Another Book Review Compilation

Entering college and the ensuing lack of time meant that I have had hardly any time to write a book review, much read a book. Before I entered Yonsei, I read some and posted my book reviews elsewhere; I will compile them here for the sake of unity (and hopefully of conscientious future writing)

Walter Isaacson - Einstein: His Life and Universe
Maybe I'm going too far with my display of ego, but I found that there were striking similarities between Einstein and me (or at least the current me, in case the future me finds this statement abhorrent). He is politically left(which I amuse myself on being), loves and plays brilliant music (oh yes), has a terrible short term memory (OH YES) and has a genuine love for humanity and an easygoing character that is amused by things going around him. The biographer, Walter Isaacson, reasons that what allowed Einstein to come up with his theory of relativity was his craving for freedom and contempt for authority, which allowed him to escape the conventions of Newtonian physics.

Einstein truly loved phyiscs; he carried his notes around everywhere, scribbling equations, even to his deathbed trying to work out his unified field theory in vain. I guess the similarities between him and me end here, because I still haven't found something that I truly love and could devote my life for. Before, I thought I could leave this till I got into college, but for some reason I feel it more urgently now, which explains my want for voracious reading. Do I see myself as a physicist? Maybe - physics seems to be a intellctual science encompassing science and philosophy together, something that might convey deep meanings. But then, other areas of interests are no less interesting...

The length of the book suggests that the book recieve a decent review, but sorry, I can't bother myself, maybe the future me will curse me for doing this, in that case, fuck me.

Maybe I'll come back on it when I'm feeling better. But then, there's the amazon book reviews, so convenient.


Benjamin Franklin - The Autobiography of Benjamin Frankin
I just finished the Ben Franklin autobiography at 1:30 AM, tried to go to sleep, couldn't, and thought that if I were to become a special person, I shouldn't be too restricted by the necessity of sleep. So here I am writing a diary entry and downloading yet another book for my beautiful kindle.

Franklin was truly a renaissance man, his proffesion stretching from printing and engineering to philosophy and politics. Despite being the youngest of 13 children, he managed to educate himself throught voracious reading and was considered precocious by many. To me, he seemed to epitomize the American spirit of experimenting, leaving his family at the age of 17 to work at a printer's house in Philadelphia.

There were many remarkable aspects of him, of which I will mention of few; one was that he liked to read and talk about what he read, which he discussed with his club, the JUNTO. Probably it was his eclectic reading that allowed him to be expert in so many fields and the fact that he valued his book so much made an impression on me. Also, he seems to have led a very stress-free life, with all his affairs turning out to be well, and when they didn't he wasn't much trouble by them. This could be attributed to how he avoided disputes and arguments as he saw nothing good coming out of them. Another interesting aspect of him was his religious doctrine, where he didn't belong to a sect but believed in a "Deity"(which I think strictly means he was agnostic).

I was dissapointed at the fact that his autobiography was rather incomplete as it didn't narrate the last 30 years of his life, which inconveniently happens to be the most important 30 years of his life. Still, his industry at such a young age will inspire me to achieve excellence.

And next time I need to find a way to loosen this ridiculously stiff style of writing. I blame Ben.


Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram
I didn't realise how long Shantaram was til I was halfway done with it(all those page turning, or rather clicking, made SO little difference!). But as Lee Yun-Seok said yesterday at Yonsei(somehow I happened to hear his lecture), a thick book is usually more useful than many thin books, and indeed, Shantaram was engaging and introduced new ideas to me.

What I remember the most is the philosophical discussion between the main character, Lin, and his boss, Abdul Khader Khan. Khader argues that when we judge what is good and evil, we need to judge whether a certain action leads to an increased complexity of the universe. The underlying assumption is that the universe is in an inevitable progress towards ultimate complexity, which Khader calls god; indeed, the universe started out simply, from the Big Bang, and through the expansion of the universe and evolution of living things, the universe has become more complex. An interesting thought.

Also, Lin repeated on many occasions a quote made by Khader that stuck onto his mind: “Sometimes it is necessary to do the wrong things for the right reasons". The reason why this struck Lin was that he believed that even when things were done with good motives, the consequences were not always desirable; this was clearly demonstrated in the car crash of his best friend, Prabaker, to whom Lin had bought a car. That made me think again about my wish to (somewhat vaguely) help those people in Africa(or somewhere) suffering from malnutrition and no clean water; I may have the good reasons, but what if I make things worse than before? Maybe Lin's logic may be a license for complacency and non-committment, but I do think he has a point.


