Freakonomics

Freakonomics was an amazing book for several reasons. Firstly, it fit the qualification of an interesting non-ficition book. Second, I actually enjoyed reading it. And lastly, it seemed to fit with the theme I have been hearing from all my teachers--to be a critical, independent thinker, and not accept conventional wisdom. Freakonomics did not discuss boring textbook economics, but topics of interest to everyday people, or in some cases just interesting (maybe even random) topics. But it also taught me to experiment even with the most doubtful or a crazy theory as long as there is evidence. Some questions that I have started to develop on my own recently like "how much does a certain upbringing affect the child?" were discussed in the book. I avoid the words "answered in the book" because although the authors wrote about their vague theories, they more just hinted about them through a series of questions. They mostly tried not to outright announce them. So it was entertaining that I had to think while reading the book. There was also the writing style, which although it was not dumbed down or anything, it was a more causal way of writing, which included the occasional joke now and then. So hopefully whenever I am forced to read non-fiction again I can find a book similar to this to read, and it might not be so torturous after all.

Born on a Blue Day

I dislike non-fiction very much, but when I pick up a non-fiction memoir with such an inspiring story as this, then the book is honestly not that bad. I think the only down side of this book was the bland writing style, but it can be overlooked. While I was reading, I found it interesting that the people society shuns because of their lack of social skills are usually the most amazing type of people. Daniel Tammet is just one example. But I think what is more amazing is the success Daniel has had in his social skills and leading a relatively normal life as in moving out of his parent’s house. But I think a lot of these successes come from not only effort on Daniel’s part but the effort, support, and care of his family. For example, in one chapter Daniel talks about how all of his brother and sisters would play games Daniel invented just to spend time with him. I also found that normal things that constitute becoming independent, like moving two hours away to a college, are petty compared to what Daniel did to become more independent—he moved to a foreign country all by himself. He has to work ten times harder than the rest of us to obtain things we take for granted like friends, a job, and independence. But the book does not contain any self pity really. He just states the facts and tells how he learned to deal with his problems. Probably that is what amazed me the most because we complain about the smallest things and he accepts problems much worse than our everyday ones.

Collection of Plays from Oscar Wilde

From this collection, I read The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, The Ideal Husband, and Salome. A common and obvious theme of gender roles appears quite a lot in all five of the plays. This leads me to believe that in many others of Wilde’s plays he mentions women’s role in society also. What surprised me was the progressiveness aspect of the ideas. I had the impression that many of the ideas are really revolutionary for Wilde’s time period. Ideas such as a woman’s ability to make decisions for herself and woman’s importance to the society were hinted at throughout. I could not help but notice that Wilde included characters that represented the portion of society that thinks more traditionally of women. Most of the time, the characters were elderly women who favored the old traditions. My favorite play out of the five was The Importance of Being Earnest. I think this is because the play was the most light-hearted, humorous, and enjoyable by far. It has one of the common plots where a series of entertaining misunderstanding create a huge mess, but a big scene resolves everything in the end, pleasing everyone. I now realize that all the present day books and films that follow this pattern could be based on this specific play, or something even earlier than Wilde. My least favorite was Salome. Maybe it was the length that prevented me from connecting with the characters or pulling me into the plot, I just did not enjoy it as much. But overall, I am glad I had a chance to explore the famous Oscar Wilde’s works.