The White Book

Thank you, Laura, for this wonderful birthday gift! I am going to say that this is a book of poetry. That deals with suffering, and it is very good at it. I have come to appreciate poetry as a means to explore and understand our emotions. But I have also learnt to avoid dwelling on emotions that make me feel sad. Which made reading this book—despite it being quite short—somehow challenging. I had to take several breaks to clear my mind and think about other things.

  Externalising our emotions, by any means, like poetry, can help us deal with them. I believe that is what Han Kang was trying to do with this book. Perhaps she was trying to contain some painful memories, thereby allowing herself to continue living her life.
  I wish we—all the people in the world—could live happy lives. But even that has to come from a conscious decision. Which, as easy as it may sound, can actually be surprisingly difficult.

The World According to Mister Rogers

Wow, thank you Jo for the very thoughtful birthday gift! I first heard about Fred Rogers when I watched A Beautiful Day In the Neighborhood at the cinema last year with my  mother. I did not have the slightest idea what the movie was going to be about, and it turned out to be one of my favourite films of the year, if not of all time.
  This book is a compilation of quotes from Fred Rogers, which are meant to remind us of his way of thinking, of his teachings. It contains some nice thoughts, some statements I wish were true, some others whose veracity is dubious, and some that I know can be shown to be false. I still believe that Fred Rogers was an amazing person, hence I choose to believe that this book fails to capture how amazing he was.
  Instead of reading this book, I would highly recommend watching A Beautiful Day In the Neighbourhood.

To Kill a Mockingbird

I know this is a highly acclaimed book, and many  people love it. In fact, that is precisely the reason why I decided to read it. But in all honesty, I did not find it as interesting as one would expect given its reputation. It is a decidedly short book but it took me more than a month to finish reading it. Even when I was highly motivated to read, having just read two (three, I guesss, technically) very interesting non-fiction books. I think I might not enjoy reading fiction as much as I used to.
  To Kill a Mockingbird reminded me of The Hate U Give, as both books deal with the topic of racism in the United States. Except, they deal with different aspects of it, are set in different times, and are told from ethnically different perspectives. Perhaps because of those differences I am tempted to say that The Hate U Give is more relevant. However, the most endearing aspect of To Kill a Mockingbird is the innocence of Jem and Scout, and how they deal with the emotions they experience from the injustice they perceive. The story would have been very different if Jem and Scout had been born into a family that had racial prejudices. To illustrate this last point, I would recommend listening to The Daily's episode of August 22, 2017 for an insight into how the story would have been at least as interesting, yet more modern.
  My guess is that, even if To Kill a Mocckingbird is not the best book of its genre, its importance resides in increasing the number of books that make people more aware of this issue, which should not be ignored nor belittled.

Frida: The Biography of Frida Kahlo

I congratulate Hayden Herrera with much enthusiasm for the great investigative work she underwent to write this biography of Frida Kahlo. My main motivation to read this book was to understand what The New York Times called the "Fridamania" in their review of Carolyn Burke's "Frida Kahlo in 'Gringolandia'". At that time I had the perception that Fridamania was more palpable in the United States than in Mexico, just like the celebration of Cinco de mayo (Fifth of May). It should be said, though, that I left Mexico when I was eighteen years old, and I now realise that back then I was aware of far fewer things about the world. The reason I did not choose Carolyn Burke's novel is that it was published in 2020 and I wanted to read a book that was precluded from the influence of the aforementioned Fridamania. Interestingly, that same article referenced Hayden Herrera's biography of Frida Kahlo, published in 1983. Twenty nine years after Frida Kahlo's death. Compare that to Arrian's Anabasis, written more than three hundred years after the death of Alexander the Great.
  Frida Kahlo had an incredibly epic life. There is a mythological aura surrounding Frida Kahlo that tells of a woman that has persevered through so much suffering and that conquered life despite all the adversities that she endured. Hayden Herrera is here to tell you the truth behind those myths, and what she basically says is that there is much truth to them, but also lets you see that Frida Kahlo was, after all, just like all of us, just a human being. Frida Kahlo was just as immature when she was young as any of us. Frida Kahlo experienced love, pain, jealousy, anger, all emotions, just like all of us. But the extraordinary events of her life: the accident in the public transport, her marriage to Mexico's at the time most celebrated artist Diego Rivera, the never ending infidelities on his and her part, the never ending medical operations that she went through, her blatant bisexuality, her becoming a celebrated painter on her own, her relationship with the Communist party, and with figures like Leon Trotsky, Carlos Pellicer, María Félix, Jorge Negrete, Dolores Olmedo, et al., and the way that she learnt from and reacted to all those experiences, turned her into the legend that she is.
  I had been to two exhibitions of Frida Kahlo's paintings before reading this book. One being a temporary exhibition at Mexico City's Palace of Fine Arts (looking in retrospect, I do not think Frida Kahlo ever imagined that her work would ever be exhibited there), and the other at the Dolores Olmedo Museum. On both occassions I failed to understand and appreciate her work. But reading Hayden Herrera's book I finally learnt to appreciate it. And, as I was reading the book, and as I was becoming more and more a fan of her painting, I was somehow growing sadder and sadder thinking that she had not been properly appreciated in her life time. I was very happy to be proved wrong when I reached the chapter where I learnt that Frida Kahlo's funeral service was at the Palace of Fine Arts—which is generally considered as the highest honour that can be bestowed on a Mexican artist by the Mexican government. On this note, I would like to say that I find it extremely curious that at least two non-heterosexual artists have received this honour, the most recent one that I am aware of is Juan Gabriel, who died in 2016, and that the people (the Mexican people) had no visible objection to that fact. I say this knowing that in 2019 there was a huge protest outside the Palace of Fine Arts demanding that Fabián Cháirez's painting La revolución—that depicts a camp Emiliano Zapata, nude, in high heels, and wearing a pink sombrero—be removed from a temporary exhibition there, and knowing that the protest culminated in the removal of the painting.
  I think I now understand where Fridamania is coming from. Frida Kahlo was an undoubtedly extraordinary human being, and there is much to be admired of her. I totally agree with Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, when, as reported by Rolling Stone, he said he loved the boldness of the statement made by Frida Kahlo in finishing her painting Viva la vida just eight days before she died, despite having gone through so much in her life, including the amputation of her leg almost at the end of her life. It is such a bold statement, indeed.
  My highest praise goes to Frida Kahlo. And my wholehearted gratitude to Hayden Herrera for her great work.

