Wind/Pinball: Two Early Novels by Haruki Murakami

Wind/Pinball: Two Early Novels by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Wind's first few chapters seem like a very unsophisticated attempt at a first novel. The rest of it is somewhat interesting. His friend Rat isn't very smart but he's at least an interesting and developed character. It's hard to even keep the story in your mind after reading it though. Let's say three stars?

Pinball, while more memorable, is terrible. Rat is again the best character. The main character isn't someone I can imagine or relate to in any way. Two stars?

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The Psychopath Inside by James Fallon

The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain by James Fallon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow! This book is so interesting. I looked it up and about 1% of the population has this mental disorder. It seems to be related mostly to genetics but can also interact with related mood disorders (it's pretty complicated). But at 1%, you regularly run into and interact with psychopaths, you probably even have some "friends" with this condition. I think it's imperative that the rest of us understand what we're up against.

What makes this book really amazing is that the author is both a neurobiologist and a psychopath himself (and bipolar). He hides very little about his own personality in order to illustrate the issue. This is very off-putting, yes. I had to get to Chapter 4 before it got interesting enough that it compensated for how awful the author is. But that's part of the point. The author is awful because he's a psychopath. It's a great service to those of us trying to understand what's going on inside these people that he reveals himself so much even at the risk of being despised. Even though I previously knew a little bit about psychopaths I'm still shocked by the psychopath mentality that other people just serve a purpose - and that they are nearly devoid of personal emotion for them. Please read this book! Think of it as a self-defense course.

5 stars for importance not for enjoyability or accuracy.

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The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler

The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First of all, the language, emotions, and moods in this book are beautiful. In particular, I liked how the book approached and tried to explain the feelings of grief, otherness, and loneliness. How otherness can make you lonely and how loneliness can make you other. How family and family history affect both. How losing family makes you both. The feelings involved in trying to carry family even when they refuse to be helped.

There are a lot of things going on in this book. The book alternates the perspective of Simon in the first person present with the story of a carnival family in third person past tense. The two parts inform the story and move it along. In the present, Simon's problems layered on top of each other in a way which made me understand the character and his motivations without stressing me out. Simon's problems and challenges kept me interested and involved. The book is also filled with magical realism in the past story, carried into the present by the mysterious book seller.

Finally, the characters, especially the modern-day characters are very real to me. I feel Simon's restless laziness and quiet desperation. I love love love the character Doyle. I love to hate Frank. Even the mother, a ghost at the beginning, is filled in through the other character's longings for her.

P.S. I also like this cover that tells you a bit more about the book:


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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a quick re-read for me, and it's funny that I didn't remember any of it except "thank you for all the fish." It was one of my dad's favorites. All told, worth the reread. It now strikes me like a long Monty Python skit with a lot of commentary about religion, human self-importance, environmentalism, and bureaucracy. It also contains a plotline that became a pretty interesting episode of Dr. Who circa 2013 or so (the one where Dr. Who breaks into a bank).

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Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I didn't love it. I wanted to love it. I've been reading a lot of scientific research on mindfulness, self-compassion, self-improvement, and happiness lately, and this just doesn't stand up to a lot of the other material that I've been reading. (If you're curious just look at mindfulness list.) I think that if this were the first or only such book I read I would have appreciated it more.

This one is mostly just about self-compassion and self-love. The way to convince yourself that you are worthy of love is by engaging in courage, compassion, and connection. Hard.

Update 1/2018: I read it again and liked it much better this time. I'm not sure why. Maybe I wasn't considering each of her points separately and completely before. Maybe because I've read more feminist writing since then? Technically, this isn't specifically feminist because she discusses how the same issues of vulnerability, fear, and shame corner men, but it still resonates with feminist themes. (And expecting men to act in gender-conforming ways is also part of what feminism opposes.)

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After Dark by Haruki Murakami

After Dark by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was trying to prepare for our trip to Japan... haha... maybe this isn't going to cover it.

The novel is written from a cinematic perspective, but it might be worth noting that the Japanese language itself sort of takes a big view first and then zooms in the way the scenes begin. For example, to say where I'm from I might say I'm from United States, New York, and then say my town. I think that makes more sense then the way we do it in English or Spanish.

It reminds me a lot of the movies Before Sunrise/ Before Sunset in that it's mostly conversation between two characters and it takes place in one night. Even the name sort of reminds me of those movies- After Dark. But "dark" might refer to the sordid background tale of the night, or the feelings the characters are dragging around. The examination of depression in Japan (where historically they did not have a concept of depression) is particularly interesting.

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The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Interesting. Good characters from the perspective of being interesting and varied, though there were a lot of people to keep track of. This made it a little challenging to get deeply invested in any of them. To the extent that I did get invested in some, I was disappointed by the outcomes for them- as though I got attached to all the characters I wasn't supposed to get attached to and none of the ones I was supposed to. I also couldn't get into any of the love stories- though possibly this is because there were none. This is turning out to be the kind of review that makes no sense unless you read the book because I'm trying not to spoil anything.

Some of my favorite things about the book included trying to imagine New York in the late 1800s and particularly the ethnic neighborhoods. I also enjoyed the book's underlying exploration of free will and the curious ways the characters could or could not exercise their free will. To a lesser degree, I also enjoyed how different characters resolved the question of whether or not God or the-God-of-their-faith exists, though especially for Yehudah Schaalman, these rationalizations fell short of what a real person might grapple with and consider. Wow, run-on sentence. Sorry, I'm keeping it.

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Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very necessary, very true, very depressing book.

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What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith

What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I went into this book very dubious because I haven't had a lot of great experiences with "business" books, though I keep trying. My efforts were finally rewarded -- this book is terrific. I might like it so much though because it's highly applicable outside a business context. It might also have been named, "How to Play Well With Others" or "How to Improve Your Marriage."

The book has a lot of concrete solutions for how to find out what your major problematic flaws are (if you're not already aware of them) and how to implement a solution or cure to that problem by getting the very people you're annoying to help you solve that problem.

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Gulp by Mary Roach

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this right after First Bite because I was in the mood to learn more about eating and feeding. This book is more about digestion and it's full of random facts and ideas rather than being a focused on giving you a complete view of the digestive system. It was entertaining I guess, but I didn't find particular educational, and it was definitely gross.

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