Review: A Study in Scarlet

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a delight! I really didn't think I would enjoy this, since I imagined I would know every twist and turn by now, and that old Victorian tricks wouldn't stand the test of time. Turns out I was wrong on both counts. Looking forward to The Sign of Four.


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Review: Tales of Moonlight and Rain

Tales of Moonlight and Rain by Ueda Akinari
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some great stories, although I'm sure 98% of the symbolism/references/allusions were lost on me. Plenty of endnotes and explanations before each story, but it was still a lot.

I ended up just reading the stories through, and then, after each story, going back to its intro to read more about its context etc. I just enjoyed reading them as stories by themselves first, and then seeing what all I had been missing.

Some of them were also pretty scary, and plenty of references to Chinese/Japanese myths and Tale of Genji.



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Review: Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool

Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool by Emily Oster
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Just like my wife and I found Expecting Better to be extremely helpful (and reassuring) during pregnancy, Cribsheet seems to be doing the same thus far for us with our toddler. The main reason for this is that all of her advice is data-driven. Once again, it's amazing how much of what we're told has no real basis in evidence, although not quite as many old wives' tales are overthrown in this one. Still, it's good to see what real data says, and told by someone (Emily Oster) who understands and knows how to interpret data.

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Review: The Old Capital: A Novel of Taipei

The Old Capital: A Novel of Taipei by Chu Tien-hsin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

4 stories and a novella. The stories were very hit or miss. The first one was probably my favorite.

As for the novella, I feel like only a Waishengren （外省人）would really appreciate it. And even then, only one who grew up between the 60's and 80's (or thereabouts, I guess). On the other hand, I think it could be of great interest to historians interested in recent Taipei history. She seems to go through the changes of Taipei, from post Japanese conquest to post-Chiang Kai shek (or thereabouts) in great detail. I tried to follow some of the addresses mentioned, but nothing seems to resemble her description anymore. The style seems to be very stream of consciousness / Mrs. Dalloway-style, although much of it is in the 2nd person, which always strikes me as odd.

Also, I just wanted to point out that Lane 10, Section 3 of Zhongxiao East Road is NOT parallel to Jinan road!


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Also also, and this is probably just because my family is from Florence. But the church in Florence with the Brunelleschi dome isn't the "St. Florence Church", and the Arno river isn't outside the city.

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Review: Dinner with Buffett 버핏과의 저녁 식사

Dinner with Buffett 버핏과의 저녁 식사 by Min-gyu Park
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After Pavane for a Dead Princess I can't really say I enjoyed this as much. I feel like it wanted to be much more shocking than it really was, and the story wasn't nearly as nice as PFADP. 2.5 stars.

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Review: Grant

Grant by Ron Chernow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. Ok, Grant is the most underrated president I've read about thus far (I'm reading in chronological order). I'm not saying he's the best, but just the most underrated. I knew he was a stellar general, but the only other things I new about him before were that he had a drinking problem and (I had assumed) was a failure as a president.

"Americans today know little about the terrorism that engulfed the South during Grant's presidency. It has been suppressed by a strange national amnesia. The Klan's ruthless reign is a dark, buried chapter in American history. The Civil War is far better known that its brutal aftermath." (P. 857)

I remember a TV show in the 80s called North and South, which discussed two fictional families, one from the North one from the South, during the civil war. It seems like they could have just discussed Grant's family. He married a Southern belle, in all senses of the word, and her father was a slave owning fervent southern democrat, while Grant's father was extremely anti-slavery. Of course, Grant didn't just fight in the civil war, but was the chief general, so his story is a lot more interesting than the TV show's.

I'm amazed at how quickly the North was ready to appease the South in order to make sure that their reintroduction back into the Union went smoothly. Lincoln didn't want any celebrations in the Northern camp after the treaty signed in Appomattox, he also allowed Confederate commanders to retain sidearms, the farmers to go back to work with their horses, and played Dixieland back at the capitol (saying "It's our country's song now"). All in all a sound strategy, probably, until Johnson went to his extremes I guess.

The sections talking about white mobs killing, lynching and massacring blacks and white republicans right after the war in the South are some of the most maddening things I've read.

On the other hand I was very interested to read about Akerman. A confederate soldier who then turned Republican, served under Grant, and was a whole-hearted defender of reconstruction.
I also sort of want to read more about Ferdinand Ward, the wall-streeter who swindled Grant out of his family's life savings. And apparently Ward's great-grandson has written a biography of him.

Interesting tidbits:
Grant was dead against violence. He said he never looked forward to battle, and apparently couldn't stand to see animals mistreated or hunted.
Grant acted as a go-between between China and Japan during the Ryukyu islands debacle, apparently helping both to come to a peaceable conclusion and avoid war (although Japan still took over the islands, which became Okinawa).

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Review: Ms Ice Sandwich

Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A delightful little story. I generally don't like short stories or novellas, since things either seem too packed, too rushed, or just not long enough for me to get into the story. This book, however, worked very well.

I admit I chose this purely based on the cover. It turns out that judging a book by its cover isn't always bad. Anyway, I'm curious to read more by the author.


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Review: The Life and Times of Chaucer

The Life and Times of Chaucer by John Gardner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Older girls played ring-dance with boys, especially parish clerks (or so we're told in popular poetry), and had a way of dropping gloves or scarves, which had to be returned late at night through a bedroom window, much to the increase of the population."

