2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

今年的任务是30本。时值八月，阅读量未完成一半，惶惶不安。

从一月至今的已读书单及评分。（五分制）

1. 围城 （钱钟书）- 4分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

简评： 三十多岁才看围城，发现讲的根本不是婚姻。方鸿渐这种人，和那个时代的中国，无战事的2016，依然举目皆是，远望不到边。那种赤裸粗暴的习惯互撕，容不下丁点真善的迫不及待的呲牙咧嘴，对人际人生低智商低情商经营方式的根本性失败，惶惶然似曾相识。心有余悸。

2. 我们仨 （杨绛）- 3分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

3. They Are What You Feed Them (Alex Richardson) - 5 分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

简评：This book led me and my family out of the dark ignorance on nutrition and health. It's revolutionising our family diet and life style. Would recommend it to anyone, with or without children.

4.  Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout) - 3 分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

5. Highly Sensitive Person : How to Thrive When The World Overwhelms You (Elaine N. Aron) - 3 分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

简评： Not everything applied but it helped to be validated and supported in a practical sense.

6. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachel Joyce) - 4分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

7. Life and Death in Shanghai (Nien Chang) - 5分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

简评：Amazing read! It feels good to be led out of the dark and to know the nitty gritty of it all. I used to ask questions regarding this particular era of China but was always met with a casual dismissive attitude. Mum used to say life was hard for everyone but that was it. That's the real fun in reading : one book later, you are in the know!

The author was a remarkable lady. I'm greatly humbled by her unyielding spirit, her intelligence and sensitivity in handling the subtleties in human contacts, and her overall optimism towards life. The story is told in such a matter of fact way with little trace of bitterness, though she must have felt it in herself. She was one of a kind.

8. Bad Science (Ben Goldacre) - 5分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

简评：There are books that bring such scrumptious pleasure, and books that change the way you think and perceive, for good. For me, pleasure is all well and good but it does fade and vanish as memory of details fail over time. But an idea, a philosophical way of perceiving life around you, stays, especially when it's new and comes as a challenge to one's old belief.

This book is one of the latter. I'm glad I read it. I'm glad that someone confirmed my long-time suspicion of all those readily available 'research findings'  that are based on seriously flawed evidence, in a systematic way. I'm glad someone has the guts and patience to lay out all those appalling tricks used in the big pharm trade to the general public so that we are in the know. I'm glad someone is finally pointing fingers at the media for the shameful ways they are misleading our culture and dumbing down the national intelligence.

I'm forever grateful for this book, and the author.

9. 洗澡 （杨绛）- 3分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

10. 洗澡之后 （杨绛）- 3分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

11. 彷徨 （鲁迅） - 4分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

简评：在一个对的年纪重读这个人。放下一切解读的声音，辟除所有迷信和崇拜。鲁迅是个灰色的人，故事有好也有不够好。有不少读来像断篇，没有结尾，嘎然而止。并不觉得是刻意而为，并不认为达到了什么深度戏剧效果。但难忘“伤逝”和子君。不论涓生是不是鲁迅，我只知道好的故事只能从本身而生。还是喜欢他的字，读的下去，可以沉静。

12. 呐喊 （鲁迅）- 3分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

13. You Are Not So Smart ( David McRaney) - 2 分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

简评： 1. I think one should be very careful before writing a book and giving it a name such as this one, unless you are pretty darn sure that everyone who might possibly buy your book will fall into all or at least most of the descriptions of "you". An author of books with names like this one obviously poses themselves as superior to the masses so they'd better prove that is the case with what they present in their book - content and delivery. Failing that, they will have to face the possible outcome of looking like a shallow , desperate, attention-seeking fool.

Does everyone fall into the his descriptions of the ignorant you ? Well I'm not sure. "Indeed, it is more likely that a professor of history will know why the Roman Empire fell and what can be learned from it... If the professor tells you how much he or she wishes the Spice Girls would reunite and play on campus, you would be committing logical fallacy if you decided you should maybe rethink your musical taste." Seriously?! Who does that? Are we all 11 years old now? What percentage of the adult population really blindly takes on everything an authority figure claims, regardless of the subject? Well I don't. And I don't consider myself smart because of that. That surely is just common sense most of us posses?

It goes on like this. Many misconceptions McRaney accuses the readers of are so irrelevant and inapplicable to me, that i think it is fair to say that this guy really didn't think his stuff through before he made it public. Is he really that smart? If not, what gives him the right to condescend his readers in such a manner? I've read and recognised humour in scientific books before, if that is humour he is attempting, well I'm lost for appropriate words.

I'm just gonna say it: I think it was pretty unwise of him to give the book this name. It paints him in a very bad light. Tune it down, and come off that high horse of his, this can be an all right compilation of pop psychology blog entries.

2. His delivery throughout the book has the same unpleasant taste.  He keeps repeating "you are not so smart". Is it necessary? What goal is he trying to achieve other than antagonising readers and securing an imaginary intellectual gap between himself and us? He keeps on about "your ancestors", but I assume that'll be his ancestors too? It looks like simple lack of sophistication and poor writing skills to me. It really does not hurt to pull the readers to your side every now and then, even if you believe you are much better than us lot. Not to mention that latter point may be very questionable.

3. The ideas he presents need serious scientific back up and detailed explanations on research methodology. There's none of those. He claims all his ideas to be the truth, but are they? Where did he get his truth from, given the fact that he doesn't appear to own any qualifications or professional experience in the field of science? Even if he did, do psychologists claim their research findings to be the absolute truth these days now? I thought science was a subject where new findings are constantly replacing old ones thus no real expert in the world of science shall claim what they know to be THE TRUTH ?

My speculation is that he reads a lot on psychology as he is a self-described psychology nerd. But forgive me for being fussy, some of us may not be happy with just words like "research has shown". There are all sorts of researches done, were they controlled and double blinded? What scale of research are we talking about here? What is the number of subjects involved? These factors greatly affect the value of the final findings.

Some people may say that I'm being awkward here - this is only meant to be a quick pop psychology read. But it's a book after all. This is no blogging. You are educating the masses. You have a responsibility to do it right. And it's important that the mass learn to think critically, especially considering this is a book about thinking. Surely among the 48 entries of misconceptions that repeat itself all too often, the author can afford to cut off the numbers of entries and spend a bit more time digging each one deeper ?

I think I'm gonna stop at page 157 as I realised I am reading everything he says with this thick glaze of doubt now. Words jump and float and make no sense to me. I may or may not return to this one.

If you want a good version of this sort of books (the ones that correct your misconceptions of things in the field of science), I recommend "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre.

14. Between The World and Me (Ta Nehisi Coates) - 3分

2017过半，阅读岌岌追赶不上

简评：Beautifully written; powerful message. But do I take it  all? Power can be dangerous, pointing two ways. I had next to zero knowledge or experience with America or it's race issue before the read, and now I feel the segregation and hatred as of my own. And I'm yellow, living in England. Is this good? If so, for what and whom?

I did realise that he wasn't just talking about America and black people. Once he moved on to his Paris experience, I was aware that his anger and hatred point to the origin and process of the entire human civilisation. This dark depressing emotion of his shadows over humanity in its entirety. There's always cities built upon bodies. There is no escape. There is always struggle, as there is always us against them.

Now, I'll have to agree, that there really won't be any escape, on our own, with no love, no God, no Grace. It'll continue to be this way, into eternity.