Stephen Fry - The Liar
The comparative shortness in length was extremely freshing and invigorating, but that was as far as the book got. The book was indeed hilarious at some points, but it carries on with the vulgarity, lack of common sense and perculiarity of the characters which gets really inane by the end of the book. Not such a good read.


Michael Sandel - Justice
It's one of those books that makes you think that reading books once is never enough. I really can't be bothered to talk about it, because there's so many ideas to talk about and even more ideas that I didn't understand.

What I understoood(or did I really?) was Sandel conclusion about justice. There are three ways, according to him, that determines justice.

1. Utilitarianism
2. Freedom
3. Virtue

He likes option 3. But I can't quite get why he chose that, except I remember something on how humans don't have complete freedom, because we are, whether we want to be or not, part of the community which has a certain set of morals that we follow. Also, religion and morals must play a part in determining justice, he argues. I sound like a idiot here because I really don't get what on earth he is talking about. But I'll definitely read it again.

Book Review Compilation

It's been some time since I wrote my last review, and I blame the A-levels and the busyness of life in Korea for such a crime. It's been an experience between heaven and hell for my reading life, because I could borrow from so many books in the public libraries, books which were ALL Korean. But then, I needed to increase my proficiency in Korean, so off I went.

최병구 - 외교이야기
This was a book that I bought from a bookstore. The reason I why I bought it was I wanted to be enlightened about the career which I hoped to take: diplomacy. It wasn't exactly a phenomenal experience, but I learnt a lot, rather boringly, how diplomats worked(all those conferences, summits, embassy work and so on) and how important the selection of words was for diplomats. It also introduced me to many great people in the world of diplomacy, such as Zhou Enlai, about whom I plan to read in the near future. I must say that it was a little too nationalistic(praising hanryu and such) for my taste, but I guess it's inevitable given he is a public servant.

박노자 - 박노자의 만감일기
This was interesting. The author to begin with was interesting; a Russian who changed his nationality to Korean. The book is a collection of his blog posts which mainly talk about the Korean politics. He is very very left, and although I am not sure whether this is a good thing for me, I think I became left too. He changed how I viewd capitalism, democracy and socialism, and led me to think that Socialist Revolution had a good cause. He gave me insight into the Korean politics, how it is literally controlled by Samsung and the like, demonizing them. Although I'm not sure whether I entirely agree with his rhetoric, I certainly find him fascinating.

Leander Kahney - Inside Steve's Brain
Unfortunately this was in Korean too, but I needed some good topics to write about in my SAT essay, so I picked up this book. I thought that it was a balanced approach to Job's personality(maybe slightly on the favourable side) and told me how his perfectionism, ability to change his personality as the situation demands and his hunger for the control of the system led Apple to rise above the others. But somehow I cannot escape my first impression of him, when I watched him give a graduation speech at Stanford, which I thought was rather fake. I just can't find him "charismatic"... but maybe I'm wrong. I guess there's a reason why the workers in Apple all fear and respect him, as the book says(or is the book exaggerating?).

Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince

Often I came across the some books which referred to Machiavellian ideas, attitudes etc. and I had went on reading without knowing exactly what it meant. So it came to be that I read this famous book of political science in the sleeping trains of India.

I was surprised to find that the book was so thin, and was even more so when I found the letters in it were huge. The book is a gift from Machiavelli to a certain lord of the Medici family - I forgot the exact name - and in it Machiavelli advises him what he should do to emerge as a successful prince, or ruler.

As said in the introduction of the book, Machiavelli is deeply pessimistic of human nature. For instance, he argues that it is better to be feared than to be loved because there is no obligation to continue loving the ruler. Also, he had more reasonable advices which I somewhat related to the politics of today; Machiavelli repeatedly stresses that although the ruler should be feared, he should never be hated, as hatred will cause the fall of a prince.

There was a lot to digest in the short book. Most of the ideas were radical and rather barbaric, but reasonable nonetheless.

Jorges Luis Borges - Ficciones

After the merciless rejections from the Ivies, my vanity had crumbled to dust. I looked out for books which explained for meaning of life(maybe a slight exaggeration but true nonetheless) and I found Borges.

The book is not a novel, but a compilation of short stories that he had written; very short, in fact, that some were only 4 sides long. However, Borges showed that he was the master of succinct writing by making them so packed and structured. Indeed, I feel like I've read 15 books by just reading this.

