Review: So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love

So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Someone should write a book about people who followed points in books like this to a tee, but were still unsuccessful. I don't say this because I disagree with the author's points, but because this would probably lead to some refinement and readjustment (and would just be interesting).

Like with Deep Work, he seems to have read extensively about the issue and have gathered quite a bit of information. It is a bit annoying how it's all anecdotal evidence, although I still ended up agreeing with pretty much everything. Let's face it, even those who say "Follow your passion" only have anecdotal evidence to back it up, and the examples they give display the mother of all biases, since we never hear from those who followed their passion and weren't able to hack it.

I particularly liked how he divides all jobs into either "Winner take all" or "Auction" jobs. It will be a useful way to look at various jobs from now on.

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Review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

DO NOT get the audio version of this book. I'm not sure why, but the narrator decided to give all (yes, All) the characters Japanese accents. This is a translated work, so I really don't see the reason for this. It just detracts from the story (and took me a long time to get used to). It gets extra ridiculous when coming up with a weird accent for a Finnish person who is supposed to be able to speak Japanese fluently. It's some Finnish-Japanese accented English.

Anyway, as for the story itself, it is typical Murakami. Much less surrealism, and more retrospection. I'd probably rank this above Norwegian Wood and below Kafka on the shore. In other words, I'd highly recommend it. Just NOT the audio version.

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Review: Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276

Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276 by Jacques Gernet
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A great peek into life in Hangzhou toward the end of the Song dynasty. I enjoy these types of books immensely. This book, however, was written in the 1950's, so I can't help wondering if someone should write an updated version of this.

One thing that bothered me was how much the author relied on Marco Polo's writings. Granted, he traveled there just a few decades into the Yuan dynasty, but it was still a different time, with different laws and new customs, and Hangzhou was no longer the capital. That's probably petty of me, though, especially considering how few sources we have to work from.

Also, at a certain point it says: "A victim was sacrificed on the Small adjacent altar to the God of the Soil." - Is this talking about human sacrifice? There is no follow-up, so I'm not sure.

Otherwise it's a great overview of many different aspects of life, from home life, to religion, to business, to festivals, all the way to the various ways charlatans and scammers would trick people out of their money.



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Review: The Year of the Hare

The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cute, charming, refreshing. That's pretty much how I would describe it. It isn't earth shattering, but definitely a fresh take on life through the eyes of a man who just decides to change, upon seeing a hare. And as I write that, I'm wondering if there are any parallels with Alice seeing the white rabbit, or maybe I'm reading too much into it.
Anyway, I'm trying to think of another book where a seemingly innocuous event sets in motion an entire book. None comes to mind right now (maybe "Remembrance of things past", although I've never read it, so who knows?), but anyway, this is that sort of book.

My first Finnish work of fiction. I'd like to read more.

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Review: Breve storia della lingua italiana

Breve storia della lingua italiana by Bruno Migliorini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Libro molto ben studiato e ben documentato. Il fatto che sia stato scritto nel '62 mi fa pensare che ci vorrebbe una seconda edizione, con i cambiamenti recenti nella lingua, specialmente per quanto riguarda i dialetti e il gergo.

Il libro entra molto in dettaglio, e prosegue in ordine cronologico seguendo lo sviluppo e la trasformazione dal latino all'italiano. Devo ammettere ci sono certi punti che mi suonano un po' strano. Ad es: il libro afferma che il nome del color "bianco" è longobardo, ma in francese e spagnolo si usa blanc e blanco (e non "candidus" come in latino), e i longobardi in quei paesi non ci sono mai arrivati.



