The Reader

This book reveals wonderfully with a mixture of enough scientific pieces of evidence and personal stories why hidden factors outside a hospital are important to human health. As social beings, others, namely community and neighborhood, deeply influence us. A sense of belonging and interconnectedness is critical to our mental health. Long-lasted loneliness and isolation make persons vulnerable to mental illness. Exaggerated, endured stress responses accompanied by stressful daily lives can make persons ill. So, the author maintains that kindness and compassion for others matter and can make humans healthier and happier. According to this book, humans are 99.9% genetically similar. In that regard, we all are quite similar in genetic make-ups, but some people overestimate racial and ethnic differences. However, race is arbitrary, a sort of social construct, rather than a scientific one, the author argues. Is our hierarchical social structure reflecting the historical and cultural inequity...

 I bought this book ten years ago when the author became famous to many Koreans as the first Asian woman tenured at Harvard Law School. I heard through an interview that she was excellent at piano and ballet and read many books regardless of the school curriculum during school days. As I always have been interested in people who achieved academically, I first bought a translated Korean version and then an original English version. After reading the initial part, I left it unattended for a long time, and recently I read it to the end. As expected, she was a "well-rounded" and talented woman in the liberal arts. Highly educated, resourceful parents, focused on giving opportunities to their children, and American education, which must have given more chances to a gifted person than the 80s' & 90s' Korean education, seem to have played a positive role in her academic success. In addition, her qualities, including the ability to make friends easily and maintain a close...