I found this for $1.98 at the Book Rack (a local bookstore), and it sat on my shelf of a few months before I finally decided I should give it a go.

The reason I was delaying was that I know very little about Chaucer, and thought I should read some of his works before diving into his biography.

Well, it turns out there wasn't any need. The author's writing is excellent, and it seems like just as much time is spent on the general background, culture, and other people surrounding Chaucer as is spent on his life, interspersed with his verses throughout, so you can get a clear picture as to what was happening and why.

This book actually makes me very curious about the author's fiction, which I'm seeing here on Goodreads. I'll have to check it out.


4.5 Stars

Also, a line about legally-sanctioned wife-beating:
"it was legal to beat a wife into unconsciousness, but not acceptable to beat her until her inert body farted, a sign that she was in shock and might possibly be dying"

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Review: Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals

Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals by Tyler Cowen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I actually really liked the ideas in this book, but felt like he didn't pursue them enough. They seemed original enough to try to run some studies on (see how different long-term policies worked out, despite the vagaries and randomness of life, vs. short-term policies, and study the effects on wealth plus). If a member of congress always works with a 2-year horizon (until the next election), will long term policies ever be enacted? How often has this hindered long-term wealth in the past?

The idea that we should take the future more into account rings true. He seems to advocate basically getting rid of the discount rate, although I'm sure part of that rate is due to uncertainty. I guess his argument is that, as a society, we shouldn't take that uncertainty into account though.

I enjoyed what seemed like a jab at Piketty, when he states that economic growth is occurring but the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and how this just means that the rich have a higher return on capital than the poor, so in the long-term it makes more sense to invest more in the rich (he sort of hints that Piketty ended up arguing for Trickle-down economics).

Anyway, I think this could have been a definitive sort of book had it gone more into detail, but maybe Cowen just wanted to bring these ideas up and have others debate them.


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Review: Convenience Store Woman

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A unique little book. Written from the point of view of a convenience store worker in her late 30's who doesn't fit in (and is probably on the spectrum), but more of a critique of everyone else expecting her to live according to their societal rules.

Actually the parts detailing the work in the convenience store sort of fascinated me. I imagine anyone who has experienced convenience stores in East Asia would find a lot of it familiar. It doesn't seem like any other novels by this author have been translated into English, which is too bad. I look forward to reading more by her.


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Review: The Murmur of Bees

The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm embarrassed to say this, but this book really reminded me of The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende. It probably shows how few Latin American authors I've read more than anything else. But this story also spans a few generations of a family, and has a dash of magical realism, while the characters undergo the changing politics/revolutions/international events as a family. Granted, I haven't read THOS in decades, but it definitely brought back that feeling more than once.

All in all it was an intense and epic journey with this family and the characters attached to (revolving around?) it. I would like to read more by this author, or possibly more contemporary Mexican fiction.


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Review: An Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy

An Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy by Roger Scruton
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

I don't think I'm in any position to give this book a rating. It basically reinforced my opinion that philosophy isn't my cup of tea. To be frank much of it didn't seem like philosophy at all. There is a discussion about how if, say, an apple falls off the branch of a tree on my head and I ask "why?" then you can say that the branch was weak and the weight of the apple applied too much pressure, etc. But if you throw an apple on my head and I ask "why?" you wouldn't answer "because impulses in my brain made my muscles move in such and such a way". (I don't remember the exact wording and can't find the page right now). But that's just distinguishing between cause and reason, which to me is just semantics. He goes on to say that it's more than semantics, but to be honest he lost me.
The section on music lost me completely.

I suspect that, if I want to learn about philosophy, I should probably do so in a classroom setting, so I can interact, ask questions, etc. etc. Unfortunately I can't do that with a book.


Some interesting quotes:
"All rational beings have an interest in acquiring courage, since without it they can achieve what they really want only by luck, and only in the absence of adversity"

The quote by Masaryk re: "half-education" (too long to quote verbatim, but on page 14)


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Review: Everlasting Empire

Everlasting Empire by In-hwa Yi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In many ways this was a dream come true. It is a story taking place in the Chosun dynasty that seemed very reminiscent of "The name of the Rose", complete with an introductory "Author's note" about how the book's pages were a manuscript from long ago that had been found recently, and in the way in which a murder mystery kicks off the entire convoluted story.

In a way Eco had much more leeway, since most of the characters were invented. In this book, however, most of the characters seem to be real people, so all events have to take place within what we know of their actions, beliefs and situations.

Having said that, I did find it rather confusing at times. I think the English version could have done with another editor. There were a few typos (including one of the names, which didn't help since there are many names), and I think some more background would have helped for non-Korean audiences. Maybe a brief overview (or visual) showing the rival factions and main players. Oddly enough I thought a map of the main court or capital would have been useful.

The arguments on page 191-192 against progressivism and democracy are very interesting. Particularly "A restoration is not possible in a democracy. The saying that the people are minju (masters) is a sort of intellectual syllogism, meaning that no one is the master. The president is a constitutional ruler elected by the people, so he is not the master."

Loved the discussions on how the Qin emperor had all books burned and so all Confucius teachings that have been handed down have been corrupted by Laozi's teachings, which came later (and the other side arguing against this). I find stuff like this fascinating.

The explanations about - and the use of - the poetry of allusion was also extremely interesting.

4.5 stars


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