Christopher > Recent Status Updates

A little too simplistic and basic. Only deals with Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi. I'm eager to start a book on medieval Daoism after.

I know what you are thinking. How could I, somebody who practically worships the ground trod upon by the Great Leader of China, dare to read a book written by an enemy of the state? Maybe I'm not as far gone as everyone thought?

Nah, in all seriousness, even though I despise religion, the Dalai Lama's not the worst bloke around. It's a good primer on Buddhist vocab, which is what I need to move on to advanced books

So far I absolutely adore this book. He's made the odd questionable statement, but most of the time he expresses thoughts similar to those I have been trying to find the words to articulate over the past year or so.

Readable, but not quite what I expected. I'm not sure what I expected, but it isn't this.

The first chapters were inordinately fascinating and have led to me picking out a few other books on Chinese philosophy, but I worry about what is in store in the later chapters.

Incredibly fascinating. It's a book that one should read slowly and very closely. I often stop halfway through a paragraph to write out in a FB message to my long-suffering friends what I'm trying to wrap my head around in this book.

Excellent exploration of the extreme secrecy and deception that defines the British state.

Very all over the place. The first chapter was quite the polemic against the Western orientation of philosophy departments. The next explored the ways Chinese philosophy can benefit the West. The third completely changes the script, looking at the contemporary political situation in America and China and touches on their relationship with philosophy

Not much new in this book after having read maybe a dozen others last year that explore a lot of the same points, but I would recommend it as a starting point for anyone interested in the corruption of medicine.

This is definitely a book that needs to be more widely read. She does a decent job exploring the methods and harms of elite ignorance, which is arguably far more disastrous than the ignorance of the masses, despite that being the subject of most of the discussions on ignorance in democracy.

Neoliberalization is going to be the death of this civilization.

It's a wonder anybody believes anything reported in the news.

This is such an exciting, gripping mystery. After that horrible short story I read a few weeks ago, I will count this novel as an excellent introduction to Japanese mystery in Chinese translation.

I love this book so much.

I will finish this book. I will finish this book. Ugh, this book is so boring! Even when something exciting happens, the author is so useless that he suddenly cuts the scene and goes on to something even more boring than usual!!!

I really liked the first chapter, but so far this second chapter feels downright delusional. To suggest that an impersonal bureaucracy "love our child almost as much as we do" is one of the most disturbing sentences I have read in an otherwise rather normal book.

This might just be my favorite Chinese language book yet.

Unbearably stupid ending. I don't think I will ever be able to bring myself to read another sentence by this foolish writer. It's a shame, because the setup was terrific, but then all of a sudden, just like that, the woman solves the old cold case that years of effort couldn't solve, but with so much absurd reasoning that I've lost any interest in Japanese mystery.

I'm about ½ through the last chapter of the 1st story and I'm starting to lose interest. We went from setting up the frame, the cop screwing up and being sent to the archives, then we're introduced to the cold case, and then there's a tiny bit of investigation and suddenly we have a solution, just like that! I'm hoping something changes in the next 10 pages. I'll try one more story before quitting, but I likely will.

Other than the fact that everybody seems to have several names and titles and it's an absolute bloody mess, I'm enjoying this more than I enjoyed the few episodes of the drama I watched when it came out and don't remember in the slightest.