In recent years I developed a new hobby: buying books. It is irresistible, the idea of what knowledge I could acquire from the next book; what path it could unfold for me. It might not be an obvious candidate when talking about costly hobbies, but the money, and more importantly, space it takes in my humble household can not be overlooked. To justify such rather expensive hobby, I started reading more books.
The title of books without English version published are translated by me.
Harry Potter
J. K. Rowling, 1997-2007
Probably read from Goblet of Fire to Deathly Hallows in this year–the exact volumes has faded in memory, as I started casually reading them in late 2024. My war against low quality stimulation a.k.a. social media has been ongoing for a couple of years; my remedy is books. That being said, reading in English–the language I prefer for all my read, but not my native tongue–is consuming sometimes. The countermeasure, I figured, is to read something I had once read in Chinese for reduced mental cost. Harry Potter was the number one entry for such comfort reading, my vanguard for this crusade.
The plot was okay. I liked Narcissa Marfoy’s subtle betrayal at the end: another proof that Vordemort was beaten by love, the thing he did not understand until the very end.
Still sad that it didn’t work out for Harry and Cho. Their relationship was far more organic than Ginny, including the breaking up. The development toward Harry and Ginny felt extremely forced the moment Half-Blood Prince started. It felt like Harry, or rather, Rowling, suddenly decided to progress on Ginny’s romance side quest after Cho.
Superagency
Reid Hoffman, Greg Beato, 2025
The AI hype has been here for a while, I decided to see what the optimistic ones are saying. The car regulation metaphor almost convinced me if not for the obvious counterpoint: cars do not drive themselves–well, not safely yet.
A Philosophy of Software Design, 2nd Edition
John Ousterhout, 2021
This book was mentioned in every computer science book recommendation thread on Hacker News, and it turned out to be the best programming book I’ve ever read. The advices were easy to digest and apply yet game changing. My favorite one was that module interface should be narrow and abstraction should be deep. This advices alone solves more than half of my system design issues. Others such as “define errors out of existence” and “different layers, different abstraction” were good too. The advices regarding comments, however, do not match what I believe: do not write comments when unnecessary. That is, structure the code so that they function as comments as well. I found this conflict of opinions valuable nonetheless, as it’s an opportunity to think about different perspectives from whom I respect.
Web配信の技術 (Technologies Behind Web Distribution)
田中祥平, 2021
I expected a more abstract overview on technologies such as CDN, cache, etc. While it did elaborate on them, this book was a lot drier than my expectation, with many configuration details that I do not need now. At least when the day comes that I have to optimize cache I know where to look.
American Gods
Neil Gaiman, 2005
Another comfort reading. The Mike Ainsel part was entertaining. I did some research on the TV adaptation and found out that it was basically fan fiction. Liked the novel way more.
Nexus
Yuval Noah Harari, 2024
Read in a week, which with its over 400 pages volume, marks it my most intense read of the year. The negative side of the AI hype. It was not easy to keep being optimistic after, as the totalitarians are acquiring the most powerful surveillance tool in human history before our eyes.
The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition
David Thomas, Andrew Hunt, 2019
As the title suggests, this book focused on the “programmer” part rather than software design only, therefore there were advices about being a programmer in an organization. Wasn't too impressed.
The Writer’s Journey, 25th Anniversary Edition
Christopher Vogler, 2020
Read in Traditional Chinese. One day a novel idea popped into my head and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Last time I was excited about my novel idea was probably fifteen years ago. Like any topic I’m interested in–I did some research first. I’ve heard the hero’s journey framework for years, this book marks the first time I systematically study storytelling. Book was fun and informative. I watched The Wizard of Oz later because this book kept referring it as a classic of a story of hero’s journey. It was good.
A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages
Anthony Bale, 2023
Bought this one in London during my honeymoon in 2024, finally got enough motivation to finish it. Middle ages–the origin of the fantasy of sword and magic–is fascinating to me, despite not know much about it. I hoped this book will enlighten me, and it sure did. The tales of travelers were so detailed it was almost boring, but at the same time brought me an immersive medieval world. I was surprised that human civilization didn’t really change after centuries; back in then popular pilgrimage sites were already crowded with people chasing lucrative opportunities along the traffic, using tricks moral or not. The frequency and intensity of medieval travels also exceeded my imagination; some travels between Europe and India several times, some set foot on Ethiopia for tales of a golden realm. While the mundane ordeals of past travelers do not inspire the fantasy of princess and dragon, I expect this enriching knowledge of medieval times to be valuable. I remember reading this book for the first time in the hotel near Trafalgar Square, and every time I read it again, I sense a mirage of that feeling. For that reason alone this book is special in my mind.
Babel
R. F. Kuang, 2023
A novel of Chinese immigrant, by Chinese immigrant, and to some extent, for Chinese immigrant. Being a native Mandarin speaker living in foreign land, formerly a translator, while I do not agree to everything written in the book, I found myself in a great position to appreciate it. British Empire did do some terrible things. But I also see that, if one ignores their conscience, the lavish Oxford life, being surrounded by books and languages, sounds like a dream.
Back to the novel idea mentioned above, it was about immigrants, class, and language (for the record, I came up with this concept before I read Babel.) I hoped to gain insight on how fellow with similar idea–forgive my arrogance–would handle this topic. My reflection was–let’s just say I decided to let it brew for a couple of years more.
小児科医のぼくが伝えたい 最高の子育て (A Pediatrician's Parenting Advices)
高橋孝雄, 2023
I started a parenting book reading spree in November because, I welcomed a baby girl. My goal is to have a grasp of all parenting-related topics and disciplines, including infant development, sleeping, upbringing, education, parent psychology, etc. With the assistance of LLM, this is the best time to learn a completely new topic.
My takeaway from this book was that, child's talent is mostly decided by parents, therefore forcing child to do or learn something the parents weren't capable of is counterproductive as well as stressful. Too much unnecessary anecdotes and too few information in the book.
はじめてママ&パパのしつけと育脳 (Infant Upbringing and Brain Development for New Parents)
成田奈緒子, 2017
Very dense and informative. Covered from newborn to four years old so there were information I do not need right now but helpful nonetheless. Recommended.
初めての育児新百科 (Parenting Encyclopedia for New Parents)
ひよこクラブ編集部, 2020
Bought as a second opinion against the previous one. Structure-wise they were similar. Good to have at least one. Recommended.
子育てがラクになるノウハウを集めた育児パック (Life Hacks and Know-hows for Parenting)
ヨッピー, 2024
Shallow. Not recommended.
赤ちゃんにもママにも優しい安眠ガイド (Infant Sleep Guide)
清水悦子, 2011
Her sleep time is, as a newborn, very scattered, thus my priority task is sleep training. I read four books regarding infant sleep including this one, turned out everybody's more or less advocating for the same practice, which means, I reckon, that the methods mentioned are inspected by multiple parties, and have some level of credibility. She is not there yet in terms of brain development required for sleep training, so there are still weeks to consider before I can start apply them.
The Historian
Elizabeth Kostova, 2005
My final comfort reading of the year. Had too much time to kill during my babysitting night shift. The suspense was well built in the early part, but deep into the story the identical tone for all the narrators and cartoon-like one-dimensional villains got old. Looking on the bright side, I now know many Vlad Dracula’s trivia, and I really want to visit Istanbul.