Enculturation and Minds: The Evolution of Consciousness in Individuals and in The Human Species

Book #6: A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness by Merlin Donald. I started reading this book a long time ago, when it was sent to me in a box of books by my good friends in Austin. I started, and stopped, and then started again, and then stopped again. I think the last time I was working my way through it was last spring, because I found, between two stray pages, a four-leafed clover that Lime picked and gave to me one afternoon at that time. How I wished I’d not set the book aside, but instead …

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Lunar New Year Book #5: North Korea: Through The Looking Glass

Book #5: North Korea: Through The Looking Glass (by Kongdan Oh and Ralph Hassig) is only slightly dated, having been published in 2000. I really valued this book for the glimpse it gave me into North Korea. Unlike a lot of texts that seem to focus on the political-economic history—the kind of “master narrative” that doesn’t much describe daily life for the majority of real people except in very abstract terms—this book excavates a lot of things from the testimonies of North Korean defectors (I think of them more as refugees from a hellish unreality) as well as piles of …

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A Lunar Year Of Books

As I posted recently, I have decided that, this lunar year, I will take up the 50-book challenge, but I am taking it up as of Seolnal, the Korean New Year (which is the same as the more famous Chinese-New-Year). I was just too busy writing when the western New Year rolled around to start in on this, but Seolnal’s a good enough marker in time for such a challenge. So here I am, starting with 4 books. Book #1: Graham Greene’s The Comedians. This novel is a brilliant work of art. It’s a story set in Haiti in the …

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