Qui sotto alcuni dei passaggi evidenziati:

Triplice esito da Fabula (in latino): fola, fiaba e favola
CE, CI, GE, GI in età repubblicana suonavano ke, ki, ghe, ghi
Parole etrusche entrate nel latino: populus, persona, catena, taberna
la sparizione del vocabolo "DOMUS" e il prevalere di CASA, che in età classica significava "capanna, casetta rustica" è indizio di ruralizzazione
il passaggio di significato dal latino CAPTIVUS all'italiano cattivo (malvagio) è dovuto al latino cristiano, in locuzioni come: "captivus diaboli" e simili (prigioniero del diavolo, ossesso).
La scomparsa della categoria del neutro nella lingua parlata è da collocarsi in età imperiale
nel Settentrione le tracce di plurali in -s persistono a lungo
I Toscani possedevano un sistema di sette vocali (non dice quali)
Per i pronomi, si divulgavano "lui" e "lei" come soggetti nel 1434
Il Savonarola, quando venne a Firenze, "diceva mi e ti, di che gli altri frati ridevano"
Il verbo "tradurre" viene da una traduzione errata di Leonardo Bruni (di un passo di Gellio), e sostituisce "traslatare" e "tralatare"
Macchiavelli: "Ciò che più conta in una lingua, è la capacità di poter assorbire bene le parole forestiere"
Per secoli con "fiorentino" e "toscano" s'intendeva la lingua dei grandi trecentisti, e non il fiorentino o il toscano parlato
Manzoni: "Per nostra sventura, lo stato dell'Italia divisa in frammenti, la pigrizia e l'ignoranza quasi generale hanno posto tanta distanza tra la lingua scritta e la parlata, che questa può dirsi quasi come lingua morta"
Dal Veneto viene il saluto "ciao"



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Review: The Stranger

The Stranger by Harlan Coben
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This might be my lowest rating for a Harlan Coben book, and it's for a pretty petty reason.
(Major spoilers):
I know it's a minor point and inconsequential to the plot, but I was very annoyed that Kuntz's son, sick in the hospital with bone cancer, wasn't mentioned later on. I guess we just assume he was left to die there, so to speak, since he won't stand a chance of getting any sort of treatment with a father who's in jail for life.

Otherwise it was fine. Good, fast-paced Coben.

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Review: Strangers

Strangers by Taichi Yamada
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ended up finishing this book very quickly. I guess it really drew me in (and it's a short book).

I love eerie books in an urban setting (being trapped in an old cabin in the middle of the woods is too claustrophobic for me). Anyway, if you want something along those lines, as well as contemporary Japanese fiction, this is sure to hit the spot.

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Review: Circe

Circe by Madeline Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This must have been great fun to write. It basically ties together many (all?) of the myths involving Circe, and ends up spanning many (most?) of the greatest Greek myths.

I confess, occasionally it seemed like a bit of a stretch. Not that she veered away from the myths all that much (from what I could tell at least), but it seemed like she was just trying to connect the dots, which seemed to make the storyline a bit awkward. Also, much of the action seems to happen offstage.

But otherwise it's a great introduction to the story of an often overlooked character from Greek mythology.

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Review: Six Walks in the Fictional Woods

Six Walks in the Fictional Woods by Umberto Eco
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Always an immense pleasure to read Eco's essays, or in this case apparently speeches. Originally in English, these 6 essays are an easy read. Highly recommended for anyone interested in narrative, languages, writing, storytelling, or Umberto Eco.

Some of my highlights:
There is no imperfect tense in English
"a flashback seems to make up for something the author has forgotten, whereas the flashforward is a manifestation of narrative impatience"
Poe said "a literary work should be short enough to read at one sitting, for it two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere"
Whenever I'm asked what book I would take with me to a desert island, I reply, "The phone book: with all those characters, I could invent an infinite number of stories"
In a work with obscenity, if discourse time coincides with story time, then it is pornography.
(Re: The Three Musketeers): If he is on the street that today we call Servandoni, he must know that he is on the rue des Fossoyeurs, the street on which he lives. So how can he think that it is another street, the one on which Aramis lives?
Casablanca was shot day by day without anyone knowing how the story would end.

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