Hello October! Here’s this weeks '5 Bites Friday'. Enjoy!
1: Book hauls and wrap up:
Here’s a Wrap-Up list of the books I read in September (September
was a month of reading Nonfiction for me). And you can read my full reviews of these books by clicking on the titles of each book.
1: The Naïve and Sentimentalist Novelists (Orhan Pamuk)
of reading and writing, learn
from the master!
2: Sapiens (Yuval Noah Harari)
human’s wondrous story, from
insignificant animals to dangerous gods…
3: Talking to Strangers (MalcolmGladwell)
our inadequacy to judge strangers
has appalling consequences...
4: Good Manners for Nice People whosometimes say F*ck (Amy Alkon)
empathy as the antidote to
rude-culture, and some humor too…
a novella ‘mast’ (*deeply
and utterly lost) in its subliminal beauty…
Jaun – defiant, contradictory,
tender, and simply mesmerizing as always…
beginnings tend to lose themselves
in the endings…
8: 12 Rules for Life (Jordan B. Peterson)
Peterson’s neat rules lack the
articulateness in its content…
Taleb debunks rational myths of modernity and embraces
volatility; so must we!
And here’s the Book Haul list of books for my October
reading, where I’ll be reading everything philosophy!
The Consolations of Philosophy
(Alain de Botton) *currently reading
Sophie’s World (a
philosophical novel)
Candide (a philosophical
novel by Voltaire)
The Outsider (a novel by
philosopher Albert Camus)
Essays and Aphorisms (a
book of essays by Schopenhauer)
Mediations (Marcus Aurelius’s
book of Wisdom)
Fallen Leaves (Will Durant’s
book of philosophy’s joy)
The Philosopher of the Heart
(a biography of Soren Kierkegaard)
How to Live: a life of Montaigne
(Sarah Bakewell)
Aristotle: a brief story (a
book of life of the Aristotle)
2: New tech for more reading…
I recently purchased a second-hand tablet (Kobo E-reader) for myself. Long awaited, and overly thought-over, I both wanted an e-reader and hated the idea of reading on an electronic device. However, I finally decided to buy it one, and the reason for this decision was ‘having books in e-form that I couldn’t find the physical copies of’. For example, books of Sarah Bakewell (mentioned in Book-Haul above) that I couldn’t find online, but found the e-books. So more ‘anticipated’ reading from now on.
3: What I watched
Perfect Blue (1997) – Satoshi Kon's much acclaimed Japanese anime movie is based on a singer life's who leaves her singers-band to become an actress and model. Her brutal, dirty, and psychologically disturbing journey away from one fame towards another. A must watch! (warning: a bit disturbing!)
BBC Extinction (The Facts) – in this documentary BCC brings forth the horrifying facts about our planet earth and the extinction of up to 50% of biodiverse species. These facts came out on surface after UN assigned the task of this ‘extinction’ assignment to over 500 scientists in 2019 – and their findings are highly, highly alarming! A must watch too!
4: This week’s articles
Why We All Need Philosophy (Mark Manson) - this article is the perfect way for readers not only to get started on Philosophy but also a wake-up call for why need it, more now than ever. Lengthy, but definitely worth reading. (Science is what we know, philosophy is what we don't know' - Bernard Russel)
To be creative, Chinese philosophyteaches us to abandon ‘originality’ (Sally Davies) – Quote “On one interpretation, creativity isn’t conceived as aiming at novelty or originality, but rather integration. Instead of aiming at something new, it aims at something that combines well with the situation of which it’s a part” This article helps us fight the anxiety of becoming an original as well as the guilt of not being one, and ends with making creativity an options for us all, not just a few geniuses.
“This alternative perspective on creativity might help us to see it as an everyday phenomenon in which we all participate – rather than an extraordinary talent or gift that only a few enjoy.”
5: This week's Quote
"Advertising would not be so prevalent if we were not such suggestible creatures." -Alain de Botton
(Think about it!)