Before moving to Shanghai in 2018, I went through a dozen books about China to prepare myself. Several of those books belonged to the genre of ‘Westerners in China who write a book about their friends’, such as ‘Street of Eternal Happiness’ (Rob Schmitz), ‘Wish Lanterns’ (Alec Ash), and ‘Young China’ (Zak Dychtwald). It’s an […]
A story from China in the chaotic 20th century that starts brutal, yet becomes more fragile and delicate, chapter by chapter. And when the tale is through, you’ll love Duohe, Erhai, and Xiaohuan, and you’ll love mantou and noodles, or something simple as an egg, touching the fabric of your shirt. Little Aunt Crane (It’s […]
I loved ‘A God in Ruins’, so here comes a list of superlatives. Yet some people will surely feel this is a boring book, 468 slow-paced pages, which you need to read at an even slower pace to understand, to feel. Who likes such books anyway? It has over 50,000 ratings on GoodReads in 2021, […]
A smoke-filled neo-noir thriller that takes place in Japan during the advent of computers and Japan’s economic boom. What’s hugely impressive is the many storylines that slowly merge and unravel. It’s the passing time too, across more than two decades and several places, yet going back and forth all the time. The atmosphere is so […]
There’s so much in this book. First, it feels so incredibly real because it’s reworked on existing history. I want to look up the events on Wikipedia, even though many never happened. Roth weaves his own coming of age into the story, and the characters feel so incredibly real. Each character unique — brought alive […]
I expect an inspiring story about lifting yourself from ignorance and the poverty that brings, through education in all its form. But I did not expect the richness in which Tara Westover wrote it. She’s great at noticing things felt, rather than seen — and wraps them in flowing poetic sentences. She’s vulnerable, damaged, yet […]
One of the fantastic things about reading is that it lets you live many stories. And here’s the story of Simon, which can be lived, felt, seen from the inside. It’s almost as living — first-hand — through the considerations and problems carried by gay teenagers — many of which I was unaware of. For […]
Here’s a hugely impressive book, and I feel smarter and more understanding after reading it. Diamond writes a beautiful message: all societies are inventive, but the environments and starting materials, conditions are not the same. And most of it is based on the narrative of Yali’s question, an elegant and honest search that shows the […]
I expected a business book but this is so much more. And it’s surprising, right away from the first page. Phil Knight writes well, and it’s obvious a lot of time has been put into the story of Blue Ribbon and Nike. There are the narratives of financing the company, the legal cases, and the […]
This is a review about The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death’s End — as it’s one story and reviewing an individual book in this series makes little sense. Science-fiction is best when it confronts big issues, when it sees us from the far-flung high-tech future, and from that distance looks at the things […]