Alexander the Great: The Anabasis and the Indica

What an extraordinarily epic book. I am stunned. This was an excellent read. Not only did I learn about Alexander the Great but through his voyage I learnt about geography—specifically of the Middle East—and things about people's perspective of Earth long ago. I would like to say that I used Oxford's University Press edition, which includes maps and notes on the text—which are immensely useful.
  I loved learning about Alexander's bisexuality, and of his relationship with Hephaestion. I loved the fact that Hephaestion was taller than Alexander. I also loved learning about the Persian Empire. At school I loved my History lessons but, understandably, there were so many things I did not learn there. So I just read Arrian's books with the same enthusiasm I had back at school. I imagine children at school in Europe being taught about Alexander the Great. I learnt about the Olmecs, the Mayans, and the Aztecs instead.
  I was also surprised to learn that since antiquity people have always had a negative opinion about immigrants. The people back then also feared having their ways and culture replaced by foreign homologues. Back then, just like nowadays, people thought their society was somehow better (more free, more civilised, more egalitarian) than those of other continents.
  Was Alexander great? Yes he was. But he was great in the most human way. He made mistakes, he had temper tantrums, he was at times extremely selfish. But he was also generous, courageous, adaptable, and most of all he faced life with full energy. He listened, and learnt from his mistakes. That is such a hard thing to do.
  I am so grateful I read this book.

La Belle Sauvage

Once again I am starting this post by thanking someone, this time my good friend Aidan for giving me this book as part of my birthday gift in 2019! He was, after all, part of the reason I read His Dark Materials, and he sometimes saw me reading it in the office.
  Whoa, well, this book was exactly what I thought it would be even before I started reading it. An expansion of the universe of the original trilogy, but that falls spectacularly short by a wide margin. If the original books could have been thought of as childrens' books, this one is undoubtedly nothing more than that. If from the beginning I was not particularly interested in Lyra's story, I was even less interested in the hollow new characters of this new novel. As I was reading this book I was reminded of some people's opinion of certain classic texts, saying that sometimes certain novels take hundreds of pages where nothing really happens. It was like that, except nothing really happened for the entirety of the book.
  If you are a kid, though, this book might be interesting to you. I would still advise kids to pursue something else, like cloud appreciation.

Why We Sleep

First of all, a huge thank you to my friend Chris for giving this book to me as my birthday present! I think part of the reason why Chris might have given me this book is that I once told him that I wake up at 4:00 a.m. to exercise, and he wanted me to know how important sleep was. For some reason I feel like I have always known, at least through folklore, that sleep is important, but I am glad to have learnt more about the scientific reasons behind this belief, and more about sleep and dreams, in general.

  Yes, I highly recommend reading this book to anyone because I do believe that having a better sleep will dramatically improve our health, and will make us have a better life, in all aspects. Of course, as very well pointed out by the author himself: "Just as describing the scientific dangers of how eating junk food leads to obesity rarely ends up with people choosing broccoli over a cookie, knowledge alone is not enough" (Walker, M. Why We Sleep. p. 329. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Penguin Books, 2018).

  Indeed changing one's habits can be incredibly difficult. Fortunately for me, I think I have been trying much more consciously to change some of my habits, and I think it has gone well so far! I would like to believe that this book has helped me improve the quality of my sleep, and I think it can help many other people too.

  Despite my favourable opinion of this book, I must say I am still a bit skeptical about some of the results of the experiments that are described in the book. The results almost always seem to adhere very closely to the author's conjectures, and I wished I could see more of the statistical analyses that were done, as currently one might think that they might be too good to be true.

His Dark Materials

A very long time ago my father gave me the first book of this trilogy, in Spanish. I remember reading the first page and dedicing that it was too boring for me. Indeed I did not read the book for many, many years; certainly more than 15 years. But then there were several independent instances through the years where I heard people expressing high praise for these books. Finally, when Aidan told me he really liked the universe of these books, I made the executive decision of buying all of them in one volume and read them.

  I am happy that I made that decision, as the narrative is entertaining and the books are well-written. Without knowing anything about Phillip Pullman, I knew just by reading the book that it had to had been written by an English author since the writing is characteristically polite and elegant. Which made the scenes of violence surprising in a way that I had not read before. And I think the writing alone is the reason I would recommend reading His Dark Materials.

  The rest of the book —the universe that Pullman created, and the storyline— is pretty much just the excuse Pullman had to show to the world how beautiful his writing is. In fact, the rest of the book is standardly simple. Though I do appreciate that the author offers young readers an introduction to the debate on right and wrong, and to humanity's fraught relationship with Christianity.

  I am left with mixed feelings. Though, I think Michael Torpey would be of the opinion that if a book makes you think about things, and makes you feel feelings, then it is probably a good book.