Yoshida (2018) Review | Beauty himself
    
			
    “Kokuho (National Treasure)” Shuichi Yoshida (2018) Review | Beauty himself
    
			
    


    Kokuho (National Treasure)
    Shuichi Yoshida, 2018
    国宝 上下
    吉田修一
    Japan
    Read in 2025.09
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ Yakuza son joins Kabuki family
    ✔ Friendship and brotherhood 
    ✔ The film is a huge hit


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★+♥ The film was an instant blockbuster, so I had a very high expectation – and it blew it away. A story of a son of yakuza turned kabuki actor who is the beauty itself, a national treasure.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
    The film had just come out and was an instant hit, the second highest-grossing live-action movie in history in Japan, so I had a very high expectation – and it blew it away. 

    Kikuo, a son of a dead yakuza boss in Nagasaki, becomes an apprentice in a kabuki family in Osaka where he spend his entire childhood learning the way of kabuki with their son, Shunsuke, a thoroughbred whose success and career guaranteed by bloodline.
    They are the best friends, the best partners and rivals – of course you know already from this setting that it’d be a good story.

    But wait until you read the book, it’s not that simple.
    Kikuo loves kabuki and has an usual talent, but that’s not enough.
    He gets thrown into the dark pit of the destiny, and by random chance he gets saved, then fallen, then picked up and admired; he has no life of his own, but he has his genius, dedication and his beauty as an art.

    This is a story of how one lives for an art, and as an art, as a “kokuho” living national treasure.

    I hope to watch the film soon too, by Lee Sang-il, hands down everyone is praising it.
    As of now, it will be released in US and France.
    Of course Ryo Yoshizawa and Ryusei Yokohama will be beautiful, Ken Watanabe will be powerful, but I want to see Min Tanaka, 80 year old dancer/actor who has the strongest presence on screen in Japan today.
    




    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    国宝 上 青春篇 Audible Logo Audible Audiobook

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●

    【Amazon.co.jp限定】国宝　オリジナル・サウンドトラック - 原摩利彦 (国宝ロゴオリジナルメガジャケット付)　(Audible Japanese)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    国宝 (上) 青春篇 (朝日文庫)　(Giapponese) 
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Accabadora” Michela Murgia, (2009) Review | A woman who ends life
    
			
    “Accabadora” Michela Murgia, (2009) Review | A woman who ends life
    
			
    


    Accabadora
    Michela Murgia, 2009
    Italy
    208 pages
    Read in 2024.11
    check price on amazon.com
    






    ✔ Sardinian traditions
    ✔ Women's position in a traditional culture 
    ✔ Mediterranean society


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ Accabadora, a woman in Sardinia who ends the suffering of very ill and their families. Is she an angel or a devil? That's not the point any more to them. A book with an unusual dignity.
    




    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
    The famous Accabadora, the woman who ends it.

    It’s very Sardinian, very Mediterranean.
    You can almost see with your eyes closed of the dry town with stones, men at the bar and women hurrying to go back home to cook, and the dry field that is brown, ready to ignite a fire from any tiny sparkles. 

    Maria was adopted by this woman who lives alone since she was small.
    Time to time, she dresses completely in black and leave their house in the night – and comes back in the morning and continues the day.
    It’s not about right or wrong, or justice or injustice, if she was an angel or devil or death – it’s about if it should be done or not.

    In Sardinia it’s understood to be true, that such women did exist.
    Even today the problem of euthanasia is not easily talked about and we probably won’t ever find an answer that’s absolute.
    This is a book that shows the town’s unsettling state of mind with such a powerful dignity.
    




    




    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Accabadora: A Novel

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Accabadora 

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Accabadora [Lingua Italiana]
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Comparative Literature” Ben Hutchinson (2018) Review | Comp. Lit.
    
			
    “Comparative Literature” Ben Hutchinson (2018) Review | Comp. Lit.
    
			
    


    Comparative Literature
    A very short introduction
    Oxford University Press
    Ben Hutchinson, 2018
    160 pages
    Read in 2025.09
    check price on amazon.com
    






    ✔ Oxford introduction series
    ✔ What is the study of Comp Lit



    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ 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. 
    




    🔽 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 to argue with a racist” Adam Rutherford (2020) Review | Facts are facts
    
			
    “How to argue with a racist” Adam Rutherford (2020) Review | Facts are facts
    
			
    


    How to argue with a racist
    Adam Rutherford, 2020
    224 pages
    Read in 2023.01
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Argument from a scientist
    ✔ Focuses on the science and facts 
    ✔ Insightful


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ 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.


    🔽 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)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “War Criminal” Saburo Shiroyama (1974) Review | Tokyo Trial
    
			
    “War Criminal” Saburo Shiroyama (1974) Review | Tokyo Trial
    
			
    

    War Criminal: The Life and Death of Hirota Koki
Saburo Shiroyama, 1974
落日燃ゆ
城山三郎 1974
Read in 2024.11
check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Historical fiction
✔ Tokyo trial and the power of the winner
✔ Japanese politics during the war


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★☆  Ex-PM Hirota, the only politician who received the death sentence at Tokyo Trial who was not a military person. This ex diplomat tried not to start the war, but the history is always written by the victors.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Shiroyama, the only politician who received the death sentence at Tokyo Trial who was not a military person. A diplomat, a prime minister.

Born in a regular family in Fukuoka, he was bright so he was encourage to study hard to go to Tokyo.
Until he became a prime minister, as a diplomat, he did what he could to avoid starting the war, but it was already too late, Japanese military already had too much power by then.
He did not utter any word of defense during the Trial, though many did feel it was unfair, but as he himself says, his crime is he was too powerless to stop the war from starting - thus death penalty.

Any effort for peace meant nothing in front of the military force who took over the government, and any effort to prove his innocence also would have meant nothing in front of the US government who could rule the loser however they wanted to.

History is always written by the victors.
There is no time to waste when you have so much power over someone else.
It makes you ponder if we ever change.

    




    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    War Criminal: The Life and Death of Hirota Koki

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    War Criminal: The Life and Death of Hirota Koki

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    War Criminal: The Life and Death of Hirota Koki (English)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Monkey Wrench Gang” Edward Abbey (1975) Review | Comically explosive
    
			
    “The Monkey Wrench Gang” Edward Abbey (1975) Review | Comically explosive
    
			
    


    The Monkey Wrench Gang
    Edward Abbey, 1975
    480 pages
    Read 2024.11
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ American modern classis 
    ✔ Hippies, saving environment 
    ✔ Weird comedy


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★☆☆ American modern classic. In the wild wild west, hippies roam around to bomb bridges and dams, to save the environment. It’s comical and awkward. I knew it was not my cup of tea but marched on. 
    




    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
    It’s the 70s American wild wild west hippy “comic” – not my cup of tea.
    I did expect it to be like this, and it did turn out to be like this.
    And I knew I would march on to finish anyway. 

    3 men and 1 woman, strangers, meet and form a gang to go against the system, aiming to blow up bridges and dams to save the environment. 
    Maybe it’s a like those gen z warriors who vandalise the art in museums, but they are the weaker copycats, these teenagers don’t risk their lives, but here the Gang do have a rich man but are really sweating and risking.

    Anyways this book, it’s more for those macho men, a lot of details of trucks and arms, and it’s that generation who just came back from Vietnam.
    Very very far from myself.
    




    




    🔽 Where to buy 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
    the monkey wrench gang
    The Monkey Wrench Gang (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Monkey Wrench Gang (Penguin Modern Classics)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    The Monkey Wrench Gang Paperback – English edition
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Sikkim, Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom” Andrew Duff (2015) Review | Fell in love with Sikkim
    
			
    “Sikkim, Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom” Andrew Duff (2015) Review | Fell in love with Sikkim
    
			
    


    Sikkim
    Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom
    Andrew Duff, 2015
    320 pages
    Read 2023.01
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ History of India and the kingdom of Sikkim
    ✔ Royalty, the American wife of the last king 
    ✔ Colonisation and independence


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★+♥️ The more I read the more I’m interested in Sikkim, and this is definitely the most thorough book to learn about the end of Sikkim, and of the king, chogyal. It makes you want to go there… again.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
    The history of the last few decades of the kingdom before it was annexed by India and the story of their last Chogyal, their last king, Thondup Namgyal.

    The more I read the more I’m interested in Sikkim, and this is definitely the most thorough book to learn about Sikkim.
    The author on the other hand, is Scottish who loved listening to his grandfather telling him about his journey to Sikkim when he was young.
    In 2009 he finally managed to get to Sikkim, and in a Buddhist temple near Pelling, he met a strange monk who gave him a book to read.
    The book was called Smash and Grab (my review here), the monk was Yongda who used to be the chogyal’s Captain, and this is how his work has begun.
    Andrew Duff knew he had a story to tell. And I’m glad he did.

    From the 17th century Sikkim had been governed by a Tibetan king, Chyogal.
    It has borders with Tibet (with China behind), Bhutan, Nepal then India, so it’s fortunately or unfortunately located in a strategically important place, as such, of course all the great powers were all over this tiny kingdom.
    During the British era, British called in Nepali to cultivate the land to boost economy, even though Nepal had been an enemy of Sikkim for centuries.
    The mass immigration meant that the ruling race, Tibetan, became the minority.
    Now, Britain has left India, and increasingly the last chogyal was vocally against Indian influence to maintain his kingdom independent.
    Sikkim was split in half, those who supported the chogyal and those who didn’t, which was not an unobvious choice for the majority of Sikkimese who were Nepali origin.
    Was he only clinging to his personal power? His illusion? Was he unnecessarily influenced by his young American wife (Grace Kelly of the East)? Did he do his politics well? Did he had a choice?
    It’s a fascinating book that goes deep inside the life of the last chogyal.

    All the essence of the Himalaya is here, between the big powers, India and China, and of course the British Empire, what could a tiny kingdom do? 
    But it’s also his very personal struggles of keeping him kingdom, of his young American wife.
    Many say he played his cards wrong, but actually, he had no chance of winning anyway against India.
    Sikkim remains to be a unique little bits of India.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Sikkim: Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Sikkim: Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Sikkim: Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom [Lingua Inglese]
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Night of Baba Yaga” Akira Otani (2020) Review | Sisterhood and violence
    
			
    “The Night of Baba Yaga” Akira Otani (2020) Review | Sisterhood and violence
    
			
    

    The Night of Baba Yaga
Akira Otani, 2020
ババヤガの夜
王谷晶
Read in 2025.10
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ A fierce mixed race female fighter
✔ Yakuza family 
✔ Non apologetic violence


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★★ Full of violence, full of actions, full of sisterhood. Yoriko is extremely violent, but she is unapologetically a woman. Very entertaining, yet it's stepping into the new, unknown world. An important book.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Full of violence, full of actions, full of sisterhood.

Having a woman as the protagonist, with such detailed description of violence, of physical, sexual, verbal violence - this is unique.

These yakuza or mafia stories tend to have women who are usually weak, or bad, or traumatised (therefore an excuse of her violence) or too masculine.
So even though they have a woman as the main character it's full of (sometimes hidden) hatred towards the woman or women in general.

Not here.
Yoriko is extremely violent, but she's a woman, she is unapologetically a woman.

We don't need only these weak women, or bad women, just to please male readers.
We need strong bond, strong sisterhood.
We need stories where she want to be the happy kick ass monster.

I kind of worry about how it's sold in the West though, it's not a new Kill Bill (full of revenge and trauma) it's neither queer novel as they want to portrait it.
Ultimately it's a story of a women who finds a happy life.

It'd be a pity to read this only as a violent novel.
It's without a doubt very entertaining, yet it's stepping into the new, unknown world.
An important book.

