Writing about writing and reading
I couldn't go one chapter in this book without at some point putting the book down to think about how beautiful it was. There are so many perfectly captured moments of beauty, describing both nature and humanity alike, that it's difficult to express how impressive reading this was to me. The only compare for beautiful …
In this beautiful and dark novel, we read about a young man's obsession with the famous Golden Temple in Kyoto, Japan. Mizoguchi, who is unpopular and ostracized for his stuttering, is introduced to the temple by his father, and eventually becomes an acolyte there. After seeing the temple every day, he becomes more and more …
Continue reading "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, by Yukio Mishima"
Possibly due to my lack of college education, I've for some time been under the impression that many of these very old texts are read only for education purposes, and not for enjoyment. So when I came across a copy of Inferno in a Goodwill, and looked at the first couple pages out of curiosity, …
I finished this dystopian classic by Margaret Atwood and was both impressed and frustrated. I was impressed by how believable the story was. In the afterward the author talks about how she took great care to put nothing in the book that hadn't already happened somewhere in history, and no technology that didn't exist. She …
Continue reading "The Handmaid’s Tale: a negative side of human adaptability"
Besides being a great story with amazingly developed characters that are intriguing to watch change over the course of the novel (well... most of them change...), this novel pointed out the giant blind spots I have about the world beyond my door step, and has encouraged me to seek out books that feature other cultures …
Continue reading "The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver"
Jonas David 