I heard about this book from The Orangutan Librarian’s Monthly Monkey Mini Review, and it intrigued me enough that I hunted down a copy. And I have got to say, this book broke my heart so many times. I made the mistake of reading it in the mrt and I ended up tearing up for most… Read More A List of Cages by Robin Roe
Recently, I read this article about how our obsession with taking photos is changing our memory* and it got me thinking: What is the point of taking photos? It’s something that I’ve asked myself several times, mostly when I feel like my photo taking has gone overboard. While I’m not a selfie sort of person,… Read More The Photo Habit
I might have mentioned it before, but I’m currently on a tea-buying ban. Unsurprisingly, there are tons of tea that I want to buy so I’ve redoubled my tea drinking efforts. So far, I’ve finished three teas and opened two new ones lying around. One of them was T2’s Lady Esmerelda’s Ultimate Dream Dictionary and the… Read More Two Lemony Teas
I’m not sure how this got in my TBR list, but it looked pretty cool and I wanted a quick read so I decided to read it (it was indeed something you can read in one sitting). Come See The Living Dryad is a novella about the murder of a ‘living dryad’, who is basically… Read More Come See The Living Dryad by Theodora Goss
Since I spent last year doing quite a bit of general reading about tea, I thought I’d take it a bit more in-depth this year. That means taking both a wider look at the issues surrounding tea (hopefully there’s a contemporary book or blog I can read!) and going in depth into the history of… Read More Darjeeling by Jeff Koehler
One great thing about this World of Genji research project is that it’s getting me to read all sorts of books I wouldn’t normally pick up, such as this history of Kyoto city. The Tale of Genji is set during the height of the Heian period in Heian-Kyo (premodern Kyoto). Since the World of Shining… Read More Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan’s Premodern Capital by Matthew Stavros
We’re almost halfway through January and I thought it would be nice to see how the start of the year has been (it is very weird but if I don’t write things down, I can’t seem to properly take stock). So what I’ve realised is that I’m extremely thankful for Christmas and New Year, not… Read More Start of the Year Updates
Look at these stack of books: Doesn’t one of them look different from the rest? That’s because it’s tea!! My manager got me this for Christmas, along with a T2 teapot and I couldn’t wait to try it out! (Please note all the exclamation points that denote excitement) This fruit tisane is made of apple,… Read More Festive T2 Classics: Lady Esmerelda’s Ultimate Dream Dictionary
After reading about Nagai Takashi’s – a Japanese Christian – response to the bombing of Nagasaki, I decided to go back in time and continue reading about Christianity in Japan. This time, however, the topic is completely different. Christ’s Samurai is an account of the Shimabara rebellion, which has the dubious honour of being the… Read More Christ’s Samurai by Jonathan Clements
For Christmas, my boss gave all of us books. Specifically, he gave us Volume 5 of Sunday Em@ils from a Chairman and wrote a note recommending certain chapters to each one of us. Since he asked us immediately after Christmas if we’ve finished it (spoiler alert: no one had), I decided to move this book… Read More Sunday Emails from a Chairman (Vol. 5) by Liew Mun Leong