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Night of Baba Yaga: the multi-award winning cult Japanese thriller

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Night of Baba Yaga: the multi-award winning cult Japanese thriller

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    The night of Baba Yaga (English)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “My dining hell” Jay Rayner (2012) Review | Honest but brutal reviews
    
			
    “My dining hell” Jay Rayner (2012) Review | Honest but brutal reviews
    
			
    


    My dining hell
    Twenty ways to have a lousy night out
    By Jay Rayner, 2012
    76 pages
    Read 2023.01
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ Brutal restaurant reviews
    ✔ Food culture in London and UK 
    ✔ A popular food critic


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ He’s probably the most well known food critic in the UK, and definitely known for being brutally honest. This is a collection of bad reviews only. Honest and mean, but honest.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    He’s probably the most well known food critic in the UK, and definitely known for being brutally honest.
    These are some of the reviews he’s put on the Observer, but of bad restaurants; you know it’s going to be a good one.

    So yes he’s known to be merciless, but after reading these reviews in this way, it just makes think, yes London is full of bad restaurants.
    Not just bad food, but also bad at doing restaurants.
    I don’t know which is worse, bad food or bad restaurant, usually both come together though.

    The reviews are from between 1999 and 2012, probably the worst period, too. 
    But has London got better? 
    Is it really worth all the money you’d have to spend? 
    And to give posh restaurants some space, kicking out the more simple and honest restaurants out of town?

    I love London for the mix of food, but seriously, it shouldn’t have become a fast food theme park of expensive food.
    I hope this phase ends some time soon.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    My Dining Hell: Twenty Ways To Have a Lousy Night Out (Penguin Specials)

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    My Dining Hell: Twenty Ways To Have a Lousy Night Out (Penguin Specials)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    My Dining Hell: Twenty Ways To Have a Lousy Night Out (Penguin Specials) (English Edition) 
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “A Cat, A Man, And Two Women” Junichiro Tanizaki (1937) Review | Servant of the cat
    
			
    “A Cat, A Man, And Two Women” Junichiro Tanizaki (1937) Review | Servant of the cat
    
			
    

    




    🔽 log 🔽
    A Cat, A Man, And Two Women
    Junichiro Tanizaki, 1937
    猫と庄造と二人のおんな
    谷崎潤一郎
    Japan
    Read in 2020.04
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ A perfect book for cat lovers
    ✔ Man, wife and lover around the cat
    ✔ Tanizaki's hidden masterpiece


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ Lily the cat is everything. The man loves Lily, only Lily, as for female human, he doesn't care if it's his ex-wife or lover or his mother. Is he an owner or servant? Well, does it matter


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Lily the cat is everything.
    The man loves Lily, only Lily, as for female human, he doesn't care if it's his ex-wife or lover or his mother.

    A typical obsessive love story from Tanizaki, it's just that the man is attracted to a cat, a beautiful, Western coquettish, pure white female cat.

    Is he an owner or servant? 
    Well, does it matter because serving Lily is his happiness.
    She cares much less, but she probably knows her human competitors are way below her.

     
    





    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    A Cat, A Man, And Two Women

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    A Cat, A Man, And Two Women

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    La gatta (italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Les Enfants Terribles” Jean Cocteau (1929) Review | very Nouvelle Vague
    
			
    “Les Enfants Terribles” Jean Cocteau (1929) Review | very Nouvelle Vague
    
			
    


    Les Enfants Terribles
    Jean Cocteau, 1929
    France
    144 pages
    Read 2023.01
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Poetic novel
    ✔ Decadent youths in Paris
    ✔ Self destructive frienship


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ It’s poetic, it’s very Cocteau, also very French, very Nouvelle Vague. The whole story really builds up to the ending beautifully; self destructive and decadent but a perfect story. This book is an art itself.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
    It’s a title that comes up in any textbooks, but finally read it.
    The most famous novel by the poet, Cocteau.

    It’s poetic, it’s very Cocteau, also very French, very Nouvelle Vague.
    The whole story really builds up to the ending beautifully; self destructive and decadent but a perfect story.

    When we think about Paris and art, this is it.
    It must have been a shock to the world, and the effect it gives has been imitated in repetition in numerous novels and films, this is the peak that we want to return to.
    This book is an art, and it’s at the highest point of the modern French art.

    Now I must see the film too.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Holy Terrors (Les Enfants Terribles)

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Les Enfants Terribles

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    I ragazzi terribili (Italiano)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The monk who sold his Ferrari” Robin Sharma (1996) Review | A quick spirituality
    
			
    “The monk who sold his Ferrari” Robin Sharma (1996) Review | A quick spirituality
    
			
    


    The monk who sold his Ferrari
    Robin Sharma, 1996
    Canada
    198 pages
    Read 2023.03
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Self help book but like a fable
    ✔ Gives quick advices on how to be spiritual



    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★☆☆ It is inspiring, it has all the tips clearly listed to fulfil your dreams, very easy to understand and after reading it anyone would be instantly inspired. It’s a self-help book, and I’m not the target.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
    It is inspiring, it has all the tips clearly listed to fulfil your dreams, very easy to understand and after reading this book anyone would be instantly inspired.
    It has practical advices like if you don’t really get what meditation is, just focus on one point of any object in your room and look at it for a while, without seeking meanings.

    But it is very casual and not great as a story, which is probably not the point anyway. 
    “A fable about fulfilling your dreams and reaching your destiny ” is probably a disclaimer so people won’t expect it to be interesting as a story, it’s a self-help book after all.

    It drops terms like “ancient India” “mystical community” or “legend in Asia”, which attracts the West – but it did its job.
    So it IS inspiring, it does move you to change a small thing in your life straight away. 
    Just wish it was more interesting but I am also very aware that I’m not the target of this book.

    (First published in Canada)
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams and Reaching Your Destiny

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Il monaco che vendette la sua Ferrari (Italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Selected stories of” Rabindranath Tagore (1886-) Review | Mastermind of literature
    
			
    “Selected stories of” Rabindranath Tagore (1886-) Review | Mastermind of literature
    
			
    


    Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore
    Rabindranath Tagore, 1886-
    India
    372 pages
    Read in 2023.04
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ From India’s greatest poet
    ✔ Short stories 
    ✔ Various theme from love to ghost


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ These stories vary in the theme or genre, might be a love story, or a ghost story, or about family or friendship. It shows how expansive his talent is, but more significantly his stories are about honest, humble, and poor people. 


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    I have read about how great Tagore’s works are, but until you read them, experience them, you don’t really know, of course.

    There are many of “selected works of” kind of books, this one is from Fingerprint in India.

    These stories vary in the theme or genre, might be a love story, or a ghost story, or about family or friendship.
    It shows how expansive his talent is, but more significantly his stories are about honest, humble, and poor people. 
    That is why after more than 100 years they do not get old and continue to touch people all over Bengal, India, Asia and beyond. 

    Some stories stand out more than others to me, like “The river stairs”, “The Cabuliwalla”, “The son of Rashimani”, “The master Mashai” “Living or Dead”, “Fair neighbour”

    🔽 Related pages 🔽
    “Chokher Bali” Rabindranath Tagore, (1903) Review | Tragedy from India

    “The Spirit of Japan” Rabindranath Tagore (1916) Review | Short but meaningful
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore
    (Not the version I read, but this is available)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore (English)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller” Italo Calvino (1979) Review | Paradise and hell for booklovers
    
			
    “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller” Italo Calvino (1979) Review | Paradise and hell for booklovers
    
			
    


    If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller 
    Italo Calvino, 1979
    Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore
    Italy
    272 pages
    Read in 2025.10
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ Classic of “magician” Calvino
    ✔ Book for readers about readers 
    ✔ Love story


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ What a book. It is beyond whatever you expected, it’s an experience, an experiment, it’s both the paradise and the hell for lovers of a humble act of “reading a book”


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    What a book.
    It is beyond whatever you expected, it’s an experience, an experiment, it’s both the paradise and the hell for a reader.

    So the protagonist “you” start reading a book, but it abruptly ends because of an error, so you return to the shop for a new copy, but it’s actually another book, which also abruptly ends, and this goes on.
    Each time “you” want to continue the last book because it’s so good but things go bonkers, and each time you want to share this experience with a girl, “Another Reader” you met at the start.
    Is it just a vicious circle? A perfect read? 
    When will it end, and what is an end, anyway?

    It might put you off at the start because you get completely lost, and because the book stops exactly when you start to understand the setting of the book.
    But hang in there.

    What is a book.
    What is a story, what is the role of an author, of a translator, and a reader, other readers, in this humble experience of reading a book? 
    How are we connected, beyond everyday life and common sense, beyond time and space in this humble experience of reading a book?
    It throws a lot of questions at you, but what this book gives you as its answer is the joy.
    And in the end, you cannot help but smile.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    If on a Winter's Night a Traveller

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    If on a Winter's Night a Traveller (Vintage Classics)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore (Italiano)
     
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Our man in Havana” Graham Greene (1958) Review | Spy novel all tangled up
    
			
    “Our man in Havana” Graham Greene (1958) Review | Spy novel all tangled up
    
			
    

    Our man in Havana
Graham Greene, 1958
UK
256 pages
Read in 2023.07
check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Weird spy novel
✔ British comedy
✔ Family


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★☆  You're in Havana during the Cold War, you are a boring ordinary man who sells vacuum cleaners but somehow you become as a British spy. Soon things go out of hands, for the government. Exhilarating, fun read.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Strange little spy comedy novel that's also a perfect story.
You're in Havana, Cuba during the Cold War, you are a boring ordinary man who sells vacuum cleaners but somehow you become as a British spy.
To keep up with your daughter who spends all your money in creative ways, you don't want to lose the income but it all goes haywire.

It's both unbelievable and believable, some misunderstanding here and exaggeration there, who is there to deny his reports? I mean why not have fun while they are at it, let the man ridicule the authority and get away with it.
His love for his daughter, what else would you need if you have her?
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Our Man in Havana

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Our Man in Havana (Vintage Classics)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Il nostro agente all'avana (Italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Human, All Too Human” Friedrich Nietzsche (1878) Review | Surprisingly entertaining
    
			
    “Human, All Too Human” Friedrich Nietzsche (1878) Review | Surprisingly entertaining
    
			
    

    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
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ Nietzcsche's early thoughts
✔ A collection of aphorisms
✔ Surprisingly entertaining


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★★  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.


🔽 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)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “My grandmother’s tweets” Geeta Gopalakrishnan (2018) Review | Female wisdom from Tamil
    
			
    “My grandmother’s tweets” Geeta Gopalakrishnan (2018) Review | Female wisdom from Tamil
    
			
    

    My grandmother's tweets
Geeta Gopalakrishnan, 2018
India
340 pages
Read in 2023.07 
Check price on Amazon.com


    ✔ Teaching of grandmothers from South India
✔ Tamil traditions
✔ Warm wisdom


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★☆ Collection of stories associated with wise words passed down from Avvaiyar (a female poet from Tamil), female to female. Wisdom and warmth of the ancient India.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Another book gift when I was in India. 
It tells little stories associated with wise words passed down from Avvaiyar (a female poet from Tamil, southern India, from 12th century), female to female.

It's not something to read like a story, something to open time to time to enjoy the nice little stories, 
It's a collection of little famous or historical, or legendary quick stories, so not really something to read all in one go, but something to go back to time to time.
Wisdom and warmth of the ancient India.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    My Grandmother's Tweets: Inspired by Avvaiyar's Ancient Wisdom

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    My Grandmother's Tweets: Stories Inspired by Avvaiyar's Ancient Wisdom

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    -
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Down and Out in Paris and London” George Orwell (1933) Review | Foundation of his novels
    
			
    “Down and Out in Paris and London” George Orwell (1933) Review | Foundation of his novels
    
			
    


    Down and Out in Paris and London
    George Orwell, 1933
    UK
    224 pages
    Read in 2023.06
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ Orwell’s memoir living in poverty
    ✔ HIs thoughts on poverty and social injustice
    ✔ Life in London and Paris


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ 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.


    🔽 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)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” Raymond Carver (1981) Review | American suburbs
    
			
    “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” Raymond Carver (1981) Review | American suburbs
    
			
    

    




    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Raymond Carver, 1981
US
176 pages
Read in 2023.06
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ Short stories of American suburbs
✔ Japanese translation by Haruki Murakami



🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★☆☆ A bit like Haruki Murakami, of American suburbs, nothing really happens, it's subtle and modern - and who knew, Murakami actually translated this book into Japanese. A nice little read.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Short stories from 80s.

