Review

The Phantom Lover and Other Thrilling Tales of Thailand by Jim Algie. Most of the stories in this book are good. Probably the one I enjoyed the most is the story of See Ouey, who was a convicted multiple murderer in the past century. Ouey immigrated from China to Thailand after fighting in World War […]

Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System by James M. Fallows (1995). Twenty years ago, journalist James Fallows spent more than five years in Asia gathering information and building a compelling argument about how and why this region, especially Japan, was growing so rapidly. This book explores

Class Matters by Bill Keller. This book from The New York Times is both depressing and distressing, but some parts are quite enlightening and deserve special attention. One of the key messages is that class is not just about money or power. It is more about intangible resources, mostly coming from within the family. This

Triple by Ken Follett. This book is a really nice description of the stealing of uranium to produce nuclear weapons in Israel in the late 60’s. They made a fake company to buy a freighter, which would transport a covert shipment of uranium to Italy. At some point during the trip, they would stage the

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (2015). This is a pretty good psychological novel. I am quite delighted that I picked this one up at the secondhand bookstore. It is about Rachel, a woman who has found in alcohol a way to cope with her broken life and marriage. The story is very

AIQ: How People and Machines Are Smarter Together by Nick Polson and James Scott. Imagine being able to write a novel knowing in advance that it would become the biggest bestseller. Or imagine a record company no longer needing to audition hundreds of bands because it had developed a method to design a group as

The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli. This book is originally written in German and very easy and fast to read. There are not too many surprises to learn, but the references list contains a wonderful source of knowledge on behavioral psychology and I appreciate that a lot.

Pearl Harbor by Craig Nelson. This is one of those books that I will re-read in the future. Not because it is hard, but because it offers several layers of understanding the history of WW2. The horrendous descriptions of the war and scale of the destruction is quite shocking. The author can take you to

“The library book” by Susan Orlean. This book explores books and libraries, particularly focusing on the Los Angeles Central Library, which was severely damaged by a fire in 1986. The fire was suspected to be arson, with Harry Peak as the main suspect. However, the book is more about the impact of books and libraries