The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the 8th Murakami book I've read and definitely in the top three for me along with Norwegian Wood and After Dark. The short of it is that Toru Okada is having some angst after leaving his legal job (I relate to that!) when things get very magically weird and his wife leaves him in mysterious circumstances. Interwoven with that is a bunch of truly horrific World War II stories from the perspective of Japanese soldiers in Mongolia, China, and Russia.

Beyond that, it's really difficult to explain what I think the book's deeper meaning is about. It's pretty complex; to give you a rough idea, it's very long and I can't actually think of any scenes that could have been cut. I pretty much always think editors should have slashed down long books. Unlike many Murakami novels, it actually mostly made sense even though it was full of literal magic. I wasn't prepared for such an in-depth exploration of violence, and I think this fantasy book also deserves a horror classification.


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The Analects by Confucius

The Analects by Confucius


This is a great translation. I only compared it to one other but it far exceeded the other translation. The language in the Analects is clear and then followed by short paragraphs to explain the missing context or the connotation of particular Chinese words. I enjoyed the number of passages focused on education and respect, though the ones about the historical politicians held less interest for me.

(I don't rate religious or semi-religious texts.)

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The I Ching or Book of Changes by Anonymous

The I Ching or Book of Changes by Anonymous


This is the strangest book yet. It’s an ancient choose your own adventure prophesy book. The prophesy are written in the form of indecipherable aphorisms. Perhaps a lot is lost in translation.

“If you abandon jaws of it all and good fortune will prevail...”

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Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some parts of this are very good and reminded me of guided meditations about mindfulness. However, there are a lot of parts about politics and about not traveling that I just can't get behind.

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The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fergeson tried to present a history of currency and monetary policy but he got mired in the history of it, and it seemed to lose focus. Some sort of point or thesis would have given this shape. He ended up tackling a lot of topics and I learned a few things here and there but not as much as if he'd given some direction to his sometimes conservative and sometimes liberal points.

Also, because he was focusing on the "history" aspect of his book it was organized at first in a chronological order by category of "innovation" but then the chronology fell apart with Chapter 6. This was just a little disorientating in an already thesisless tome.

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The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria

The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is basically about the end of American hegemony. According to the author, this was partly caused by America ruining worldwide trust with the second Iraq war, buy mostly caused by China and India's quiet economic development, and Russia's increased aggression while we were busy with the Middle East. Most of the book is a description of the politics and economics can of America, China, and India. Then there are some warnings and hopeful statements about how this might all lead to greater security. But this was back in 2008. I'm having a hard time imagining how our precarious position in the world is going to work out okay with Trump at the helm.

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The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike

The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked the writing in this one better than the first one- less flowery. I also thought that this one by showing the ways in which the women did and didn't change over the years, solidified that Updike really knew who they were. Regarding this, I think reviewers are unfair to Updike in his character not being feminist creations. I don't think reviewers would be so aghast if the author were a woman (but possibly a little). Yes, these aren't morally inspirational women, but neither are they the same evil cartoon of a person. They are three very unique and developed characters. Everybody has at least a bit of a dark side, these women are witches, so obviously they going to be darker, but they are unique and dark in different ways. And without Daryl in this one, there is no element of being manipulated by outside forces in this one. Which is, at a minimum, empowering.

The aging perspective of the characters is interesting and realistic. They seem very much of their time. (Though this point gets boring sometimes- I didn't really need to read about Sukie complaining about computers like every grandma on the planet.) I can definitely relate to Suzanne's daughter and her relationship with her mom Suzanne.

That said, the story was less interesting or maybe just less fun than the first. I know that's not a fair reason to give it less stars, but there it is.

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