A bit like Haruki Murakami, of American suburbs, nothing really happens, it's subtle and modern - and who knew! Murakami actually translated this book into Japanese.
So you might enjoy twice if you are a Japanese Murakami fan.

I didn't know what to expect I just picked it up randomly from a book shop, though not my type, it was a nice little read.


    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Raymond Carver

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Di cosa parliamo quando parliamo d'amore (Italiano)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Falling in love again” Ruskin Bond (2013) Review | Maybe it was a dream
    
			
    “Falling in love again” Ruskin Bond (2013) Review | Maybe it was a dream
    
			
    

    Falling in love again 
Ruskin Bond, 2013
India
197 pages
Read in 2023.04
check price on amazon.com


    ✔ White Indian author
✔ Short love stories 



🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★☆ Selection of short stories from India's great author. Most of them are bittersweet; like it's almost a love story but not quite, it ends before it begins, so brief that it's almost a dream.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Compilation of short stories, of love from one of the most important Indian writers, he turned 89. (now in 2025 he's 91)

They are written in different stages of the author's life, and his stories seem very personal.
Many of the main characters' names are Ruskin, or Rusky, and they are based in Himachal, so it's not difficult to imagine that they are based on his childhood or youth.
Most of them are bittersweet, like it's almost a love story but not quite. 
It ends before it begins, or it's so brief that it's almost a dream.

Some stories are in the train, maybe on the same line, or one of his beloved, Sushila, reappears in another story, many of his girls simply disappear - yes, just like a dream.

🔽 Related pages 🔽

Ruskin Bond A room on the roof

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    FALLING IN LOVE AGAIN

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Falling In Love Again:Stories of Love and Romance

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Falling In Love Again:Stories of Love and Romance (English)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The First Principle, Talks on Zen” Osho (1981) Review | Sounds like just gossips
    
			
    “The First Principle, Talks on Zen” Osho (1981) Review | Sounds like just gossips
    
			
    

    The First Principle
Talks on Zen
Osho, 1981
India
288 pages
Read 2023.04
check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Cult master and zen



🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★☆☆☆ His "stories I've heard" are spread around the book and sure it is fun to read, but I cannot help but think, yeah but this is just to get attention.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

This one is much more painful to read than the first one I read earlier, The Book of Man.
It is a compilation of talks so taking that into account, so I'm sure listening to it live is more captivating, but as always not my thing anyways.

His "stories I've heard" are spread around the book and sure it is fun to read, but I cannot help but think, yeah but this is just to get attention, to keep the attention to him, and throw in some smart jokes here and there.

He disliked unnecessary disciplines from the established religions. 
No he hated them, so he would go against them, it's like a mixture of cult and hippie life, it probably was.

Not sure if I'll ever read anything else by him or about him.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
    The First Principle: Talks on Zen

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The First Principle: Talks on Zen

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    -
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Book of Man” Osho (2002) Review | International cult
    
			
    “The Book of Man” Osho (2002) Review | International cult
    
			
    


    The Book of Man
    Osho, 2002
    Osho Rajneesh
    India
    226 pages
    Read in 2023.04
    check on amazon.com

    ✔ Cult



    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★☆☆☆ I now get it, I understand why he was and continues to be so popular. He’s smart and eloquent, very rich and decadent, and encouraged all sorts of violence. His wish from the world was to follow the big power that was him.

    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Finally read something by Osho, though technically it’s not written by him personally, but it’s from his talks.

    I now get it, I understand why he was and continues to be so popular. 
    It’s not like I don’t understand at all what he says, but his talent lies and his aim was clear, to make you a follower, he’s not hiding that either.
    Becoming religious or spiritual itself is nothing unusual, and most of the times it brings good things. 
    But what he says he wishes from the world is to blindly follow the big power that’s him.

    Maybe also he came at the right time in the 70s when people, especially American, wanted psychedelic experiences, when the West wanted the exotic East. 

    One of his idea was that austerity is bad, and encourages people to enjoy life, which from Googling I understand he had a very luxurious and decadent life, riding around 93 Rolls-Royce just to show off, or manufactured and spread illegal drugs within his communities and beyond, or encouraged violence, where sexual violence towards kids became a norm. 
    Definitely scandalous, whether conspiracy or not.

    So back to the book, it’s 100% an interesting to read as a book to read, as a study, but I won’t go beyond that.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
    Book of Man [Paperback] 

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Book Of Man

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    -
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Tattoo” Junichiro Tanizaki (1910) Review | Early Tanizaki
    
			
    “The Tattoo” Junichiro Tanizaki (1910) Review | Early Tanizaki
    
			
    


    The Tattoo
    Junichiro Tanizaki, 1910
    刺青 秘密
    谷崎潤一郎
    Japan
    Read in 2020.04
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ Tanizaki's early masterpiece
    ✔ Sadomasochistic love story
    ✔ Fetishism 


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ Tanizaki's debut novel, Tattoo, the eroticism and fetishism are already there. He depicts the woman's true self by the beauty of her feet, and she is awaken. Yes that's Tanizaki.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Tanizaki's debut novel, Tattoo (Tattooer, Shisei), the eroticism and fetishism that you find in his books are already there, established but still pretty raw in an exciting way.

    He depicts the woman's true self by the beauty of her feet, and she is awaken.
    Yes that's Tanizaki.

    Kafu Nagai describes Tanizaki literature as "urban", so true, Tanizaki's characters have absolutely nothing to do with countryside poverty; posh boys, girls from good family, the world where there are only gentlemen and ladies, and the dark desires hiding in the beautiful world.
    Yes that's Tanizaki.

     
    




    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Tattoo and Other Stories

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    TATTOO: Bilingual Literature in Easy Japanese and English
    (I could only find this Easy version)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    -
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “A monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind” Shoukei Matsumoto (2011) Review | Monks’ main job, cleaning
    
			
    “A monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind” Shoukei Matsumoto (2011) Review | Monks’ main job, cleaning
    
			
    


    A monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind
    Shoukei Matsumoto, 2011
    お坊さんが教えるこころが整う掃除の本
    松本圭介
    Japan
    Read in 2026.01
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ Teaching from Zen monk
    ✔ Cleaning methods 
    ✔ Spirituality and cleaning


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ A post-religion-monk. What is his secret? Cleaning. When we think about Buddhist monks, we always think about them cleaning the garden - well, because they are always cleaning. 


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    I listen to his podcast all the time so reading this was like, ah finally.
    He studied Philosophy in Uni of Tokyo, and got MBA in India - he's undeniably smart, sharp and as he says is a post-religion monk.
    What is his secret?
    When we think about a Buddhist monk, we always think about them cleaning the garden - well, we're not wrong, they are always cleaning. 
    And his secret is cleaning.

    This book, though he reflects on the spirituality and Buddhism often, is about the actual cleaning.
    There are many things non-Japanese houses don't have, but he goes through all the main rooms and outdoor space, one by one.

    If your room is clean, so are your heart and mind, no doubt.
    We all know that but cleaning is, at least for me, not easy at all.
    Maybe I should start wiping surfaces more often and generally speaking have less things around. A start.

     

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Manuale di pulizie di un monaco buddhista. Spazziamo via la polvere e le nubi dell'anima (italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “(Ab)Normal Desire” Ryo Asai (2021) Review | You, too
    
			
    “(Ab)Normal Desire” Ryo Asai (2021) Review | You, too
    
			
    

    正欲
朝井リョウ, 2021 
(Ab)Normal Desire
Ryo Asai
Japan
528 pages
Read in 2025.10
check price on amazon.com
(Not available in English yet)


    ✔ Unusual sexuality
✔ Japanese society and its expectation 
✔ Diversity


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★★ A heavy read, because it's saying to you "I know you are thinking the same". Sure it's easy to accept and celebrate the diversity that's within your imagination, but what if someone's desire is way beyond what you can possibly imagine?


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

It's a heavy read.
And I was thinking why, and it's not merely because you don't really understand their (ab)normal desires and how they are treated by others.
But it's because the book is saying to you "I know you are thinking the same"
"I know you think I'm gross"
"I know you only tolerate diversity that's convenient to you"
"I know you too have a secret you can't tell anyone"

The title seiyoku, normally means "sexual desires".
The author applied the word "correct" so the title now means "correct desires".

It's easy to accept and celebrate the diversity that's within your imagination.
What if someone's desire is way beyond what you can possibly imagine?
Would you be able to accept that it exists? 
Would the society be able to accept it as a possibility?

After all happiness of us people is to connect with others, whoever you are.
To be understood.
In this cruel world, it was a miracle that the main characters met, and they found someone with whom they didn't have to hide their true selves.

Within our little lives and in history, we keep making mistakes by not accepting others, but we keep working on it, it's the best we can do.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    正欲 (新潮文庫 あ 78-3) (Japanese)

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    正欲 (新潮文庫 あ 78-3) (Japanese)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    正欲 (Japanese)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “An Area of Darkness” V. S. Naipaul (1964) Review | A slap in the face
    
			
    “An Area of Darkness” V. S. Naipaul (1964) Review | A slap in the face
    
			
    


    An Area of Darkness 
    V. S. Naipaul, 1964
    Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul
    UK
    304 pages
    Read in 2023.08
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ Cruel travel journey
    ✔ Poverty in India 
    ✔ Indian British author


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆  I thought it’d be a travel journey where he saw poverty in India, spiritual and mystic and all that. How wrong I was, it’s a book that gives a slap in the face of those who think it that way.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    I thought it would be a travel journey from Naipaul, a winner of Bookers and Nobel Prize, where he saw poverty in India, spiritual and mystic and all that.
    Well, I was completely wrong. 

    It is more like a connection or a journey through himself, in the atmosphere of India.
    Not heard to imagine he was in some kind of depressed state, but his reactions are raw and cruel.
    He’s not here to pretend that there’s beauty in the poverty, as many Western travelers claim. 
    Instead, he talks of the exploitation of the poverty, the filth of the poverty, of the blindness, or ignorance, of the endless corruption and of the excrement of all the negative things human.
    Not surprised it was banned in India, it puts off the Western people who want to see the mystic India.

    He had a pretty unpleasant visit to the village where his grandfather is from, that he’s happy to dismiss, this story alone represent the sentiment.
    It’s not the UK where he lives, not Trinidad where he’s from, India is to him familiar yet very unfamiliar. 
    It’s definitely not a happy read, it’s a slap in your hypocritical face that wishes to say the poverty is beauty, no it’s a middle finger to anyone who says that. Brutally honest.
    No wonder he’s not popular in India… at all.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    An Area of Darkness: A Discovery of India

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    An Area of Darkness: His Discovery of India

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Un'area di tenebra (Italiano)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Practice of Not Thinking” Ryunosuke Koike (2012) Review | Practical advices
    
			
    “The Practice of Not Thinking” Ryunosuke Koike (2012) Review | Practical advices
    
			
    


    The Practice of Not Thinking
    Ryunosuke Koike, 2012
    考えない練習
    小池龍之介
    Japan
    Read in 2025.10
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Teaching from Buddhist monk
    ✔ Anger management
    ✔ Self help, encouraging


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ A book from an unusual monk in Japan, no I’ll say it, he’s a bit weird, but in a nice way. You can’t change other people or the environment, nor control your brain from being negative so practice to shift your focus to something else.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    A book from an unusual monk in Japan, no I’ll say it, he’s a bit weird, but in a nice way.

    When you hear it’s Buddhism, you prep yourself thinking, it must be something difficult, spiritual and mysterious.
    But it’s really the opposite, it’s trying not to think about what’s bothering you or what you don’t like, you switch that part off, and focus on something else using your five senses.

    For example, let’s say you are annoyed by some unpleasant sound, then don’t focus on it, try focusing on some other quiet sound you hear far away.
    But to be able to do that, you must practice to notice these sounds.

