Category: Reviews

The Richest Man in Babylon (2)

Seeing as it’s such a short book, it didn’t take me long to finish The Richest Man in Babylon. The very last chapter was a short history of the Babylonian kingdom. Nothing you couldn’t look up on Wikipedia in five seconds, but extremely interesting nonetheless.

I also liked the debt reduction plan Clason introduced in later chapter: devote 10% of your earnings to savings, 20% to paying back your debts and 70% to profit-making investments. Of course the nature of your debt determines whether this is feasible or not, e.g. if your house is on the verge of foreclosure I’m not sure the bank would go along with this plan. But for someone with a reasonable amount of debt, it’s a feasible method that should pay off in the long-term.

The Richest Man in Babylon (1) book review

I’ve made it my goal recently to read a few self-improvement books every month. Today I picked up an old copy of The Richest Man in Babylon lying around the house and dug in. It’s very short, less than 150 pages, and packed with common sense advice. On one hand this is all stuff any finance-savvy person would know, seeing as the ideas in it appear in just about every wealth-making book to date. On the other hand, this book was published in 1926, so it’s likely they all copied The Richest Man in Babylon.

I’m only about halfway in so far, so this is just the first part of the review. The writing style is interesting, if archaic, and all the ideas are simply and lucidly presented. The major ones: save 10% of your income, invest only in sound opportunities, only take financial (and other) advice from people in the know, own your own home (easier said than done) and improve yourself so you can earn more. All sound, solid advice. So far, so good.

Polyglot: How I learn languages book review

I spent two days last week reading Polyglot: How I Learn Languages by Kato Lomb, a Hungarian interpreter who at her peak could interpret 16 different languages. It was…disappointing, but encouraging. Encouraging because it made me feel that it’s possible to learn that many, possibly not all to the same level of proficiency but well-enough to enjoy the culture and literature of other countries. Encouraging also because most of her language learning started as an adult, which is great for those of us who missed the so-called “magic age” of learning.

But it was disappointing because despite the title, the book was pretty skimpy on the details of how and when and where she did it. She gave a vague hypothetical example of how she would go about learning a language: buy a dictionary, buy a book, listen to news, read newspapers, etc, but I would have been happier if she had delved into a particular language more showing her method at work. She mentioned learning Russian by studying a book with a dictionary and figuring out the grammar rules…how? How did she do this? She also mentioned a writer who learning English by reading a poem by Shakespeare…how? How did he do this? Step by step, what, then what, then what…

It was very light on the details. It’s always like “I decided to learn Chinese, so I bought a book” Two or three lines later “So when I was translating Chinese to this group of tourists…” There’s a world of information missing in there. What did you buy first, how did you study the hanzi, how long did it take you, how much time did you spend on it, what did you listen to, what did you read…gahhh. It was frustrating.

Her anecdotes were fairly interesting though, and I felt quite pepped up after reading it, so I guess it was worth the time – and breaking my All Japanese All The Time for that. I broke it some more by listening to French radio yesternight, just to prove I’ve still got it. I might take it back by reading the book’s reviews on online in Japanese or something. Anyway, that’s all for today!

Sekai no Chuushin de Ai wo Sakebu book… review?

I’ve been too lazy to post anything, but rest assured I’m still working as hard as ever. Right now I’m reading a Japanese novel, Sekai no Chuushin de Ai wo Sakebu (translated into English as “Socrates In Love“) There was a big fuss over it 2 or 3 years ago so I finally got around to checking it out only to find out it can be summed up as “BAWWW, MY GIRLFRIEND DIED, BAWW!” And she died before he could pork her too, that’s his real beef, I bet. I’m not done yet, about 4/5 in there. It was fun going at first but then the hospital descriptions started to turn me off. I don’t know whether to be flattered or sad that I understand Japanese well enough to be creeped out by Aki’s illness but in any case I’m kinda forcing myself to go through it now. I have to stop myself from giving in and just reading a summary on J-wiki.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to for the past week. When I’m done with it, I have some other books I might work on as well. One of them is about Yoshiki. Hmmm… Surprisingly enough, pulling out Japanese books in the bus or car doesn’t attract much attention from the other passengers, which I’m grateful for. Guess I’ll get on with it, then.

Ponyo on the Cliff

I had a bit of time on my hands over the weeked, so I finally got round to watching that cam of Ponyo on the Cliff I uh, obtained a while ago. As expected, someone in the cinema got up and walked across the screen halfway through the show (I think it’s obligatory, really), but apart from that it was an excellent-quality cam.

The movie itself was okay. Very childish, but I’m obviously not the intended audience. My adult brain wouldn’t stop screaming at me that while it was very pretty to see a whale swimming across a road, a tsunami huge enough to turn a cliff into an island would be extremely disastrous and would result in an extremely large amount of extremely dead people. Not to mention all the stranded, dead and rotten fish in people’s houses once the waters finally receded. And just think about all the destroyed goods and boats and personal effects and books and money and clothes. They’d better have been insured or they’re in for a world of financial hurt.

Still, even if I was the intended audience, I don’t think this is one movie I would watch more than once. Growing up, the favorite movies in my house were those with lots of tension and nail-biting moments in them. Disney’s Aladdin was one of those. And Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which we watched until the tape tore, then patched together with sellotape and kept on watching. Ponyo on the Cliff has very lovely animation and stirring music (Wagner called, he wants his royalties), but there’s never any doubt that everything was going to come right in the end. You can tell by the way the characters take the time to chow down on ramen and ham then snuggle down on the couch while the world goes to hell around them.

Did it help my Japanese ability any? Not really. The script was written for 5-year-old kids = very easy to understand. And the art and actions are expressive enough that they needed even have bothered with any dialogue at all. It was fun though, definitely worth at least one watch. Next on my to-watch list is Laputa: Castle in the Sky. And that’s all for today.