Excerpts from the book of Leo Tolstoy The dead man lay, as dead men always lie, in a specially heavy way, his rigid limbs sunk in the soft cushions of the coffin, with the head forever bowed on the pillow. Very soon, within a year of his wedding, Ivan Ilych had realized that marriage, though it …
Categorie: reads
South of the Border, West of the Sun
Excerpts from the book of Haruki Murakami I detested the term only child. Every time I heard it I felt something was missing from me—like I wasn’t quite a complete human being. The phrase only child stood there, pointing an accusatory finger at me. “Something’s not quite all there, pal,” it told me In the world …
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Excerpts from the book of Philip K. Dick Was the movie made in the Philippines?” “Why?” “Because,” Luba Luft said, “they used to cat boiled dog stuffed with rice in the Philippines. I remember reading that.” What ever happened in the Philippines except the Bataan Death March, and would you want to watch that?” But when …
Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us
Excerpts from the book of James Kerr Successful leaders balance pride with humility: absolute pride in performance; total humility before the magnitude of the task. The challenge is to always improve, to always get better, even when you are the best. Especially when you are the best. Never be too big to do the small things …
The Nickel Boys
Excerpts from the book of Colson Whitehead Elwood was twelve when the encyclopedias appeared. One of the busboys dragged a stack of boxes into the kitchen and called for a powwow. Elwood squeezed in—it was a set of encyclopedias that a traveling salesman had left behind in one of the rooms upstairs. Elwood made his bid. …
Born A Crime
Excerpts from the book of Trevor Noah The genius of apartheid was convincing people who were the overwhelming majority to turn on each other. Like indigenous peoples around the world, black South Africans adopted the religion of our colonizers. By “adopt” I mean it was forced on us. The white man was quite stern with the …
What’s Our Problem
Excerpts from the book of Tim Urban As the times get better, they also get more dangerous When we learn a technology lesson, we tend not to forget it. But wisdom lessons don’t always seem to stick. Unlike technological growth, wisdom seems to oscillate up and down, leading societies to repeat age-old mistakes. Why do we …
Sapiens
Excerpts from the book of Yuval Noah Harari That spectacular leap from the middle to the top had enormous consequences. Other animals at the top of the pyramid, such as lions and sharks, evolved into that position very gradually, over millions of years. This enabled the ecosystem to develop checks and balances that prevent lions and …
Crying in H Mart
Excerpts from the book of Michelle Zauner Left with her in the woods, I was overwhelmed by her time and attention, a devotion that I learned could both be an auspicious privilege and have smothering consequences. My mother was a homemaker. Making a home had been her livelihood since I was born, and while she was …
Escape into Meaning
Excerpts from the book of Evan Puschak Reading Emerson was like watching magic. Somehow he was able to retrieve the cloudy, half-formed thoughts in my mind and write them down with astonishing eloquence—a century and a half before I was born! This is the magic of articulation, of putting things exactly right, and it’s been the …