    You can’t change other people, you can’t change the environment, you also cannot control your brain from being negative (because negative is a strong feeling that unfortunately attracts your brain) so practice to shift your focus to something else.
    It’s practical and eye opening, not really religious or spiritual.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Practice of Not Thinking

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Practice of Not Thinking: A Guide to Mindful Living

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Smetti di pensare (troppo) e vivi meglio. Dal tuo amico incantatore di pensieri (Italiano)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Karamazov Brothers” Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880) Review | The greatest
    
			
    “The Karamazov Brothers” Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880) Review | The greatest
    
			
    

    The Karamazov Brothers 
Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1880
ратья Карамазовы
Фёдор Достоевский
Russia
896 pages
Read in 2023.11
check price on amazon.com

Wordsworth Classics
Translated by Constance Garnett (1912)



    ✔ One of the greatest story in the history
✔ Struggle of a family
✔ Mystery


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★★+♥ I now want to re-read, speak with other readers and find out what I'll be finding out as I read again - it's a book that will follow you around for the rest of your life. Dostoevsky, a great story teller.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

One of the greatest books ever written, and I'm one of millions to agree it is.

It is long, it starts slow, it is difficult, but as the story evolves it actually gets exciting, new mysteries are introduced, some doubts are resolved, and you simply cannot help but be curious.
Dostoevsky, a great story teller.
It's been read, re-read and studied many times by people around the world ever since it was written, so not much for me to add but I'd just say, I encountered a grand book.
I now want to re-read, speak with other readers and find out what I'll be finding out as I read again - it's a book that will follow you around for the rest of your life.

So it's so magnificent that it's a piece of human heritage, if it was not a book that could be reprinted, it'd be in a museum.
It has the suspense and the mystery to keep you turning the page, while it always goes back to the simple idea of good and bad, poor and rich, fortunate and misfortune, love, family, friendship, pride, desire and pity and all in between.

Despite the whole dark damming story, it had an incredibly bright and hopeful note. 
I'm also simply glad I completed it, it's an accomplishment itself, totally worth it, but now I am not sure if I get to read anything as good as this great story.

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Karamazov Brothers (Wordsworth Classics)

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts and an Epilogue (Penguin Classics) 

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    I fratelli Karamazov. Ediz. integrale (italiano)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Spirit of Japan” Rabindranath Tagore (1916) Review | Short but meaningful
    
			
    “The Spirit of Japan” Rabindranath Tagore (1916) Review | Short but meaningful
    
			
    


    The Spirit of Japan
    Rabindranath Tagore, 1916
    22 pages
    Read in 2023.11
    check price on amazon.com
    




    




    ✔ Indian poet and his friendship with Japan
    ✔ His speech at a university in Japan 
    ✔ Critique of the modernisation of Japan


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ A speech he gave at Keio University in Tokyo in 1916. Full of warnings for Japan that he had loved, at the time Japan was militarising too rapidly. However he still believed in the power of Eastern philosophy.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    A speech he gave as he was departing Japan at Keio University in Tokyo in 1916.
    It is critical and full of warnings for Japan that he had loved, at the time Japan was militarising too rapidly. He strongly believed in the power of the East, that the power of Eastern philosophy 

    It's well known that he though he was fond of Japan and its culture and arts, he was very concerned about the rapid Westernisation of the country, thus going towards the path of colonisers.
    Looking at how his own country was getting consumed by the West and how Japan was losing its honourable self, he was unable to contain himself and gave this powerful speech.

    However, his warnings are timeless and universal; this "modernisation" is a path to self destruction and the hatred and harm you force upon the others will always come back to yourself.
    He strongly believed in the power of the East, that the power of Eastern philosophy would overcome the material power of the West, just like the sun that is always there even if the cloud might cover the sun temporarily.

    Short but meaningful book.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Spirit of Japan (Mint Editions (Voices From API))

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Spirit of Japan 

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    The Spirit of Japan (Mint Editions) 
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Girl I Left Behind” Shusaku Endo (1972) Review | The love she believes in
    
			
    “The Girl I Left Behind” Shusaku Endo (1972) Review | The love she believes in
    
			
    


    The Girl I Left Behind
    Shusaku Endo, 1972
    私が・棄てた・女
    遠藤周作
    Japan
    Read in 2020.04
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ Fiction from one of Japan's best authors
    ✔ A life of a naïve girl's
    ✔ Cruel love story


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ A naïve country girl who's not pretty and not smart, a girl the protagonist took advantage and left behind, thrown away like a rubbish. I knew it'd be painful to read, her pure selfless love.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    The author of "Silence", I knew it'd be hard to read - and it was.
    "Silence" was full on religious, the author's eternal struggle, this one in a way also was.

    It's about a naïve country girl who's not pretty and not smart, a girl the protagonist took advantage and left behind, thrown away like a rubbish.
    She is aware that she was hurt, yet she tries to free him from his guilt; her pure selfless love, maybe that's a religion.
    Her religion is to live only for others.
    




    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Girl I Left Behind

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Girl I Left Behind

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    -
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Oryx and Crake” Margaret Atwood (2003) Review | SF from Atwood
    
			
    “Oryx and Crake” Margaret Atwood (2003) Review | SF from Atwood
    
			
    

    Oryx and Crake
    Margaret Atwood, 2003
    389 pages
    Read in 2026.01
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ Science Fiction
    ✔ Dystopia  
    ✔ Friendship


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★☆☆ It's Margaret Atwood so the writing is intriguing, imaginative and gripping. But, but but, story-wise I just couldn't get myself to be gripped.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    It's a difficult one to judge.
    First of all It's a Science Fiction, and I'm no expert nor fan of SF so I can't be fair.

    It's about a world after some kind of catastrophe where there are no other human than the protagonist and the science has screwed up with species, and so it's a perfect dystopia. 
    It's Margaret Atwood so the writing is intriguing, imaginative and gripping.

    But, but but, story-wise I just couldn't get myself to be gripped.
    The fact that you can't know what's going on for nearly 2/3 of the book is a problem for me (most probably not for SF fans!)
    Another thing is that you can't be attached to any characters because the author is not building up characters, she's just building up the background and the scenes (for a long time)

    Maybe it was supposed to be read when it came out over 20 years ago.
    Today, with the technology in the post covid society, we feel like we know it's not a mere SF.
     
    





    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Oryx and Crake (The MaddAddam Trilogy)     

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Oryx And Crake: Margaret Atwood (The Maddaddam Trilogy)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Oryx e Crake (italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Unmarriageable” Soniah Kamal, (2019) Review | Refreshing and lovely
    
			
    “Unmarriageable” Soniah Kamal, (2019) Review | Refreshing and lovely
    
			
    


    Unmarriageable
    Soniah Kamal, 2019
    384 pages
    Read in 2020.03
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ Pride and Prejudice
    ✔ Girls and young society of Pakistan
    ✔ Uplifting


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ What it says on the tin. Refreshing to read the comic side of Pakistani girls, the real Pakistan written by a woman born in Pakistan an it's lovely.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Pakistani Pride and Prejudice.
    It's what it says in the tin.

    I haven't read Pride and Prejudice (at this point), so can't judge on the similarities or references but even so it's entertaining.

    It talks about the culture and of course the food of Pakistan, so purely for that it's fun. 
    It could look too caricaturistic, so it sounds too much like it's written for the West, but still it's refreshing to read the comic side of Pakistani girls, and this is the real Pakistan written by a woman born in Pakistan an it's lovely, no doubt it's a pleasant read.

    The chatty girls are definitely a homage to the original.
     
    




    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Unmarriageable: A Novel

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Unmarriageable 

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Unmarriageable: A Novel (English)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Crime and Punishment” Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1866) Review | Intolerable pride
    
			
    “Crime and Punishment” Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1866) Review | Intolerable pride
    
			
    

    Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1866
Russia
Преступление и наказание
Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский
720 pages
Read in 2023.12
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ One of the best from Dostoyevsky and of the world
✔ Psychological fiction
✔ Moral dilemma 


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★★ Raskolnikov is a problem, not because he causes problems, because he whispers to us to be free to be selfish and problematic to the society. Youth is not beautiful, it’s painful, but growing up with a lot of pride is intolerable. Masterpiece, as always.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

I had just finished The Karamazov Brothers recently, and I admit it's been following me around like a ghost, wanting something as grand.
So here it is, Crime and Punishment.

This one is less lengthy and the story is rather "easy" to follow, simply because it's about one person.
It's easier to follow but it's not easy to read.
But, there is not much to say about the story from my part, it's a masterpiece, everyone knows it.

The protagonist, Raskolnikov, is a problem, not merely because he causes problems, because he whispers to us, especially youths, to be free to be selfish and problematic to the society.
Such a provocative book.
"I'm special, I am allowed to be special, why do they treat me unfairly" this is the hatred and anger everyone can related to, anywhere in the world any time.

Youth is not beautiful, it's painful, but growing up with a bit of intelligence and a lot of pride (but without confidence) is intolerable. His innocence and delusion face the reality that is, life.

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Crime and Punishment (Penguin Classics)

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Crime and Punishment (Penguin Classics)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Delitto e castigo (Italian Edition)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Anglo-Gurkha Relations” GL Rai-Zimmdar (2007) Review | Britain and Nepal
    
			
    “Anglo-Gurkha Relations” GL Rai-Zimmdar (2007) Review | Britain and Nepal
    
			
    


    Anglo-Gurkha Relations
    Historical Account of how the Gurkhas Bestowed upon Queen Victoria the Gift of Indian Empire
    GL Rai-Zimmdar, 2007
    211 pages
    Read in 2023.12
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ History of Nepal and Britain
    ✔ Between strong countries of Britain and India 



    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★☆☆ An interesting and original view on the matter of Nepal, its position between Britain and India. Make you realise how important Nepal has been in our history and how it’s been neglected.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Probably a self published book, but has an interesting and original view on the matter of Nepal, its position between Britain and India.
    The author seems to feel it a mission to correct previous historians’ fake stories, or misunderstandings, so I should have known the general or previous understanding of Anglo-Gurkha relations to appreciate this book.

    This doesn’t really teach you the general history Anglo-Gurkha Relations, but it does make you realise how important Nepal has been in our history and how it’s been neglected.
    It claims that the world has been misled because of the strong Indian and British influences.
    I must find a regular history book on Nepal first.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Anglo-Gurkha Relations, New Edition: Historical Accounts of how the Gurkhas bestowed upon Queen Victoria the Gift of Indian Empire

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Anglo-Gurkha Relations: Historical Account of how the Gurkhas Bestowed upon Queen Victoria the Gift of Indian Empire

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    --
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Frankenstein” Mary Shelley  (1818) Review | A lonely unwanted creature
    
			
    “Frankenstein” Mary Shelley  (1818) Review | A lonely unwanted creature
    
			
    

    Frankenstein
Mary Shelley, 1818
Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus
UK
224 pages
Read in 2020.12
check price on amazon.com


    ✔ The most famous horror monster story
✔ The author wrote the best horror story among friends 
✔ Written by a woman


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★★  Mary Shelley had a bet with 2 men to see who'd write the best horror story, thus this world famous horror story written by a 18 year old girl. But it is not about how evil the monster is, it's more a sad story about this lonely unwanted creature.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

One of the most famous horror stories is not only about horror.
And it must be specified, written by an 18 year old, a teenage girl, Mary Shelley.
While on a holiday, she had a bet with 2 men, a poet Byron and a writer Polidori, to see who would write the best horror story - what a luxurious game.

It's poetic, it's sad, it's I'd even say beautiful, painfully beautiful.
It's about two men, who both regret the monster's existence - one is the creator and the other the monster himself.
The monster is monstrous simply because that's his nature, not his willing. 

If you are only used to the movie or cartoon versions of it, it's definitely not as you fancy the story of Frankenstein to be.
It's not pure evil, it's not that simple and it's not really about how monstrous he is either.; it's more a sad story about this lonely unwanted creature.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Frankenstein

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Frankenstein (italiano)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Diary of a Nobody” George and Weedon Grossmith (1892) Review | Very awkward
    
			
    “The Diary of a Nobody” George and Weedon Grossmith (1892) Review | Very awkward
    
			
    

    The Diary of a Nobody
George and Weedon Grossmith, 1892
176 pages
Read in 2022.01
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ British humour
✔ Mundane life of middle class in London 
✔ Awkward British comedy


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★☆  Comedy written 100+ years ago but still very British, the awkwardness, pretentiousness, and he really tries to show his dignity but everything goes wrong, so awkward.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

One of the books I randomly picked up, and it turned out to be a book of British comedy of a man who lived in Holloway, where I also lived for a while, though it was written over 130 years ago.

