Books read - 9+10+11+12/20

December 29, 2020

The last few quarter of this year, I was unexpectedly busy, as my job search finally gave fruit, and I started a new job as a UX/CX designer at a different company.

Adapting to this life change slowed my reading down, but also alleviated most of the stress I’d been harboring throughout most of the year. In a way, reading has been my way of coping with stress - seeing my progress in something, anything, brings a smidgen of comfort and a vague feeling of control over my own life. So when that stress is lessened, I didn’t feel the urge to read constantly, competitively, mindlessly, anymore.

As of right now, when I’m typing this, I’m still on the way to finishing 1 more. Once done, I’d probably write a summary note of the top (10?) books I’ve read this year :D

Books read - 6+7+8/20

September 2, 2020

This post is compiling 3 months in 1 since I significantly slowed down my reading habits to focus on other priorities.

June

Books down to 5 this month but my CAPM test is done!!! #worth

July

The Adventure of the Cardboard Box - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 4/5

August

Then there are a few ones I started but dropped

Miles Morale - 3 chapters in and 0 Spiderman but an (rather boring) account of Miles’ everyday life that I could not care less about. Also his best friend is an annoying twat.
Elianor Oliphant is Completely Fine - I got through about half the book and just cannot bring myself to continue. I hate the main character too much. Your fucked up past does not give you a sympathy pass for being an ass to everyone.
Heaven is for Real - uh yeah… a few pages in and I quickly realized where this book was going and that’s not where I wanna go.

Books read - 5/20

June 1, 2020

I finally hit 50 books read for the year! Very happy I could keep up a resolution this long.

This month I could feel myself slowly getting back up to speed. Though I still get mental (and physical) exhaustion from time to time, my mind is much clearer now compare to how it was in March.

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells - 3/5. Such good setup wasted on rambling narrative :( I can’t help but wonder how it would have been had Sir Doyle been the author instead…
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson - 3/5. To be fair, it is a very good book for those looking to learn about the body with no or little prior biology knowledge. Bryson has a charming way of making complicated things easy to understand. For me however, it was boring as it was mostly things I already knew… I picked it up simply because a friend of mine was reading it and she really likes Bryson’s books. Remind to self to only read things I myself am interested in.
The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx - 3/5. Because I missed out on Đường lối cách mạng Đảng from not studying uni in VN. #fomo
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder (Translator) - 4/5. The ending left me in a… misty… state of mind. Much like the characters in the book. Perhaps that was the purpose all along. In any case, I thought it was a good original story - one that left me thinking a bit afterwards about the literal/theoretical value of memories.
Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond by Sonia Shah - 3/5. The prologue was the best part of the book imo lol. The author must have spent like 2/3 of the book discussing cholera alone. Granted, she’s an expert on that, but still, I expected a more rounded point of view… It does have some eerily good points that happen to coincide with the COVID-19 outbreak, of course, unfortunately to some, in hindsight.
Letters From An Astrophysicist by Neil deGrasse Tyson - 4/5. Hm. I didn’t enjoy this as much as Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. Tyson sounds arrogant, at times, which I don’t like, and lacks of emotions, which I don’t particularly not like, but it’s a quality I find hard to resonate in someone.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl - 5/5. Is there a Roald Dahl story I will come to hate one day? Hopefully not.
Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, Ella Morton, Maciej Potulny (Translator) - 5/5. A guilty pleasure book of sorts, when I’m stuck in my house with 2 trips cancelled. A few (dozen) places noted down from the book into my bucket list.

Books read - 4/20

May 1, 2020

This month I made the mistake of choosing to read taxing books consecutively (subconsciously), which really hindered my speed >.<

Reminder to self to give my mind a break every now and then~

The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale #1) by Margaret Atwood - 3/5. Another hype that I wanted to check out myself. This one was ok… I found the “feminist” pov too skewed to fully accept.
A Christmas Carol (The Christmas Books #1) by Charles Dickens - 5/5. Christmas in a book.
A Study in Scarlet - (Sherlock Holmes #1) by Arthur Conan Doyle - 4/5. You can clearly see the difference between this Sherlock Holmes and the one in The hound of the Baskervilles - one that is much greener, arrogant, yet still charming in his own eccentric ways.
The Secret Language of Cats: How to Understand Your Cat for a Better, Happier Relationship by Susanne Schotz - 4/5. Came in expecting a silly cat-lady book, was pleasantly surprised to find some useful, actual scientific insights about our feline friends.
Pragmatism - by William James - 4/5. Once you get past James’ unique style of lecturing/writing, it is actually interestingly enjoyable to read.
Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow - by Yuval Noah Harari - 2/5. He should have stopped at Sapiens. This read like Sapiens regurgitated and forced into a new shape.
Circe - by Madeline Miller - 5/5. I admit the first 1/3 got me quite bored, to the point I almost dropped the book. Once I got past the early parts though, it turned into easily one of the best mythical fiction I’ve ever read.

