Haruki Murakami’s Men without Women is a series of seven short stories, each written in rather different ways, but all focused on similar stories. All talk about men and their relationship with women. The title is a bit of a misnomer in that way in that there is a female character that is featured in each of the stories. But each male character, in some way or another, is or has been without some ‘woman’ in his life. One thing that stood out to me in […]
Nothing’s More Important than Family, Right?
The Light of the Fireflies is a surprise of a book. It certainly seems like the heir apparent to Room, a book about a young boy who’s only known the life of a completely enclosed room (or set of rooms). Instead of living there only with his mother, he lives there with his family, all horrifically transfigured from a fire that forced them into their current living situation. His family comprises his strict father, his loving mother, his grandmother, his older brother, and his pregnant sister. […]
The Movie Can Be Better than the Book
I am an unabashed fan of the film The Princess Bride. The swashbuckling, romantic, revenge, pirate, adventure, fairy tale, family film was not a film I expected to like when my dad introduced it to me, but I quickly fell in love with it. It is a film that has improved upon rewatching and when sharing the film with those who haven’t seen it. Going in, I was skeptical about reading the book upon which the film was adapted. How different could the book be, and […]
What Matters Most
Maybe in Another Life follows the same concept as the Gwyneth Paltrow movie Sliding Doors. What if some event in your life happened one way instead of another? In this case, our main character Hannah Martin just moved back to Los Angeles, and will be living with her best friend Gabby and her husband. They all go out to a party and at that party Hannah runs into her ex-boyfriend Ethan. Now she faces a choice. Will she go home with Ethan and restart her relationship with […]
Between the World and Me…And Me
Between the World and Me is a tremendous book, which is why it is surprising that it took me nearly a month to write this review. Part of it is that life happens and it is difficult to keep up with everything. Other times, it is the worry that any review can never do enough justice to the book or the subject. But as I try to write it today, I realize that the book has imprinted certain feelings on me of anger and guilt. […]
What Does “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman” Have to Do with Leadership?
I found the book Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman by the eponymous Richard Feynman from a coworker. This list was on a reading list for a strategy or leadership class, which was an interesting topic. I knew of Richard Feynman, but never really knew too much about his work in physics or his personality. But I knew he was famous and was awarded the Nobel Prize. So I sought out to read this book to see what messages of leadership he had. What I got […]