It's very British, the awkwardness, pretentiousness, and he really tries to show his dignity but everything goes wrong, so awkward.
You can't help but feel sorry for Mr. Pooter, the Mr. Nobody, and be charmed by his gentleness.

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Diary of a Nobody (Wordsworth Classics) 

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Diary of a Nobody

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    The Diary of a Nobody (English)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “It’s Okay Not to Look for the Meaning of Life: A Zen Monk’s Guide to Living Stress-Free One Day at a Time” Jikisai Minami (2017) Review | Live YOUR life
    
			
    “It’s Okay Not to Look for the Meaning of Life: A Zen Monk’s Guide to Living Stress-Free One Day at a Time” Jikisai Minami (2017) Review | Live YOUR life
    
			
    

    It's Okay Not to Look for the Meaning of Life: A Zen Monk's Guide to Living Stress-Free One Day at a Time
Jikisai Minami, 2017
禅僧が教える心がラクになる生き方
南直哉
284 pages
Read in 2025.10
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ Teaching from Zen monk
✔ Zen monk trained monks in a monastery 
✔ Self help, encouraging


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★★  It teaches you how to live without suffering unnecessarily, by a Zen monk who's eccentric strict yet humane. "If you think that you can decide anything by yourself, you are wrong. If conditions change, your decision becomes invalid"


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

A book that teaches you how to live without suffering unnecessarily.
Don't struggle unnecessarily, don't believe unnecessarily, just accept as things are.

Don't have too much pride or be too conscious, we were born by chance, and we'll die eventually.
Don't try to overcome sadness or struggles.
Yes it all sounds too easy, easier said than done, but I guess if you keep telling yourself it becomes a part of you and it becomes natural - I hope.

I heard him on a podcast and I was completely shocked how eccentric he was, so honest (he says he accepted to write this book because by chance his wife needed a car!) so strict (Darth Vader of the zen monastery) yet so humane, and very funny.

Some of the lines I liked (it's probably different from the original English translation!)

"If you think that you can decide anything by yourself, you are wrong and childish. You as a being only exist under certain conditions. If the conditions change, your decision becomes invalid"

"I think you can live with regrets. Then one day you will find a meaning in your regrets"

"If you can't overcome sadness, then don't try, it's okay"

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    It's Okay Not to Look for the Meaning of Life: A Zen Monk's Guide to Living Stress-Free One Day at a Time

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    It's Okay Not to Look for the Meaning of Life: A Zen Monk's Guide to Living Stress-Free One Day at a Time

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    It's Okay Not to Look for the Meaning of Life: A Zen Monk's Guide to Living Stress-free One Day at a Time (English)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “100 Nasty Women of History” Hannah Jewell (2019) Review | 100 kick-a** women
    
			
    “100 Nasty Women of History” Hannah Jewell (2019) Review | 100 kick-a** women
    
			
    

    100 Nasty Women of History: 
Brilliant, badass and completely fearless women everyone should know
Hannah Jewell, 2019
376 pages
Read in 2022.03
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ History of 100 women
✔ Women from different time and places
✔ Feminism


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★☆  Brief history of 100 unapologetic badass women. These great women are not less. As the author says, before we go and read in depth about them, it is first of all important to know they existed.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Brief history of 100 individuals - 100 unapologetic badass women.
As the writer says, before we go and read in depth about these women, it is first of all important to know they existed.

It's amazing how these brave women are buried away in history.
They are equally important to any of the male in history. But no, women are always less. 
Less important. Or they managed to make a difference "by chance" or they're not heroes they are just, "nasty"
Easy and exciting to read, it's entertaining and the writer jokes and swears a lot, but not too much. 
Definitely makes you want to do further reading.

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    100 Nasty Women of History: Brilliant, badass and completely fearless women everyone should know

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    100 Nasty Women of History: Brilliant, badass and completely fearless women everyone should know

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    -- 
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Darjeeling: A History of the World’s Greatest Tea” Jeff Koehler (2015) Review | Colonial history and Darjeeling
    
			
    “Darjeeling: A History of the World’s Greatest Tea” Jeff Koehler (2015) Review | Colonial history and Darjeeling
    
			
    

    Darjeeling: A History of the World’s Greatest Tea
Jeff Koehler, 2015
286 pages
Read in 2022.04
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ Colonial history of Darjeeling
✔ Social justice, exploitation of the workers
✔ Life of the workers


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★★  This book talks about Darjeeling tea - history, the people, the owners and workers, the soil; its problems are as iconic as its taste. Darjeeling tea is iconic, that no other place could recreate, yet it's stuck in its colonial history.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
All about Darjeeling tea, in details. Extensively in details. 

It talks about all the background - history, the people (the owners and workers), the soil; the problems are as iconic as the taste.
Darjeeling tea is iconic, that no other place could recreate, yet it's stuck in its colonial history. 
And it's entirely based on the exploitation.  
A painful fact is, a cup of Darjeeling tea could cost more than a day's wage of the plucker. It's located in such a unique bit of the planet, that living there alone is a hard job (access to water, heating). 
And also uniquely, unlike other iconic drinks like champagne or whiskey or even matcha, Darjeeling tea is not as appreciated in its own country, India.

With all the problems, will people continue to drink Darjeeling tea? 
Will people continue to make Darjeeling tea?

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Darjeeling: The Colorful History and Precarious Fate of the World's Greatest Tea

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Darjeeling: A History of the World’s Greatest Tea

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    --
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “No path in Darjeeling is straight” Parimal Bhattacharya (2017) Review | Complicated history of simple community
    
			
    “No path in Darjeeling is straight” Parimal Bhattacharya (2017) Review | Complicated history of simple community
    
			
    

    No path in Darjeeling is straight
Memories of a Hill Town
Parimal Bhattacharya, 2017
India
200 pages
Read in 2022.02
check price on amazon.com



    ✔ A memoir of a Bengali teacher
✔ The life in Darjeeling seen by the teacher
✔ Simple life of the people of the Hill


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★☆  A memoir, a nostalgia, of how this Bengali teacher who spent a few years in Darjeeling in the 1990. Their politics and sentiments are complicated, and he carefully observes them as an outsider.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

A memoir, a nostalgia, of how this Bengali teacher who spent a few years in Darjeeling in the 1990.

I read quite a lot of books on the history of this area but this is more personal.
Their politics and sentiments are complicated, and he carefully observes them as an outsider.

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    No Path in Darjeeling Is Straight: Memories of a Hill Town

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    No Path in Darjeeling Is Straight: Memories of a Hill Town

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    No Path in Darjeeling is Straight: Memories of a Hill Town (English)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Reason I Jump” Naoki Higashida (2016) Review | Revealing
    
			
    “The Reason I Jump” Naoki Higashida (2016) Review | Revealing
    
			
    

    The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism
Naoki Higashida, 2016
自閉症の僕が跳びはねる理由～会話のできない中学生がつづる内なる心～東田直樹
    208 pages
Read in 2022.03
    check price on amazon.com

    

✔ An essay from a non-verbal autistic boy
✔ How he sees the world
✔ Translated by David Mitchell


🔽 Review summary 🔽
    
★★★★☆  It’s revealing, beautiful and almost magical. His love for nature, his strong wish with to be with other people and be understood – these are refreshing and optimistic, but how it's written as a book feels too "comforting" for others


    
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

It's revealing, beautiful and almost magical.
Not only that, his love for nature and being with others, his strong wish to be with other people and be understood - these are refreshing and revealing but also optimistic, and I must say, comforting.

It's comforting for people who know little about children with autism.
This book will make you feel moved instantly and I cannot help but think that it's carefully crafted by savvy adults.

We should not forget that it's a book from this particular and talented 13 year old boy. 
He's articulate, even if he doesn't speak in a conventional way and that's great and that's a big hope for parents, but this is one person on the spectrum. 

Definitely need to read in Japanese, which should be closer to how it was originally written by him (and not involving a famous writer) and I'd like to read more of his books, how he is progressing with his writing.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Reason I Jump: one boy's voice from the silence of autism

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Il motivo per cui salto (Italiano)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Convenience Store Woman” Sayaka Murata (2016) Review | Ordinary yet mad
    
			
    “Convenience Store Woman” Sayaka Murata (2016) Review | Ordinary yet mad
    
			
    

    Convenience Store Woman 
    Sayaka Murata, 2016
    コンビニ人間
    村田沙耶香
    Read in 2020.03
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ A popular Japanese modern fiction
    ✔ Woman against expectations of the society
    ✔ Today's Japanese society


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ Something so painfully normal and boring yet full of madness. Then she realises, she didn't just end up being a convenience store woman, this is her true self.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    I always saw the book in bookshops in London but of course I wanted to read it in Japanese so I wanted a bit.
    Completely unpredictable.

    Somehow I thought it was a love story about a girl working in a convenience store, but of course it was everything but.
    It was about no-love-story, it was about something so painfully normal and boring yet full of madness.
    It's a pleasant surprise that people not living in Japan get this.

    She's getting close to 40 years old, not married, not doing a "grown up's job", no kids, no boyfriend.
    It's the "other side" that anyone, I mean everyone, could end up on, but then she realises, she didn't just end up being a convenience store woman, this is her true self.

    She doesn't give a sh*t, she is clever and quick.
    She can actually defeat the loser guy in arguments, and you just cannot predict the next step, anything can happen.
    It's short, and in a way a feel-good book, and for me ends with a happy ending.
     
    




    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Convenience Store Woman: A Novel 

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Convenience Store Woman: Sayaka Murata

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    La ragazza del convenience store (italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Unfinished Portrait” Agatha Christie (1962) Review | Christie without mystery
    
			
    “Unfinished Portrait” Agatha Christie (1962) Review | Christie without mystery
    
			
    

    Unfinished Portrait
Agatha Christie, 1962
UK
Read in 2022.05
check price on amazon.com


✔ Written under her pseudonym, Mary Westmacott.
✔ Female struggle as a mother
✔ Less famous side of Agatha Christie


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★☆ Her wish to go outside, into the unknown world - that's something she must suppress because she's a wife, a mother. A wonderful storytelling, a story of her mind, by one of the greatest.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Agatha Christy that doesn't involve murders or crimes - in fact she used her pseudonym, Mary Westmacott.

The book is about about the inner emotions of the sensitive protagonist who is now thinking to commit suicide.
After a happy childhood with her family, she was supposed to have a happy family life with her husband.
Her wish to go outside, into the unknown world - that's something she must suppress because she's a wife, a mother.

A wonderful storytelling, a story of her mind, by one of the greatest.

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Unfinished Portrait

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Unfinished Portrait

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Ritratto incompiuto (italiano)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Book of Tea” Kakuzo Okakura (1906) Review | Tea and philosophy
    
			
    “The Book of Tea” Kakuzo Okakura (1906) Review | Tea and philosophy
    
			
    


    The Book of Tea
    Kakuzo Okakura, 1906
    128 pages
    Read in 2022.06
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Classic textbook of tea and Japanese culture for the West
    ✔ Philosophy from the East
    ✔ The most famous book on Japanese tea for the last 120 years


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆  It is the most famous book on tea and Japan for the last 120 years. But it is much more, it’s about what is tea for Japanese people in a very philosophical way – delicate yet strong message to the West.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    It is the most famous book on tea and Japan for the last 120 years or so.
    But it is much more, it’s about what is tea for Japanese people in a very philosophical way – delicate yet strong message to the West.