Books Read - 03/20

April 2, 2020

This month has been strange, with the coronavirus things happening closer and closer to me. My state of mind had also been deteriorating since last month, and only got better slowly towards the end of this month, thanks to my recognizing the situation and taking care of it.

I noticed, looking back, that I’d picked easier-to-read titles this month, mostly fictions, and that might be why.

The Life We Bury - Joe Talbert - 3.5/5 - An easy detective story of sorts. The story’s got a lot of potential, but the narrative failed to embrace it fully, and I was left unsatisfied and disappointed. More like a detective chick-flick to me.
Reasons to Stay Alive - Matt Haig - 4/5 - There are a lot of things I don’t agree with the author, and the thing reads like a memoir of a stubborn, desperate person dealing with illness(es). If it hadn’t been for the fact that the book somehow got me to think of my own reasons to stay alive, I’d have given it 2 stars.
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (30 Minute Expert Summary) - The 30 Minute Expert Series - N/A - enough to make me put the full book on my to-read list
Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . and You Too! - Chelsea Handler - 4/5 - Chelsea is, on more than 1 aspect, the complete opposite of me, and it is fascinating to read her life story from her POV. I can’t help but like her, just from this book alone, even though I’ve never heard of her before (being me living under the rock with celebrities).
The Sleeper and the Spindle - Neil Gaiman - 4/5 - A cute short story based on a famous fairy tale. Love Gaiman’s writing.
Design thinking handbook - Eli Woolery - 4/5 - A lot of insights and advices for my profession, though I will have to research more into some topics the book mentioned.
50 Below Zero - Robert Munsch, Michael Martchenko (Illustrator) - 2/5 - I’m more for children’s stories that make sense.
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho - 3/5 - Eh… I started reading this back in New Zealand, and dropped it a few pages in because it was boring… I was determined to finish this time, and it only got more interesting about 1/3 way in. This reads like a religious fairy tale, a romantic bible-ish short story. I can understand why some consider it a classics, though I personally don’t.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie - 3/5 - Poirot is cute, but I hate the narrator so much.
Daddy-Long-Legs - Jean Webster - 3.5/5 - The heroine is so captivating I can’t help wanting to be her friend, if she was real. The ending felt abrupt and weirdly out of place though.
The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 5/5. Such a classic. Don’t think I can ever rate Holmes anything less than 4/5.

I also started on Becoming by Michelle Obama, but couldn’t get past 2 chapters. I think memoirs are simply not for me.

BOOKS READ - 2/2020

March 3, 2020

Feb was a hectic month for me, as the amount of books (and pages) I read decreased from Jan.

I started going through the classic ones I could find on my Libby, as you can see.

Watchmen - by Alan Moore (Goodreads Author), Dave Gibbons (Illustrator/Letterer), John Higgins (Colorist) - 5/5. Such a masterpiece that only gets better with time.
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi - 4/5. I could feel the quicken in pace turning into a rush through to the end of the book, as he tried to wrap it up as best as he could. Eye-opening, and sad.
I'm Not Dying with You Tonight - Kimberly Jones, Gilly Segal - 3/5. Eh- A fun read to kill time, if nothing else.
Animal Farm - George Orwell - 5/5. Again, a masterpiece that ages like good wine.
Men Without Women - Haruki Murakami - ~4/5. Like other Murakami works, exudes an overwhelming, yet gentle, lingering, kind of loneliness.
Matilda - Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake (Illustrator) - 5/5. I watched the movie when I was little, in a foreign hotel somewhere that I’ve long forgotten, and was so mesmerized by it. The book is a cuter? version, and the movie certainly did it justice.
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - ~4/5. I’ve watched so many cinematic interpretations of this book, yet I’d never read it in full. Now that I have, I can safely confirm this genre is not for me lol.
Fantastic Mr. Fox - Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake (Illustrator) - 4/5. Yet another cute one, and also with a good movie adaptation.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms - George R.R. Martin, Gary Gianni (Illustrator) - ~4/5. G.R.R. Martin’s is definitely something else. Some parts of the stories were kind of a lull, but his world-building and narrative skills are absolutely top-notch. Which reminds me, I have to go back to finishing ASOIAF, but I also don’t want to wait in agony for the next ones like the other peeps…
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle - 5/5. I vaguely remember reading this when I was little, but maybe it was a Viet translation, so it was a good run to jog up the memory, and to marvel at Doyle’s writing at the same time. I especially like how Holmes isn’t a perfect man in his stories, unlike his many cinematic representations - with the coke addiction and all. Explains a lot, and also makes him more relateable to me a great deal.

