Some Books I've Read

Another week of school gone, for the better. School is quite monotonous these days. I sit and study on my own during class, occasionally getting up to play soccer during gym (I scored a header goal the other day) or going to calligraphy. 書道。I learn on my own because I don’t get anything out of the classes. I’ve already learned all the math, science, and history they’re learning. And I certainly don’t need lessons on English grammar. Okay, actually, I probably could use a few, but at a slightly more advanced letter. I know where the verb goes in a sentence. So instead I rotate throughout the day between learning physics (relativity right now), kanji, and Japanese history. It works pretty well.

Since my adventure here has been lacking adventures lately, I thought I’d instead give some book recommendations. I’m also looking for good books to read and I thought some of you out there might be too. I’ve had the good fortune of having enormous amounts of free time and I’ve read more books recently than I have ever before. So here are my favorites, in roughly the order that I read them:

The Foundations Trilogy – a fantastic series by Isaac Asimov. It won the Hugo award for best All-Time Series, narrowly beating out Lord of the Rings. It completely deserves the title. I read the first book on the plane over. A science fiction must.

Collapse – I think I read something in-between Foundation and Collapse but I can’t remember right now. Collapse is a stellar work by Jared Diamond about the future of our society on Earth related to the environment. He paints a bleak picture, as the title suggests, with dashes of hope. He examines past societies and why they succeeded or failed. Most of the failures have to do with the environment, most notably, exhausting crucial resources. Easter Island had a culture that depended heavily on big trees. They cut down all the trees and their society descended into chaos, famine, and war. Our culture today depends heavily on good farmland, healthy forests, wild fisheries, clean water, which we are systematically eroding, cutting down, destroying, and polluting.

Angela’s Ashes – a hilarious, pathetic, depressing, uplifting, engaging memoir about growing up in Ireland in the 1940s with an alcoholic father and zero money. Frank McCourt is a wonderful storyteller and put my problems with learning Japanese and making friends in perspective. “I may be having a tough time here but at least I have enough to eat, wear clean clothes, have an education…”

Guns, Germs, and Steel – also by Jared Diamond. Won a Pulitzer Prize. Absolutely fascinating. Basically, people are what they are because of where they come from. Or, geography is history. Why did Columbus conquer the New World and not Aztecs invading Spain? Because Columbus had the good fortune to come from Europe and the Aztecs the bad fortune to live in North America. This book will change the way you think.

Confucius Lives Next Door – this is where it gets confusing. I was reading somewhere around 5 books at the same time. This was one of them. The best book on the Japanese mindset and culture that I have found. It goes a long way towards explaining why they do the things they do. By T.R. Reid. If I were in charge of my exchange program I would require every student coming to Japan to read this book. A must for anyone interested in gaining insight to the Japanese.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – anyone who’s a runner can understand this book. Non-runners can too, but it might be harder. As I runner, I can talk about running for hours or days. On track that’s almost all we discussed. Soccer players can talk forever about soccer, swimmers about swimming, but Haruki Murakami is a runner. He’s also Japanese so that was a neat bonus. A short, memoir-like book about running and writing books.

Hackers – this one is kind of geeky. It’s about the computer revolution and people who were behind it. By Steven Levy. He is obviously very passionate about his work and I enjoyed the book but I had some problems with it. I thought it was too long and didn’t care too much for his writing style. Still good. I’m glad I read it.

Cryptonomicon – it’s over 1000 pages of Neal Stephenson. An impossible novel to put down. This kept me occupied for two weeks during school. Yet another book with lots of Japan in it, this time during World War Two. There were vivid scenes about Marines killing Nips and I’d get really into the book, then look up and see myself surrounded by Japanese people. Sometimes I’d get angry (like after the chapter on Pearl Harbor), sometimes surprised, and sometimes a bit embarrassed. It’s a horrendously excellent novel. It was the best book I’ve ever read for a while.

The Story of Sushi – a fun little read over winter break. Not an irresistible book but pretty good. The author Trevor Corson tired to tie in the history of sushi and mammoth amounts of information on the creatures that top the rice into a story about becoming a sushi chef. Here I felt let down a bit. They didn’t quite fit together. Good book though. And it kindled in me a need to bring sushi back to its traditional roots. Now I want to eat real sushi, not American style maki rolls, and sit at a sushi bar. Sounds fun.

Shogun – rounding the end of my list is the book I just finished an hour ago. Shogun is the best book I have ever read. Ever. I tend to say that a lot about books I just read, but this one really blew me away. Absolutely fantastic. That could be because I could relate a lot to the main character. He’s an English pilot of a warship in 1600 who gets stranded in Japan. He has to learn the language, culture, and becomes Japanese in the process. This is a historical fiction about my favorite period in Japanese history, the unification. Japan, a state that was at perpetual civil war for centuries became entirely united and completely peaceful in a very short period of time. Then the most amazing part is that it stayed that way for two and a half centuries. Incredible change. The best book I’ve ever read. The best. Ever.

I think that my list is slightly more Japanese flavored than what most people are looking for, for obvious reasons. I find Japan to be the most interesting topic these days. But all the books I mentioned are good books and deserve to be read. I know I’ve read others, but these are the best. Hope you enjoy.

Also, I’m starting on my school ski trip tomorrow. Three days of skiing with all the 1st years at my school. I’m fairly thrilled, except not about waking up. I have to get up at 5 (it’s 1am right now) and I have yet to finish packing. I probably shouldn’t be blogging right now but whatever. I’ll sleep on the bus.