    This collection of writings were written for the West who looked down on Japan and the East.
    It spends lot of time speaking about flowers and the sentiments around flower and it tries to communicate the Eastern aesthetics with the West, ending it with the death of the tea master. 
    It doesn’t necessarily teach you about the tea ceremonies etc, it’s more about the spirits of Japan via tea.
    The afterword is also interesting.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Book of Tea Classic Edition

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Book of Tea: The Book of Oz (Penguin Little Black Classics)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Il libro del tè (Italiano)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “This Monk Wears Heels” Kodo Nishimura (2022) Review | Make-up and Buddhism
    
			
    “This Monk Wears Heels” Kodo Nishimura (2022) Review | Make-up and Buddhism
    
			
    


    This Monk Wears Heels: Be Who You Are
    Kodo Nishimura, 2022
    224 pages
    Read in 2022.09
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ LGBTQ essay and self help
    ✔ Gay Buddhist monk who is a make up artist
    ✔ Encouraging and uplifting


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆  Make-up is to enhance the beauty, not to hide behind it, and Buddhism is to find truth, by being true. So his purposes are not as contradictory. Such a unique person, a person with a mission.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Such a unique person, a person with a mission.
    Saw him on Netflix and love the fact that he is a monk and a make-up artist, at the same time, with the same purposes – though they seem completely the opposite, they are not.

    This book would be a perfect self-help book for a young person who is struggling to find true self, (whether they are gay or not, I’m not gay and this is inspiring) and his message is clear; be proud. 

    Make-up is there to enhance the beauty, not to hide behind it, and Buddhism is there to find truth, by being true. So his purposes are not as contradictory as it might seem.

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    This Monk Wears Heels: Be Who You Are

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    This Monk Wears Heels: Be Who You Are

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    ーー
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Nine Lives” William Dalrymple (2013) Review | Being holy in India today
    
			
    “Nine Lives” William Dalrymple (2013) Review | Being holy in India today
    
			
    

    Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India
William Dalrymple, 2013
304 pages
Read in 2025.11
check price on amazon.com

✔ Travel journey throughout India
✔ Historian visits nine individual who are considered holy
✔ Transition from traditional to modern India


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★★ It's a travel journal, except that the focus is not on the places but the people these places "created". These traditions are disappearing. As India is now going for a national holy story, as they call it Rama-fication, how long will these very local faiths last.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

A slightly different touch to other books I've read from Mr. Dalrymple.
It's a travel journal, except that the focus is not on the places but the people these places "created".

The book focuses on the 9 people who are admired as holy and sacred, because they have been "decided" to be as holy being by the society, or sometimes they chose to, or maybe they have great skills like creating the religious art.

As always Dalrymple is all about embracing as things are, he's not here to judge, he's just here to pass on their stories and traditions to a wider world.
As he says, and indeed as he saw, these traditions are disappearing. 
They are not necessarily less religious but the modern India is now going for a national, standardised holy story, the nationalistic Hinduism, as Dalrymple calls it Rama-fication, rather than 1000s of very local stories.

India is lucky to have Dalrymple as their historian today, his curious eyes will record everything and with passion he shares with us.

The book focuses on;
A devoted Jain nun, dancer in Kannur Kerala, daughters dedicated to a goddess, but actually working as prostitutes, singers in Rajasthan, devotee of Sufi that embraces Hindu and Islam, Tibetan monk who was a soldier, idol maker in Tamil, devotee in Tarapith for a fearful goddess, and a blind singer in Bengal.

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India (Vintage Departures)

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Nove vite (Italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “BUTTER” Asako Yuzuki (2017) Review | Her life her food her body
    
			
    “BUTTER” Asako Yuzuki (2017) Review | Her life her food her body
    
			
    

    Butter
    Asako Yuzuki, 2017
    柚木麻子
    Read in 2025.11
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Feminist crime story based on a real case
    ✔ Power struggle between two women
    ✔ Relationship with her body and her food


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★  For a woman to eat oily food, gain a few kilo and have a fun life is a shameful thing. She must give up a lot, including her sanity, to go beyond. Then, there is a place where she can eat what she wants, a life of rich and luxurious butter.

    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Finally read Butter, the book everyone is talking about, in Japan, in the UK and beyond.

    The power of Kajimana is the core, a pale chubby middle aged woman with an undeniable attraction, who is a suspect of murdering her lovers – she hates two things, margarine and feminist.
    The book is about the power struggle between the two women; Kajimana and Rika a journalist.
    Well actually no, it is always Kajimana who has the control over everything Rika does, including when she sleeps with her boyfriend and what she should eat afterwards when and where, as if her pale chubby arms is grabbing the life of Rika.
    It’s a struggle to escape the chubby arm of control.

    It’s a bestseller worldwide, but this is very Japan.
    You’d enjoy it more if you know how horrible Japanese society is to women, even today (and if you know how expensive butter is there)
    It’s a very normal thing to criticise or joke about the weight of a woman in public, and a woman is expected to worry about her appearance constantly and forever.
    For a woman to eat oily food, gain a few kilo, have a fun life is a shameful thing. God forbit.
    So especially in Japan, for a woman, to have a good life for herself requires more energy.
    You must give up a lot, including your sanity, in order to get there.
    But as you get there, there is a place where you can eat what you want, a life of rich and luxurious butter.

    This book is not merely a feminist book, that’d be an easy observation.
    As women become free from the society’s cruel and unrealistic expectations, men are also freed from the unreasonable expectation of manliness.

    The novel is based on a real life crime in Japan, but before you know it it becomes less about the crime and the mystery but more about you and me and the society we live in.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Butter: The Cult Japanese Bestseller about a Serial Killer Cook (Food and Murder) 

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Butter: THE No. 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING SENSATION

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Butter (italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Woman Dies” Aoko Matsuda (2021) Review | She flies away, she throws up, or dies. Whatever she wants.
    
			
    “The Woman Dies” Aoko Matsuda (2021) Review | She flies away, she throws up, or dies. Whatever she wants.
    
			
    

    The Woman Dies
Aoko Matsuda, 2021
女が死ぬ
松田青子
Read in 2025.11
check price on amazon.com


✔ A collection of 52 short stories
✔ Feminist theme
✔ Funny and fierce critique of Japanese patriarchy 


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★★  What did I just read. It's about strong women, but it's not only that it's full of female rage. She flies to wherever she wants as a modern Tinker Bell, and she throws up whatever she wants in the toilet. Fabulous.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

What did I just read.
My first time reading Aoko Matsuda, and as you can see from the title it's about strong women, but it's not only that it's full of female rage (also feminine rage).
It's not explosive anger though, it's the anger that's slowly simmering.

"I hate the girl you like" or "a male sensitivity" these are the things she hates and she tells you in your face with "the woman dies" and "demonstration of misogynies demolished".
It might be surprising for some but in Japan it's still normal to say "typically female" or "it talks to the female sensitivity" in advertisement or magazines.

She won't give in.
Whatever the others say, she flies to wherever she wants as a modern Tinker Bell, and she throws up whatever she wants in the toilet.
Fabulous.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Woman Dies

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Woman Dies

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    The Woman Dies (English)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “A Sense of Direction” Gideon Lewis-Kraus, (2012) Review | Pilgrimages to yourself
    
			
    “A Sense of Direction” Gideon Lewis-Kraus, (2012) Review | Pilgrimages to yourself
    
			
    

    A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful
Gideon Lewis-Kraus, 2012
US
352 pages
Read in 2025.11
check price on amazon.com


✔ Essay and travelogue of a 30 year old man
✔ Pilgrimage to Spain, Japan and Ukraine
✔ His Jewish sense of humour and conflict with his father


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★☆Travel journal of a 30 year old writer, while living in Berlin constantly whining he decides to go on pilgrimages. It's a fun read about pilgrimages, he has no sense of spirituality. It's also about him trying to connect with his father, a rabbi who now lives with his boyfriend.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

When you start reading this book, it's about this guy, 30 year old writer, whining while living in a liberal cheap and bare concrete yet artistic Berlin and decides to go on pilgrimages, to Christian Camino de Santiago in Spain, Buddhist Shikoku 88 temples in Japan and Jewish holiday in Uman in Ukraine.
But as you read through you realise it's a book about a guy who is trying to connect with, or forgive, his father that he loves.

So yes in a way it's typical, you travel around the world to find out that what you need was always at home, but we also know that it was necessary to do all the painful journeys, hardship and solitude. 
If forgiving is somehow obnoxious, then not holding grudges, to find peace.

Apart from that, it's a good read about pilgrimages, he has no sense of spirituality let alone  religion, but that's what most of us are today, and yet there's still a meaning to go on pilgrimages. 
He did Camino with a friend and manages to stay friends, and Shikoku alone, and Ukraine with his brother and father.

His Jewish humour shines whenever he whines, about whatever.
Reading his description of destroyed feet and cold rainy miserable nights might not encourage us but it's a fun read.

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful [Lingua Inglese] 
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Darjeeling Distinction” Sarah Besky (2014) Review | Dark side of the posh tea
    
			
    “The Darjeeling Distinction” Sarah Besky (2014) Review | Dark side of the posh tea
    
			
    

    The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair-Trade Tea Plantations in India (California Studies in Food and Culture Book 47)
Sarah Besky, 2014
US
258 pages
Read in 2022.11
check price on amazon.com


✔ Everyday life of the tea plantation
✔ How the fair trade affects the workers in practice
✔ Social justice


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★☆ Darjeeling is the most expensive tea in the world, most well marketed and iconic - how is it that the workers remain so poor? A cup of Darjeeling costs more than a plucker's daily wage, but not known because it's always linked to luxury.



🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Exactly the topic I was interested in about the Darjeeling tea, its industry and its workers.

Darjeeling tea is the most expensive tea in the world, most well marketed and iconic - how is it that the workers remain so poor?
Uncomfortably, a cup of Darjeeling costs a lot more than a plucker's daily wage, but not known enough because the tea is always linked to luxury.

Darjeeling and Sikkim area not like the rest of India, indeed the majority of the people are ethnically Nepali. 
India would do anything to keep Darjeeling tea Indian, it's the most iconic single product and one of the most famous from India.
Gorkhas don't own anything, not even their history. 
Speaking of Fair Trade, since it's been forced on the locals, ironically, their lives became harder.

So iconic yet so exploited. 



    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair-Trade Tea Plantations in India

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair-Trade Tea Plantations in India (California Studies in Food and Culture Book 47)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    --
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Bangalore Detective Club” Harini Nagendra (2022) Review | Nice mystery for India lovers
    
			
    “The Bangalore Detective Club” Harini Nagendra (2022) Review | Nice mystery for India lovers
    
			
    

    The Bangalore Detective Club
    Harini Nagendra, 2022
    India
    292 pages
    Read in 2022.12
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Mystery from an Indian author
    ✔ Housewife detective
    ✔ Life in Bangalore in 1920


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ Set in 1920 Bangalore, a freshly married housewife goes around the city to solve mysteries. Nice locations and  food – a nice little crime novel for India lovers.
    






    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Set in 1920 Bangalore, Kaveri only recently married to a doctor and was expecting a quiet life, instead she goes around the city to solve a murder. 
    A bit of tension with British is always a good pinch of spice.
    There are some treats, of famous locations in Bangalore and food – a nice little crime novel for anyone who’s interested in India.

    What’s a bit unusual is that the author is an ecologist, so with her background like that I’m more looking forward to reading her other books.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Bangalore Detectives Club (The Kaveri and Ramu Murder Mystery Series)

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Bangalore Detectives Club (The Bangalore Detectives Club Series)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    The Bangalore Detectives Club (English)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The Midwich Cuckoos” John Wyndham, (1957) Review | Uncomfortable
    
			
    “The Midwich Cuckoos” John Wyndham, (1957) Review | Uncomfortable
    
			
    

    The Midwich Cuckoos
    John Wyndham, 1957
    UK
    240 pages
    Read in 2022.12
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Weird Science Fiction from the UK
    ✔ Strength of a community
    ✔ Family


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ In a quiet town all women got pregnant, but the babies only like each other, with their bright eyes and unusual senses. Uncomfortable, feels too real.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Recommended by a friend, so no knowledge of the story or the author, and it was subtly weird.
    Maybe I’ve never really read sci-fi books consciously, so I can’t really compare with other books in the genre but it is a mild but certainly worrying sci-fi.

    In a quiet town, one day they all fell unconscious, when they woke up women were pregnant, all at the same time.
    Soon the babies are born, not looking like their parents but like each other, with their bright eyes and they become worryingly strong, smart and connected to each other.
    Who, or what are they? 
    What do we do? What is the right thing to do? How do we stop?