Books read - 1/2020

January 31, 2020

So I’ve decided to keep a blog, again. The idea’s toggled on and off on my mind for the past 7-ish years, sometimes manifested into short-lived sites which I timidly mentioned to people, only to abruptly shut down only days after. Funnily enough, looking back, I was very outspoken as a teen, leaving online footprints all over the internet, enough that my partner (then potential boyfriend) could stalk me when we first knew each other. What changed me into the scaredy cat I am now, was probably a series of being scrutinized, gossiped about, and laughed at, by my ex-best-friend and his friends, by my ex’s ex, and god knows who else whose humiliating comments I didn’t happen to find out about.

I learned then how courageous writers are, to lay their heart out for everyone to see (or read) and not know what kind of feedback they may get back, either in front of their face, or not. I got scared. Even when I was not that well-known, even though the people who laughed about the stuff I wrote about were only dozens, I got crushed. And like crushed things do, I became smaller - or rather, my self-esteem did. I no longer had the naive audacity to put myself out in the open. You don’t have to be scared if you’re not even there, sort of thing.

So this blog may be one of my many attempts to stand up to myself. It’s not a statement, a declaration, or anything with symbolic, or hidden meaning. It’s just that I want to write, and I want to show people things I think about. Maybe I’ll shut it down again, crawling back into my safe shell of anonymity. Or maybe I’ll concede that it’s all in my head, even as my anxiety tries desperately to convince me otherwise.

————————-

Anyway - this blog post is for recounting all the books I have read in January 2020. On the last day of 2019, I made some new year goals for 2020, one of which is to read at least 15 minutes daily, and I’ve kept up so far.

15 minutes of reading a day is not a lot, but you will be amazed at how long you’d have gone if you keep it up daily. (That’s also the theme of my other goals, but I’d share them maybe some other day) Most of these books I got from Libby - an app that lets you borrow ebook from your local library. I found myself going through books more efficiently this way, as Libby gives you a deadline to return books, and sometimes I only started reading something because the deadline was almost up lol. With paper books, I tend to procrastinate, thinking, “ah, it’ll always be there. I can read whenever”.

I tried to alternate between heavy and light reads, so after finishing a heavy book (philosophical, depressing, long, science, etc), I’d start on a lighter one (comic, humour, fantasy, fiction, etc), to give my mind some breathing room.

List of books I’ve finished reading during January 2020, with a short review of each:

The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT- Harris Russ: 4/5 - a delightful read, although I skimmed through some parts, as I found myself already doing most of what he was talking about already.
Day of the Dragon (WarCraft, #1) - Richard Knaak: 4/5 - I made a mistake reading this first, before the other novels. Don’t know what guide I was following, but I missed the story of the aspects, and all the stuff inbetween… Ah well. A novel that I didn’t want to put down, the writing constantly kept me on my toes (or eyes? Lol), and characters each, and all, exuded their unique marks on the story. The ending was a bit of a let down, in a Disney everyone-is-happy-and-all-is-well kind of way.
Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell - 5/5. I am a fangirl of Malcolm Gladwell. As quoted loosely someone from the book (that I forgot the name of :( ), a good writer doesn’t make himself a genius, a good writer makes the reader feel like he’s a genius.
The Art of Rick and Morty - Justin Roiland - 5/5. Again, I’m an unapologetically fangirl of Rick and Morty.
Adulthood Is a Myth (Sarah's Scribbles, #1) - Sarah Andersen - 2.5/5. Eh. Meh.
Wisdom from the World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember - Fred Rogers - 4/5. I bought this online, thinking it was the full version, but nope… I read bits and pieces of the full version from the bookshelf at an airbnb I stayed one time, and it resonated with me so strongly, that I wanted to buy it myself - but yeah…. I’ll get the full one sometime.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari - 4.5/5. A lot of carefully researched, referenced, and speculated knowledge, and I appreciate the honesty about things science don’t know yet. 4.5 because I felt it dragged on at times, to prove the writer’s point.
Big Mushy Happy Lump (Sarah's Scribbles, #2) - Sarah Andersen - 3/5. Again, meh.
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert - 2/5. I picked this up because I wanted to know what all the hype was about. I got through 1/3 of the book and felt irritated, but couldn’t really put into words why. I then went and read some reviews, and it dawned on me: The writer, and her storytelling, are so….. simple-minded. As in….. ignorantly simple-minded. I felt like she painted herself to be the victim, while only brushed through the other side(s) of the story. I felt… tired, reading her ongoing rambling, like listening to someone venting about their life while secretly eye rolling and thinking to yourself “god, what a drama queen”. Giving it 2* because of the travelling knowledge to places I haven’t been. (I realized I read it like a very long user review of a travelling tour lol)
Batman: The Killing Joke - Alan Moore - 5/5. I’ve read it once, years ago, and re-reading it now still evoked the same feelings as before. That is, awe, reflection, and quiet remorse to humanity, and humanity loss.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed - Lori Gottlieb - 5/5. Such a kind and emotional book. I teared up at some part over a character’s… life events (no spoiler), which I rarely ever do. So much insights and reflection on the psychology of human, and of the scene of psychotherapy. I recommend everyone giving this a read, whether you have been in therapy or not (but especially if you have been in therapy).
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry - Neil deGrasse Tyson - 5/5. How the writer crammed so much knowledge into such a small book is already an applaud-worthy feat within itself. I got so inspired after reading this that I started looking into stargazing lol.
The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus - 5/5. I’ve procrastinated on this book since last year, and happy to finally tick it off the list. A good read if you’re interested in the philosophy of suicide, and the ever ongoing debate about the meaning of life.
How to Relax - Thich Nhat Hanh - 3/5. If you’re into meditation, then this book is probably good for you. It’s good, but not useful to me personally. The most useful thing I took away was, I can be/am already meditating, even when I am not consciously doing so - and I am glad for that speculation.

