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
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
I requested for this book from NetGalley because the idea of language being a marker of identity was fascinating. That said, despite reading the blurb, I didn’t actually realise the title was a pun until after I finished the book. If you’re a bit quicker than me, you’ll realise that Figures of Speech is about… Read More Figures of Speech by Tim Cassedy
I heard about this book from The Indicator since it was one of their recommended ‘beach reads’ (because economics can be fun!). It sounded pretty interesting, so I found a library copy and started reading it. Divided into seven sections, the book covers fifty different inventions that Harford feels shaped our modern economy. As he… Read More Fifty Inventions that Shaped the Modern Economy by Tim Harford
After reading an abridged copy of The Tale of Genji (the unabridged, library copy is proving rather elusive), I decided to read more about Heian Japan, in the hopes of knowing more about the world and hence being able to appreciate the unabridged novel more when I finally find it. The World of the Shining… Read More The World of the Shining Prince by Ivan Morris
I love getting book recommendations, so when an email from Santiago arrived recommending a couple of books – A Song for Nagasaki among them – I knew that I had to check them out. The library had A Song for Nagasaki so I borrowed it as one of my year-end reads. A Song for Nagasaki… Read More A Song for Nagasaki by Paul Glynn
I was super excited about this book the moment I heard about it – books about books are always fun, plus this is about teen fiction! While I haven’t read as much as the author, I’ve read my fair share of Judy Blume, Sweet Valley High, and even Sweet Valley Kids. Paperback Crush takes us… Read More Paperback Crush by Gabrielle Moss
We tend to think of Fake News as lies, but do you know that it can be deadly? In India, several people have died due to fake news spread by WhatsApp, leading Time to call the phenomenon a ‘deadly fake news crisis’. In Mexico, fake news has led to similarly deadly violence while the African… Read More Weaponised Lies by Daniel J. Levitin