    It’s uncomfortable and definitely worrying because it feels too real.

    Once upon a time, our enemies were aliens or some obvious external factors.
    Good ol’ days.
    Now we need to he scared of us humans. 
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The Midwich Cuckoos

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The Midwich Cuckoos

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Il villaggio dei dannati (italiano)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Sweet Bean Paste” Durien Sukegawa (2015) Review | sweetness of life
    
			
    “Sweet Bean Paste” Durien Sukegawa (2015) Review | sweetness of life
    
			
    


    Sweet Bean Paste
    Durien Sukegawa, 2015
    あん
    ドリアン助川
    Read in 2025.12
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Feel good Japanese literature
    ✔ Elderly woman living with social injustice
    ✔ Meaning of life


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ It’s often said that being useful for others is the meaning of life, but maybe, the meaning of life, the meaning itself, is simply to feel “ah this is good”. The happiness that the humble sweet beans can bring will give you that feeling.
    






    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    It’s so warm, like a hug, you feel the warmth that’s probably happiness.

    It’s often said that being useful for others is the meaning of life, but I’m not sure, isn’t it more like a feeling of significance living in a society, and that’s a great thing.
    But maybe, the meaning of life, the meaning itself, is simply to feel “ah this is good”

    Here the main characters had all suffered, and they met, and they shared the same sweet beans.
    Tokue suffered from leprosy the disease, and after recovering, she suffered from the society’s prejudice and ignorance.
    I myself also didn’t know that there were facilities until the 90s in Japan, and that is the horror of ignorance and I’m part of it.

    By chance, I made my first sweet beans last year, and I also made dorayaki several times after that.
    I found a “quick and easy recipe” online, “quick” but you’d still need to soak the beans from the night before and cook for several hours.
    I’d love writing about my first delicious, slightly hard, sweet beans I made all day here, but I instead I tell you the feeling was definitely the happiness.
    The happiness that the humble sweet beans can bring, something that takes hours to make but needs 2 seconds to eat, to say, ah this is good.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Sweet Bean Paste: The International Bestseller

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Sweet Bean Paste: The International Bestseller

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    —
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Caledonian Road” Andrew O’Hagan (2024) Review | Dark reality of London today
    
			
    “Caledonian Road” Andrew O’Hagan (2024) Review | Dark reality of London today
    
			
    


    Caledonian Road
    Andrew O’Hagan, 2024
    UK
    657 pages
    Read in 2025.11
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Today’s London for rich people
    ✔ Power struggle and corruptions
    ✔ Crimes


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ People come with hope for a better life, and soon enough realise there is no such thing. London is a place for rich to rule. The money, the power, the evil. And what is the shared feeling? the loneliness.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    If anyone asks what today’s London is like, I’d say read this book.
    It has all the problems the city is experiencing in the last few years.

    People come with hope for a better life, and soon enough realise there is no such thing.
    London is a place for rich to rule, it’s something we ordinary people have difficulty seeing, but it’s always in the background. 
    The money, the power, the evil.
    And what is the shared feeling? the loneliness.

    This sense of “us” vs “them”.
    We the people, they the evil things.

    An exciting book that contains a lot of aspects of today, traditional rich, Russian rich, rich kids, rich kids who are Eco warriors, young gangs, illegal immigration, the class struggles – it depicts different points of view from different class and communities.

    Lastly it was nice to read a story about Islington where I lived for more than 10 years, it’s a big borough with all the essences of London.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Caledonian Road: The Sunday Times bestseller

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Caledonian Road: The Sunday Times bestseller

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Caledonian Road (English)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “The White Tiger” Aravind Adiga (2008) Review | Energy of young India
    
			
    “The White Tiger” Aravind Adiga (2008) Review | Energy of young India
    
			
    


    The White Tiger
    Aravind Adiga, 2008
    India
    336 pages
    Read in 2021.04
    check on amazon.com


    ✔ Booker Prize
    ✔ Entrepreneurship of India
    ✔ Violence and power struggles


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ Exciting as I expected. So raw, so angry, seem so nonchalant but has full of energy, just like today’s India and their youths. It’s so easy to dismiss India merely as a place to get enlightenment and exotic etc, but this is also the reality.
    





    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Netflix was starting the film, so I had to get the book first.

    This was as exciting as I expected. 
    So raw, so angry, seem so nonchalant but has full of energy, just like today’s India the world imagine.
    It’s so easy to dismiss India merely as a place to get enlightenment and exotic, but this is also the reality, it’s where people live and try to go further than what their parents achieved, just like any other place in the world.

    While it’s raw and its people all tangled up, they know their places, like caste, it’s in their skin.
    It’s similar to Japan in a sense that this is Asia, just that Japan doesn’t have that big proportion of poor or extremely poor which makes this story more exciting and energetic.

    As our protagonist predicts here, in his lifetime all white men die out and brown and yellow men rule the world – might not be that far from truth.

    The Netflix film was also good, with Priyanka Chopra, as great as ever, of course it doesn’t have the Bollywood dance or music but it has the energy, power and the different music to pump up the story.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    The White Tiger: WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2008

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    The White Tiger: WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2008

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    La tigre bianca (italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Chokher Bali” Rabindranath Tagore, (1903) Review | Tragedy from India
    
			
    “Chokher Bali” Rabindranath Tagore, (1903) Review | Tragedy from India
    
			
    

    Chokher Bali
    Rabindranath Tagore, 1903
    India
    298 pages
    Read in 2022.03
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Indian classic
    ✔ Strong female characters
    ✔ Strange friendship between the wife and the lover


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ A beautiful widow. She cannot give up her pursuit for happiness. Chokher Bali, the sand in the eye, she disturbs everything she touches and disappears. A strong sense of un-happiness.
    






    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    My first Tagore.
    This is actually popular that it’s made into film and TV series in India.
    The sentiment is close to what they have in Japan: husband-wife relation, mother-son, or even mother-in-law and wife, it’s something many in Asia can easily understand, and cannot avoid.

    Then comes the beautiful widow.
    Despote “her place” as a widow, she cannot give up her pursuit for affection and happiness.
    Chokher Bali, the sand in the eye, the annoying thing, she arrives and disturbs everything she touches.
    And like an eyesore, before you know it it goes away and the life is back to normal, the witch is punished.

    Her happiness was taken away because she’s a widow, she brings bad things.
    Could they ever blame her?
    A strong sense of un-happiness.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Chokher Bali

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Chokher Bali

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Choker Bali (English)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Pachinko” Min Jin Lee (2017) Review | Zainichi Korean female epic
    
			
    “Pachinko” Min Jin Lee (2017) Review | Zainichi Korean female epic
    
			
    

    Pachinko
    Min Jin Lee, 2017
    US
    512 pages
    Read in 2021.10
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ Korean zainichi in Japan
    ✔ Historical fiction World War Two
    ✔ Mother and daughter relationship


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ Life of a Korean woman who survived all the difficulties the life threw at her. And about her beloved ones, Korean or Japanese. Life is a Pachinko. It’s not fair. You’re bound to lose. But you keep playing. An epic.

    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Life of a Korean woman who survived all the difficulties the life threw at her. 
    And about her beloved ones, Korean or Japanese.

    By narrowing down the novel to one woman’s life, it tells about real struggles, somehow making it universal. 
    The history of Japan and Korea, or Japanese and Koreans, is not an easy one to fully grasp – because it’s still alive. 
    The war is partly to be blamed but it’s not that simple.
    The book is rich, depicts how little luck or timing could change your life, it is probably difficult to understand if you’re not Asian beyond it being “fascinating”. 

    Again Koreans do better in storytelling. 
    It’s dramatic, but that’s how it was in Japan up to the early 90s. 

    Life is a party, Fellini says. But here this novel tells you, life is a Pachinko. It’s not fair. You’re bound to lose, but you keep playing.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist)

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Pachinko: The New York Times Bestseller 

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Pachinko. La moglie coreana (italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Fires on the plain” Shohei Ooka (1952) Review | Crossing the line as a human
    
			
    “Fires on the plain” Shohei Ooka (1952) Review | Crossing the line as a human
    
			
    


    Fires on the plain
    Shohei Ooka, 1952
    野火
    大岡昇平
    Read in 2021.10
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ World War Two Historical fiction
    ✔ Solitude of a solder
    ✔ Taboo as human


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ Isolated at the war on the field, he questions everything. It's haunting, but not merely because the plot is shocking, it's because, even people like me, who never had the experience, can recognise his internal struggles.

    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    I had always wanted to read it, but hadn't, and when I finally started reading it, I just wanted to get it done with and delete it from my memory. 
    Too painful.
    It's so daunting and it haunts you, it's about a man who's completely isolated during the war and he questions his survival, moral, humanity, everything outside of him as well as inside.

    You're on the edge and a step away from the death. Do you trust or not, and what do you trust, yourself? others? Can he trust himself to stay a human or will he cross the line?

    The book is haunting, but not merely because the plot or its description is shocking, it's because, even people like me, who never had the same experience or anything remotely close, can recognise his internal struggles.

    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Fires on the Plain (Tuttle Classics) 

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Fires on the Plain (Tuttle Classics) 

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    --
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Silent Parade” Keigo Higashino (2018) Review | Stay silent
    
			
    “Silent Parade” Keigo Higashino (2018) Review | Stay silent
    
			
    

    Silent Parade
    Keigo Higashino, 2018
    Read in 2020.01
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ Japan’s popular series, Galileo Series
    ✔ Comradeship of town people
    ✔ Murder mystery


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ A classic Galileo where it’s all about people, their lives and love and hatred, with tricks that’s seemingly impossible. This time the keyword is “silence”; if you stay silent, you cannot be guilty. Perfect entertainment.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    There are a few of Detective Galileo Series translated into English – and do read them all!
    Yukawa is a professor of Physics and he tackles “impossible’ mysteries with his friend, Inspector Kusanagi.
    This one, I’d say, is a classic Galileo where it’s all about people, their lives and love and hatred, with tricks that’s seemingly impossible.

    This time the keyword is “silence”; if you stay silent, you cannot be guilty.
    And maybe “generation gap”, some are so patient for their own revenge, or can carry the burden for decades, while others might give up instantly, or couldn’t wait just a moment longer.

    Though it’s always clever, Galileo series always insist on human drama, a perfect entertainment.


    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Silent Parade (Detective Galileo Series, 4)

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Silent Parade: A DETECTIVE GALILEO NOVEL (Detective Galileo Series)

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Silent Parade: A DETECTIVE GALILEO NOVEL (English)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Jane Eyre” Charlotte Bronte (1847) Review | A woman who says no
    
			
    “Jane Eyre” Charlotte Bronte (1847) Review | A woman who says no
    
			
    

    Jane Eyre
    Charlotte Bronte, 1847
    UK
    624 pages
    Read in 2026.01
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ Classic English literature
    ✔ Strong female character, feminist icon
    ✔ Love story


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ Has all the juicy stuff, mainly romance, but it has the themes of coming-of-age, feminism, religion, gothic, class, race/colonialism, anything. She's a woman who says no. How dare.

    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    It's always pleasantly surprising to find many of the classics are entertaining, but then, it does make sense, if it was boring or merely difficult, it couldn't have been loved for centuries. 

    Jane Eyre has all the juicy stuff, mainly romance, more romance-y than I had imagined, but it has the themes of coming-of-age, feminism, religion, gothic, class, race/colonialism, anything that reflects the life in the north of England in early 1800s.

    You can easily imagine why there was a huge criticism when it came out - a woman who doesn't obey? A woman who says no? All with her plain childish looks? How dare.

    But today we of course see it differently. 
    She's a cool independent woman, she doesn't want her man to shower her with expensive stuff, she wants an equal relationship, only when she's sure that she can also be helpful, does she accept.
    She knows how to forgive, she knows how to be useful in practical ways, and she grows and glows.

