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.