Over the past two days, I managed to cover more than four books – all while having the time to meet quite a number of people outside. I’m not too sure how I did it, but part of it can be traced to not turning on my computer at all ^^

But anyway, here are some of the books that I’ve read in the two days:

1. Superman Red Son: a comic book where Superman was born/found in the Soviet Union instead of the USA. Superman tries to create world peace by becoming leader of the Soviet Union, with USA being the last strongholds of capitalism (Chile too, but who gives a damn about them in a comic book). Features a Russian Batman also. Has a mind-blowing conclusion.

P.S. Can someone seriously tell me how ‘son’ and ‘sun’ are pronounced differently? When my friend told me abt Red Son, I kept thinking it was Red Sun (Red Alert + Tiberian Sun, or something). Good pun though.

The other three books had less inspiring covers. Obviously

2. Zero Degrees of Empathy by Simon Baron-Cohen: Written by a psychology professor who happens to be cousin of Borat. Argues that at the root of evil, cruelty and various personality disorders is a lack of empathy.

3.  The Tell-Tale Brain by V.S. Ramachandran: Uses a lot of brain parts terminology (think dentromedial prefrontal, anterior cingulate cortex), but fascinating. Plain fascinating – especially all the narratives of patients and their funny ailments from seeing colours in numbers to being able to recognise the face of one’s mother, yet think she’s an imposter. The book’s scope is quite big, trying to cover topics like language and art as well – but underlying it is one theme: “Is man an ape or angel?”

4. On Desire by William B. Irvine. – a book I read while still in BMT, but after two years plus, it’s worth re-reading. Covers multiple aspects of desire, from the biological element to how different groups of religions and philosophies deal with it. Found parts about the Amish way of life and the chapter on Eccentrics most interesting.

I would include the super thick commentary on the Gospel of John – but it’s a bit depressing to plow through such a thick book slowly with an end which feels so far away.

Philosophy, psychology and comic books – it almost sounds as if I’m preparing for college already.

Okay, I was joking. Maybe not the philosophy part.

****

Will I ever do book reviews? Unlikely, I’ll probably present snippets (if im ever too free in future). Because summarising an idea or copy and pasting is so much easier. Hate coming up with reviews.