The Reader

  After finishing reading another doctor’s memoir and feeling unsatisfied, I read this book again, as I wanted to know why I felt good about this book about 10 years ago. Until now, I’ve read several books in the form of personal stories by doctors. A few of them are quite well-written and remain precious to me, whereas most books by doctors are superficial or shallow to me, and I usually find nothing in such books. Different from such books, this book ‘Intern’ is one of my favorite books among personal stories written by doctors. The author, an Indian-American, entered medical school after getting a Ph.D. in physics. This book contains how he became to accept a medical doctor as his job in the long years of refusal and skepticism. Many pages of this book are about an internship, the first year of residency training. He vividly portrayed mental anguish and physically unbearable hardship experienced as an intern, and I could not help but sympathize with him. He also described real...

As I liked Harari’s previous two books, I also read this book. As is the case for many writers, his 3 rd book for the public appeared less daring and refreshing to me, compared with his previous two books, although it is still good enough. Among five parts in the book, my favorite part was part IV, Truth, and two chapters, chapter 15 (ignorance) and 17 (post-truth) were the best of 21 chapters or lessons to me. As he repeatedly mentioned, we don’t know ourselves less than we think. Furthermore, he points out that power distorts reality so those with power cannot grasp the truth or reality as it is. The powerful ones would put people who have the same belief as theirs around them, and the surrounding people would willingly be committed to the powerful one’s viewpoint as they believe the power’s ideas or they are just interested in fulfilling their private desires. The author metaphorically said, “Great power thus acts like a blackhole” p.221 . To make matters worse, powerful people a...

I read this book several months ago, and while reading the book, I was quite absorbed and excited by her story. I did not know her very well, but after finishing reading her book, I became to like her. As a previous first lady and still influential woman, her memoir cannot help but contain some political meaning. Like all autobiographies, it represents her views of past events and the world, and we all know that our memories are often censored and distorted by our minds. Even though all these things, this book touched me and made me more positive. As a black student raised in a working-class family in the 1970-80s, her feelings and thoughts reminded me of my past adolescence and college period. This ambitious girl who had dreamed of becoming a professional woman finally became a lawyer in a law firm in downtown Chicago and met her future husband, Barrack Obama as a summer associate there. Her description of their encounter and her husband was so romantic as if it were a part of one...

Like his previous book Sapiens, this book is also very intellectual and interesting. The author is constantly challenging to humanism, the most prevalent and strong religion in modern society, with historical and scientific knowledge. In the book, the author said that religion is interested in order, whereas science is interested in power – this viewpoint is quite different from the common belief that religion or science seeks truth or freedom. The definition of religion is also different from traditional or popular belief. The religion defined in this book encompasses ideologies such as communism and humanism. Anything can be a religion if it holds ethical values, as a value cannot be verified by factual evidence or experiment. Value is just believed and accepted by human beings, so it can be considered as a part of religion. In this regard, humans are inherently religious and everyone has one’s religion. Like in the Sapiens , the author stressed the importance and power of storytel...

  This book is about achievement – how excellent people accomplished something. According to the author, to achieve something great, both talent and effort are necessary and effort is a more determining factor than talent. In the viewpoint of nature vs. nurture controversy, the author focused more on nurture, or improvable and alterable elements, which made this book a well-written motivational book. As the author is a confident psychologist who studied grit for a long time, this book contains valuable related information and personal interviews of grit paragons. Above all, the author’s career is a very good example of grit, or passion and perseverance. I was impressed by the author’s inquiring mind and subsequent attempt to get an answer, step by step, in one research topic of ‘achievement’. It made me reflect on my past research life. Did I do my research driven by curiosity? Did I initiate that statistical analysis as I wanted to get an answer on the topic? To be fran...

After finishing reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, I started reading this book. I heard that the author was motivated to write this book by Guns, Germs, and Steel, so I thought that it might be a similar book. Many religious people may feel uncomfortable with the author’s viewpoint, and I heard that the author was criticized for glorifying the history of modern colonial empires. This book is about human history but it encompasses more than that. It is more like a philosophy book to me. While reading this book, I was very pleased and consoled, and impressed by the author’s brave and novel viewpoint. He is the same age as me, and how can he have such deep insight about humankind and the surrounding world? If Guns, Germ, and Steel was felt like a warm and kind storybook by old grandpa, this book was like a very straight and sharp intelligent reasoning by a youthful genius. Ironically, I felt a kind of pleasure and liberation through this book, as intangible things (e.g., religion, n...

I became to read this book after hearing a good review by one celebrity. It is not so much a usual memoir written by a famous people as one written by survivalist from childhood trauma, but also like an autobiographical novel by a talented writer. As far as I know, many famous writers wrote novels based on their own childhood experiences, and usually, people cannot escape from their own childhood memories. Disclosing shameful personal experiences to the public is not an easy thing to do. If the memories were related to parents’ faults or problems whose severity was beyond the level that the public can accept with, writing a memoir must require courage and maturity. During reading this book, I was impressed with the author’s talent for the literary skill of describing each episode and inner psychology. Especially, in the latter part, author’s inner struggle and confusion were really well conveyed to me when she was forced by her parents to decide whether or not to choose parents’ ...