    The matter of the madwoman in the attic is also an interesting point. 
    Pretty clearly a typical racist view of the time; indicating her to be of the mixed race, thus a black woman, therefore she is irrational and violent, must be kept away from the white civilisation. 
    Also the madwoman haunts Jane, but Jane doesn't seem particularly to hate her, despite everything she represents and does?

    Gripping, and surprisingly entertaining with difficult themes tangled up.

     


    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics) 

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte (Penguin Classics) 

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Jane Eyre (italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Little Fires Everywhere” Celeste Ng (2017) Review | Women’s inner anger
    
			
    “Little Fires Everywhere” Celeste Ng (2017) Review | Women’s inner anger
    
			
    

    Little Fires Everywhere
    Celeste Ng, 2017
    US
    400 pages
    Read in 2020.03
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ Strong female characters
    ✔ Social differences in the American suburbs
    ✔ Mother and daughter relationship


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ Women and their inner angers, and how the social class divides women. Their little angers start everywhere.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Borrowed from a colleague as I was working on this project.
    It starts slowly and as the title suggest little fires start in everyone. 2 families, opposite ideals, and different mothers different daughters with different fates.

    The story goes around women and their inner angers, and how the social class divides women. 
    Like when you talk about feminism you must also remember the class and the race, it's more complicated than we'd lightly assume.

    It might be a bit too obviously girlie buddie book, but maybe I'm too harsh.
    Mia is great, she's the cool one, everything is all nicely done, but in this kind of books I always want characters to break down and go insane to be happy.
    




    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Little Fires Everywhere: A Novel

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Little Fires Everywhere: 'Outstanding' Matt Haig

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Tanti piccoli fuochi (italiano)
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “(To India)” Tadanori Yokoo (1977) Review | India as  fantasy
    
			
    “(To India)” Tadanori Yokoo (1977) Review | India as  fantasy
    
			
    

    ★★★★★ A spiritual journey to India by this psychedelic graphic designer, but it's not merely a travel journal. It's more a journey to India that he holds within himself, his fantasy. Very personal, very 70s.


    🔽 log 🔽
    (To India)
    インドへ
    横尾忠則
    Tadanori Yokoo, 1977
    Read in 2020.01

    Not published in English 

    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    A spiritual journey to India by this psychedelic graphic designer, but it's not really a travel journal. 
    It's more a journey to India that he holds within himself, within his consciousness or subconsciousness, it's his fantasy and not necessarily a real place, but this is what he saw and felt.

    It's about India that he fantasised and dreamt about, through the drug, hippies, America, 70s, The Beatles and eventually the death of Yukio Mishima, who committed a public suicide, days after he told the author he was ready for India, that became a final trigger.

    In this second visit, he goes to Kashmir but mainly he talks about the universe and how he managed to be a part of it.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
    –

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    –

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    –
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” Reni Eddo-Lodge (2019) Review | silence won’t protect us
    
			
    “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” Reni Eddo-Lodge (2019) Review | silence won’t protect us
    
			
    

    Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
    Reni Eddo-Lodge, 2019
    UK
    288 pages
    Read in 2020.01
    check price on amazon.com

    ✔ Nonfiction from a young black British female author
    ✔ Racism in the UK and the world
    ✔ Standing up for the social justice


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★+❤ How the author, a young black British woman, got fed up talking to white people while trying to protect their fragile sentiments and trying not to be labelled as "one of those angry black women". But now she knows, the silence won't protect us.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    What is wrong then? 
    The problem of racism is not the black, brown or yellow people. 
    It is the white people who regard the people of any colour other than white as the problem. 
    Today it's as if being called a racist is "worse" than being actually affected by the racism. 

    It was Stormzy who once said something like, in the UK there might not be "obvious" racism, but though it might be hidden it exists, and today they believe they have the right to be racist in public, and that's the scary thing. (I wrote this note originally in 2020, so it's probably a bit old)

    The book is about how the author, a young black British woman, got fed up talking to white people while trying to protect their fragile sentiments and trying not to be labelled as "one of those angry black women". 
    But the silence won't protect us. 
    So it is actually about how she decides, through complex discourses of feminism, class and one-and-only Britishness, that she still needs to speak up to start this important conversation even if it might be uncomfortable for some, I mean, frankly, even if it pisses off many fragile people.


    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race: The #1 Sunday Times Bestseller

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    Perché non parlo più di razzismo con le persone bianche (italiano)
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Gautama Buddha” Vishvapani Blomfield (2011) Review | Intro to Buddha’s own life
    
			
    “Gautama Buddha” Vishvapani Blomfield (2011) Review | Intro to Buddha’s own life
    
			
    


    Gautama Buddha
    The Life and Teachings of The Awakened One
    Vishvapani Blomfield, 2011
    416 pages
    Read in 2020.02
    check price on amazon.com


    ✔ A biography of Buddha as a person
    ✔ Life in India 2500 years ago
    ✔ Not much on the teaching but only historical facts


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★☆ A sober biography of the Buddha as a person. It follows from his birth to death, through history and myth of 2500 years ago. A perfect introduction, to understand why Buddhism started there and then in India.

    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    A sort of biography of the Buddha as a person, and is trying its best to stay sober.

    It's 2500 years ago so it is difficult to give a chronological order but it follows from his birth to death, with very good description to the background that is the Indian society which itself is mythical.

    A perfect introduction, to understand why Buddhism started there in India. 
    It was a long read and a difficult one to follow (so many long names!) but now that I finished I miss reading it.
    He was a fascinating person and definitely philosophical one which is why Buddhism is still spreading even in the West and is being re-imported back in India.

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teachings of The Awakened One

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teachings of The Awakened One

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    ーー
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Pro Bono” Seicho Matsumoto (1961) Review | A girl just wanna have a revenge
    
			
    “Pro Bono” Seicho Matsumoto (1961) Review | A girl just wanna have a revenge
    
			
    

    ★★★★☆ He made a simple mistake, but now just because of his male pride, his life gets worse and worse. Tough people survive, a classic Seicho Matsumoto.
    




    




    🔽 log 🔽
    Pro Bono
    Seicho Matsumoto, 1961
    霧の旗
    松本清張
    Japan
    286 pages
    Read in 2020.02
    check on amazon.com
    




    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

I was attracted to the Italian title of this book "La ragazza del Kyushu", a girl from Kyushu - just like me she's from Kyushu but her revenge is something a lot more unique.

A girl from Kyushu goes to Tokyo to meet a popular lawyer to prove her brother's innocence, but he turned down because she didn't have money.
Now that might have been rather common, but upon her brother's  death in prison, she decides to go very far to perfect her revenge.

A classic Matsumoto, the author doesn't go in details about anything other than her obsession and revenge, because nothing else matters, it's all about her madness.

Oh and the lawyer, he should have realised earlier, his little mistakes accumulate and he's too proud, he's now completely trapped.

Bad people get punished by the society, and tough people survive, they are the classic characters from Seicho Matsumoto.




    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Pro Bono

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Pro Bono

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    La ragazza del Kyushu (italiano)

    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Deep River” Shusaku Endo (1996) Review | Embracing life and death
    
			
    “Deep River” Shusaku Endo (1996) Review | Embracing life and death
    
			
    


    Deep River
    Shusaku Endo, 1993
    深い河
    遠藤周作
    Japan
    Read in 2020.02
    check price on amazon.com
    





    ✔ A group of Japanese travel to India to seek spirituality
    ✔ Different religion and believes in the group
    ✔ The best from the author's late age


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ A group of strangers joins a tour to India, to Benares, a sacred place, a place of death. It asks the question, what is a religion, what is a life itself? They face Mother Ganga who embraces all deaths and lives, of all people. A masterpiece.
    





    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Endo Shusaku is now even more known for his more clearly religious book, Silence, since Scorsese directed the movie.

    This is a story about a group of strangers who joined a same packaged tour to visit temples in India.
    They all had regrets and disappointments in life, with fragile hope in their hearts, they head towards Ganges River.

    Benares, Varanasi, is a sacred place, a place of death.
    There they face their inner selves and the extreme poverty in a boy who trust absolute power of gods.
    It asks the question, what is a religion, what is a death or a life itself?
    There they face Mother Ganga who embraces all deaths and lives, of all people.

    Endo, a Catholic, was 70 years old when it was written, it was a way for him to look back at his own life to once again ponder his eternal question “what does it mean to be a Japanese and a Christian”
    A masterpiece.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    Deep River

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    Deep River: Shusaku Endo (Pushkin Press Classics) 

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●

    



    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “White Man, Yellow Man” Shusaku Endo (1955) Review | Christianity between the races
    
			
    “White Man, Yellow Man” Shusaku Endo (1955) Review | Christianity between the races
    
			
    


    White Man, Yellow Man
    Shusaku Endo, 1955
    白い人 黄色い人
    遠藤周作
    Japan
    Read in 2020.01
    check price on amazon.com
    




    ✔ A novel from Japanese Christian author
    ✔ Christian moral during wars
    ✔ Historical fiction


    🔽 Review summary 🔽

    ★★★★★ Christianity and evil. It's the evil that overflows out of the moral of White Man, of Christianity in which you believe in the one absolute God, or not. / A resignation from good or bad, believe or not-believe, it's the lightness of living without a sin.


    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    Christianity and evil.

    White Man 
    The protagonist understands his ugliness, and he fantasises his superiority because of it.
    Evil is universal, it's political but above all it's so powerful that you can destroy the others.
    Crushing his friend means crushing all hypocrites, and violating this girl means violating all virgins.
    It's the evil that overflows out of the moral of White Man, the moral that's cultivated in Christianity where you believe in the one absolute God.
    It's whether you tolerate it, or you reject to tolerate the absolute good and become evil itself.

    Yellow Man
    In a way this is harsher.
    It's close to the author's personal yet eternal struggle of "Being a Christian even if I am Japanese"
    During the war, a Christian Japanese young man was exhausted.
    Us yellow people actually do not truly believe the God you white people fear.
    Us yellow people actually do not have Original sin like you, any way Mother Mary is not in this country.

    An ex-priest who betrayed his God finally realises that the truth is in the tired eyes of the yellow people.
    They don't fear death or life, they have no sins, they don't believe in the God, his absoluteness, and in this country even the criminals are saved as they are.
    Can we, the men with white hands, come close to these yellow people?
    It's a liberation or rather resignation from good or bad, believe or not-believe, it's the lightness of living without a sin.
    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

    ●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

    White Man, Yellow Man: Two Novellas

    ●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
    White Man, Yellow Man: Two Novellas

    ●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
    ーー
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
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    “Sea of Poppies” Amitav Ghosh (2008) Review | Leading up to Opium War
    
			
    “Sea of Poppies” Amitav Ghosh (2008) Review | Leading up to Opium War
    
			
    

    🔽 log 🔽
    Sea of Poppies 
    Amitav Ghosh, 2008
    559 pages
    Read in 2025.12
    check price on amazon.com

    





    ✔ A gripping trilogy from an Indian author
    ✔ Strong, inter-cultural friendship on a slave ship
    ✔ Historical fiction


    🔽 Review summary 🔽
    




    ★★★★★ In India, under British, Opium farming leading up to the Opium War. You meet some interesting strong characters. It’s gripping, a grand storytelling.
    





    




    🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

    I'd heard of it for a while and finally, finally started and instantly it was obvious, this is one if those great books.

    In India, under British, Opium farming leading up to the Opium War.
    That's already enough for me to like the book even without even opening it. 

    And immediately you meet some interesting strong characters.
    Deeti who had a miserable married life, Paulette and Jodu and their unique friendship, a delicate Raja, Zachary who leads us into the mesmerising journeys.
    They all meet on Ibis the slaving ship, all carrying their own destinies - it's as intense as it sounds.
    Some of detailed descriptions of ship and sailing are hard for me to follow but that doesn't stop me from getting excited at every page.

    It's a trilogy so there are 2 more books to go to give the full view on the story but so far, it's gripping, grand storytelling.
    Need to read 2 and 3 soon.
    




    🔽 Related pages 🔽
    tag インド/India

    




    🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Sea of Poppies

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Sea of Poppies: Ibis Trilogy Book 1 Kindle Edition

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Sea of Poppies: Ibis Trilogy Book 1 (English)