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n_o_b_o's Reviews (8)

As a Man Thinketh

hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

it's worth it, if you want a short answer to whether you should or shouldn't get it, i'd say definitely get it. for such a short read it's quite informative, not a life changing book, but definitely an eye opening one.

quote from marcus aurelius: "the happiness of your life, depends upon the quality of your thoughts" the whole book felt like what if this quote was a 25pages long book, with reasoning, examples and more insight to it.

i think james allen's trying to say that, well, we are the masters of our minds, our happiness comes from within our mind, therefor, whenever we found ourselves in an unhappy situation, an unhappy state, overall an unpreferable condition, it comes back to us, because, as he said, we are the masters of our minds, we have it in our control, to think positively, to grow, to adapt, to aspire, and to change.

he's trying to say that our actions arise from our thoughts (mostly unconscious ones) and our actions shape our condition, so we shouldn't be blaming other reasons like fortune, chance or luck for our situation, because it always comes back to us, and we always have the power to change it. it reminds me of epictetus' story, he's one of the faces of the stoic school of philosophy, however before he became a philosopher, he was a slave, he was born as one, in fact the word epictetus means "acquired" in greek if i remember correctly. but he stated on his situation that he was free in mind even though he was a bound slave physically, because no one but himself is the master of his mind.

james allen's is not trying to say that things like luck doesn't exist, no one knows what's gonna happen to them tomorrow. we don't have control over a lot of things that happen to us. what he's trying to say is that, chance, is not defining, whoever has achieved something great, didn't get it by chance, and they who have achieved something by chance, won't be holding it for long.

overall it's a worthy read, and it's pretty short too, definitely give it a go.

White Fang

Jack London

DID NOT FINISH: 36%

It's a really good novel, no doubt in it. The only reason why i gave it up is that it didn't suit my taste at all. The copy i have is around 400 pages, i read through roughly 1/4 of it before deciding it wasn't for me. Overall i don't enjoy the wild adventurous type of stories whether it's a movie or a game or a book, but if you do enjoy them, then by all means, read white fang.

The Meek One

Fyodor Dostoevsky

sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Reading this short novel reminded me why i love dostoevsky so much. this is the story of a couple who couldn't get along with eachother, who couldn't turn off their pride, who didn't appreciate eachother untill their time with eachother turned into memories and now all that remains for them is regret.

Definitely worth your time. Just know that the fact that it's short doesnt mean it has a fast pacing, actually pretty much nothing happens, the whole book is just the main chatacter explaining things.

Kafka on the Shore

Haruki Murakami

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Well kafka on the shore was quite a ride, if you want to know wether you should read it or not, rest assured, it's definitely worth your time.

Im quite certain that i didnt grasp a lot of things the author tried to say through this book but the things i did grasp were meaningful, plus the overall narrative and story is really interesting. Finding who you really are, believing that everything happens for a reason, letting go of the past while appreciating your memories of it.

One issue i have with it though (which is the reason why i dont regard kafka on the shore as highly as something like the brothers karamazov) is the sheer amount of sexual themes in it, they hindered a lot of my overall enjoyment out of the book. I dont wanna spoil you but when you read it and put those sexual scenes in context it gets much worse. I get it, the author uses them as a drive for the characters, a prophecy (you'll get what i mean by prophecy when you read the book) a motive. But why sex out of all things in the world, its very off putting at first and it only gets worse, i've seen people say that these scenes being off putting are intended to be off putting, but why? How does this help the story? Maybe there's something i don't see, something that i'll realise when i re read it later. But as of now, these scenes are just disturbing.

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Here we have Okonkwo, a man unopen to change. A man that identifies masculanity as having a cold, rocky heart. A man who beats his sons because he dosent want them to be weak. A man whose life is torn apart because he wasnt accepting change, because he had prejudice on his beliefs.

Okonkwo's story is to be learned from. The main lesson i took from this book is that sometimes its pointless to resist change because fearing change will lead to one's own demise. This book had many more points to make but in my opinion this was the main one.

Aside from these, this book is very informative on nigerian folklore and triditions as well which is something i really appreciate it for, it gives a good glimpse on how people used to live on that region of africa.

Now you might be wondering why i didn't i give this book a rating, if it is this good ?. Thats only because im not a critic when it comes to books so i cant give it a fair judgement in scoring, all i can do is to give my opinion on it. Would i recommend this book to anyone ? Definitely, its not a must, but it is pretty good book nonetheless.