Bookworms (Mid-)Summer Summary

The Power of Habit, The Pigeon Project, Rashōmon - July Reads

Born a Crime, The Memoirs of a Geisha - May and June Reads

Bookworms summer hang-outs - have been really fun! In the recent August book club meeting, Eshani and I learnt how multiple languages would write our names (see the picture at the end). My name was written as many snails- I forgot which language was that but I was so amazed by the diverse cultures!

And yes - the bookclub doesn't always talk about books LOL. We starts with the common grounds (the books we read) and goes anywhere the discussion would lead to.

But we still talked a bit about books tho.

The Power of Habit -

"Cue, Routine, and Reward" 3 steps into building a habit. We like its narrative style, where the author would bring the readers to a well-depicted scene and introduce the story. And the examples (e.g. the toothpaste advertising story) were interesting and justified the "power of habit"- imagine how to build people's habit of brushing-teeth when no one believed their teeth needed to be brushed back in the days. However, the author appears to try to fit *everything* in real life into his "habit" scheme. For example, he talked about "the habit of friendship" when he described the social pattern/habit "required" for a social movement to start and last. It sounds a little odd but the story is still interesting to read.

The Pigeon Project-

A scientist found the secret of longevity and he became the most wanted man in the world... It was a decent and interesting tale, about greed and power. No spoiler here since you might want to read the novel by yourself. From this book, we actually drifted away a bit and talked about "Is a 150-year life span actually possible in biological science?" since there were three biologists and two biochemists in the bookclub meeting.

Rashōmon-

We didn't spend too much time on discussing it but some found out the movie "Rashōmon" was not based on the short story "Rashōmon"; instead, it was based on the short story "In the Bamboo Groove", which I suggested to be the next short story of the month.

Born a Crime-

"As a kid I understood that people were different colors, but in my head white and black and brown were like types of chocolate. Dad was the white chocolate, mom was the dark chocolate, and I was the milk chocolate. But we were all just chocolate.”

I was shocked when I heard “Afrikaner racism” - a very different format of racism compared to "British racism"- in South Africa. This was the first time I learned about the detailed contemporary racism history of South Africa. To me, it was an extreme, unbelievable and ridiculous level of racism. The stories were Trevor Noah's real experiences, some of which were horrible with intense abuse and violence sometimes. But as a comedian, he was able to make fun of them in a teasing tone. The heavy stories sound much lighter and readable. From the book, I see the toughness in the oppressed class in the society. And I wish no oppression in the world.

The Memoirs of a Geisha-

Many of us in the discussion agreed that the Geisha culture *described in the book* is fascinating and disgusting at the same time. We were not sure if the author has the correct or accurate understandings on a geisha's life, since we read about the lawsuit between the author and one of the geishas he interviewed. And it seems like there are mixed opinions on the book and the movie based on the book. We'd like to invite anyone familiar with Japanese culture to provide suggestions on learning about the Geisha culture.

-Lisa Liang