Archive for the category Books

A Wild Sheep Chase

Por kirai el 18 de August de 2008 en Books

“A Wild Sheep Chase” is the last novel from Haruki Murakami I’ve read. It is also the last one I had to read to finish reading all his novels in English, the next challenge is to read all of them one more time but in Japanese. Some of the conversations in this novel reminded me [...]

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Free books

Por kirai el 01 de July de 2008 en Books

These shelves with books can be found in some (very few) train stations in Tokyo. You are supposed to take a book, read it and return it. Nobody registers who takes which book. In the Spanish version of this post some people talk about how this system was introduced in some stations in Spain but [...]

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The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Por kirai el 08 de April de 2008 en Books, Traditional

My mother recommended me a novel called The Temple of the Golden Pavilion written by Yukio Mishima. The main character is a buddhist monk who is obsessed with the beauty of the Golden Pavilion(Kinkaku-ji - 金閣寺), he is so obsessed that the image of the temple starts to appear in his mind when having sexual [...]

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The art of happiness

Por kirai el 15 de November de 2007 en Books

Just finished reading “The art of happiness” , a book I bought after reading Joi’s post about it. It’s a book written by psychiatrist( Howard C.Cutler) and Dalai Lama. I liked it a lot because it’s not only talking about happiness but also about ethics and how to live in harmony within this world. It’s [...]

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Inside a mirror and Rampo Edogawa

Por kirai el 18 de October de 2007 en Books

Rampo Edogawa was a Japanese writer who liked to write mystery novels. He admired Edgar Allan Poe so much that he changed his real name “Hirai Taro” for “Rampo Edogawa”. “Rampo Edogawa” is the Japanese pronunciation for “Edgar Allan Poe”. If you have never read any of his books I recommend you this book [...]

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Musashi Miyamoto

Por kirai el 11 de October de 2007 en Books

Miyamoto Musashi (1584? - 1645), is one of the most well know samurai ever. We already known him from Heroes, but let’s see more in detail who he was.
He started his “career” as a samurai when he fought at Sekigahara’s Battle, one of the most important battles in Japanese history. Miyamoto’s people lost the [...]

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The lexus and the olive tree

Por kirai el 26 de July de 2007 en Books

Just finished reading The lexus and the olive tree from Thomas L.Friedman that Fer-martin recommend me. It’s a book about “understanding globalization”, talking about the dynamics and interaction of finance, technology, society and geopolitics in our world. But what I felt while reading it is that I was reading the 90s decade history. I understood [...]

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Building scalable web sites

Por kirai el 28 de February de 2007 en Books

“Building Scalable Websites” is one of those tech books that is really hot around Silicon Valley. It’s a book that every web developer working with big sites should have in his desktop.
While working at Technorati Japan I learned that is much much much difficult and expensive to develop a web application that is used by [...]

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Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Por kirai el 26 de January de 2007 en Books

“Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” is the last book I read from Haruki Murakami, my favorite writer. “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” its a compilation of short histories that he wrote since 1980 till nowadays. Reading this book you’ll get a sense of Haruki’s trajectory and style changes through time. Some of the short histories included in [...]

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