At first, I didn't know what on earth he was talking about, his topics being so abstract. However, when I read the words with the utmost concentration that the stories of Borges deserved, I found myself wonderfully entertained when he talked about various philosophical questions in a playful and narrative way.

Let me just pick one from the stories which were all interesting. The "Library of Babel" was staged in a library which was (supposedly) infinite; it contained information about everything in the world, as the library had books which had all possible combination of words. However, in the end, one realises that this Library, which definitely does contained answers to everything, is as good as nothing, as although there are answers, there will also be refuting arguments in other books.

The book mentioned Schopenhauer a lot; maybe I'll read his works next time

Robert Lacey - Ford: The Men and the Machine

This was a biography of not just Henry Ford, but of the Ford dynasty till the late 1980s. The book starts off from Henry Ford I's childhood and finishes with the fall of Lee Iacocca, the former president of the Ford Motor Company, and there are fascinating stories between these two incidents; how the legendary Model T came into being, the spectacular achievements of the Fords like the Rouge and the Renaissance Center etc.

However, the most interesting stories were those of personalities and conflicts between them. The book shows how Henry Ford I's intention of making life better for the people change little by little over the years to focused on achieving his personal interests, not necessarily monetary wise, but over things like anti-semitism(the book talked about how Henry's anti-semitic propaganda could have moulded Hitler) and making himself famous. He was a genius in some ways(obviously shown in his creation of the moving production line) but a fool in many ways(his obstinacy over the Model T, the Peace Ship etc.).

The life of Edsel Ford, Henry Ford I's son, was pretty much overshadowed by Henry's dominance over him. The stories of Henry Ford II, Edsel's son, are much more interesting; how he revives the Ford Motor Company and releases the company into the public, how he marries 3 wives, how he gets rid of Lee Iacocca simply because "he doesn't like him" etc. Henry Ford II also had something of a dual personality like his grandfather; he treated the waiters and maids like Dukes and Duchesses while he screamed obscenities when he was drunk.

One aspect of the book which interested me especially was how a single person could change the fate of something so big as the Ford Motor company; Henry Ford I and his grandson, Ernest Breech and Lee Iacocca. It made me think that doing business and managing the companies wouldn't be such a bad idea after all, especially when those people got paid so well!

Michael L. Brown - Whatever Happened to the Power of God?

Scavenging my father's bookshelves again, I tried to find a book which would explain Christianity with less emphasis on the Bible and more on secular ideas. I wanted to know how Christians should explain things like homosexuality, the contradictions in Christianity etc.

As it turned out, the book was solidly founded on the Bible, and the author was pretty much a hard line Christian - which wasn't what I was looking for. However, some accounts of the working of God and various testimonies were indeed convincing, for example how John Wesley was able to attract thousands of people to listen to his preaching. Also, by constantly referring to the Bible, it proved the integrity of the Bible while justifying his arguments very convincingly.

The book laments the decline of the contemporary Church and Christians, and mentions the "real" revivals some time back. The book admonished the Christians to be disciplined, and concentrate only on God. Which is true really; either you should be a die hard Christian, or not at all. But I have yet to read what skeptics think about Jesus.

Charles Dickens - David Copperfield

I've always wanted to read at least one book by Charles Dickens, given his fame, and at every attempt, I never progressed more than 50 pages. However, this time, I managed with sheer determination to read 800 pages of tiny letters and complex eloquence which Charles Dickens is famous for, I believe.

The book is, apparently, Charles Dickens' "favourite child"; their initials, DC and CD, is somewhat similar. The book is also more or less a biography of Dickens, where he put some of his childhood experiences into the novel. The basic plot is, a boy grows into a man, marries a rather fragile lady called Dora, grieves at her death, becomes a respected author, and marries a childhood friend called Agnes. Happy ending.

After finishing the book, I was left much in doubt as to why one should read novels. Yes, David Copperfield was interesting, it had a lovely story, wonderfully laid out and conveyed, with hints of humour here and there. But it was too time consuming to read, and feel that I haven't "gained" as much as I would have if I had read something else. Did it teach me how to live a life? All it told me was to live inside a world of limited number of acquaintances(which might be a good thing considering so much relationships are so shallow nowadays) and to check one's impulses when one falls in love. It's not that I haven't learnt anything useful; it wasn't "efficient".

I think I'll stay away from novels for now, and concentrate on non-fictions to develop my thinking.