Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

This novel begins as the diary of a gentleman’s adventure on a 19th-century pacific island. It’s all quite eventful until it stops, right in the middle of Continue reading
Losing Ourselves – Jay Garfield

This is an exploration of the Buddhist concept of no-self: we don’t exist as a distinct self with an unchanging identity. Instead, we are just the sum of the various thoughts, feelings, emotions and so on that are associated with … Continue reading
The Summer Book – Tove Jansson

This wise and wistful book narrates many episodes in the life of an old woman living with her young granddaughter Sophia on a remote Finnish island. The relationship between the two is sweet, yet unsentimental. Sophia’s father lives with them … Continue reading
How To Live. What To Do. — Josh Cohen

A diverting combination of self-help book, literary discussion and psychoanalysis primer. The premise is a bit twee: throughout the books are case notes of famous fictional characters, as if they had gone in for psychoanalysis. These case notes cover a … Continue reading
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Definitely Maybe – Arkady & Boris Strugatsky

Malianov, an astrophysicist, keeps getting distracted as he is working towards a breakthrough in his current project. He receives mysterious visitors, and his scientist friends are behaving very strangely. Slowly, disturbing signs emerge that there is some sort of conspiracy … Continue reading
How To Make Mistakes On Purpose – Laurie Rosenwald

This title pretty much says it all: sometimes making mistakes can be just what you need. This book is fun to read, with a somewhat chaotic layout and style. The overall message is of course that you shouldn’t just always … Continue reading
Noise – Kahneman, Sibony & Sunstein

Human judgement is not infallible – no matter how unbiased we are, our judgement will be affected by unrelated thoughts, whether we are tired or hungry, and a hundred other things. This is “noise”. This book catalogues the different kinds … Continue reading