27/1/2020

January 27, 2020

Hôm qua, mình đọc xong cuốn “Maybe you should talk about it” của Lori Gottlieb, còn hôm nay thì xong “Astrophysics for people in a hurry” của Neil Tyson. Hai chủ đề nghe chừng rất khác nhau, nhưng khiền mình có cùng một cảm giác. Đọc đến khoảng 1/3 cả hai, mình đều ngẩn ra, a, con người thật là kỳ diệu. Cái giống động vật có vú này, sao lại có thể tiến hóa đến mức nghiên cứu ra được không chỉ kiến thức vi mô vĩ mô - về vũ trụ, hạt nhân, mà còn cả kiến thức về chính bản thân nó - psychology, psychotherapy, psychiatry, như thế này chứ.

Mình khá choáng ngợp. Tự hào (dù chẳng phải mình là người nghiệm ra những theory, định luật này, hay thậm chí là học sâu về nó). Enlightened (không biết dịch là gì cho chính xác). Và cảm thấy connected (kết nối?) như Neil Tyson khi ông nghĩ về vị trí của mình trong vũ trụ này.

Human beings are so amazing, so complex and delicate, so frustrating and curious. And yet, we are insignificant, almost unnoticeable, a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things. And that makes it all the more magnificent.

Nhiều người cảm thấy depressed khi nghĩ rằng mình chẳng là gì trong vũ trụ rộng lớn này, nhưng mình thì lại thấy liberating. Nếu chỉ là một hạt bụi, thì chẳng thà ta cứ sống cho thật vui. Cát bụi rồi cũng thành cát bụi, những âu lo, buồn bã, đắng cay trải qua, rồi cũng chẳng là gì cả. Thế thì chẳng thà ta cứ sống theo ý mình, viêc gì phải sợ ai đánh giá. Đấy, mình đã thấy tự do theo nghĩa như vậy.

(Kỳ lạ thật, mình muốn viết ra bài này khi đang đọc dở cuốn của Neil Tyson, nhưng khi không viết ra ngay thì lại chẳng nhớ rõ ý đồ của bản thân nữa, thành ra bài này cứ dở dở ương ương. Với cả là ý tưởng trong đầu mình tiếng Anh, nhưng cố viết ra tiếng Việt, vì dạo này văn viết đi xuống rồi hic, nên khá gượng gạo.. Hy vọng ai đọc được hiểu được ý mình huhu.)

À, mình đọc cả 2 cuốn này từ app Libby. Đây là app mượn ebook từ thư viện mà mình có membership, rất tiện cho những người muốn đọc nhưng không muốn mua và lười ra thư viện (như mình :”>). Một điểm cộng nữa là có deadline phải trả sách, nên mình có cảm giác phải cố đọc cho xong nhanh nhanh, thay vì có sách giấy ở nhà, cứ procrastinate ôi lúc nào đọc chả được, nên tiến độ nhanh hơn rất nhiều :))))

Điểm trừ là không phải cuốn nào mình muốn cũng có, nhưng có thể nhập thẻ thư viện ở nhiều nơi khác nhau (nhưng hiện tại mình chỉ làm đươc thẻ 1 chỗ local có trong app thôi T.T Tương lai sẽ cố xem có làm được thẻ chỗ nào nữa không).