Rabbit, Run - John Updike

Rabbit, Run is a dark and tightly controlled story about a washed-up basketball star, Rabbit, and his destructive yet sympathetic urge to find something better than mediocrity in his middle age. A powerfully human tale in compelling prose about disappointment and yearning, and the painful disparity between youth's bright dreams and pathetic, sordid reality. The kind of story that makes ones own domestic life seem heavenly.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

This book by Haruki Murakami was highly recommended by Lauren and was completely absorbing and very rich.  Simple writing, but compelling – parts were very funny, or horrifying, or terribly sad, or sexually stimulating, or thought-provoking.  The simplicity of the writing seemed to imply or even emphasize the normalcy of life – but this was strongly contradicted by the strangeness of some of the characters, the mysterious relationships between different plot lines, the magical nature of many key events, and some deeply embedded philosophical issues.

I was captivated by the book, but found it hard to “understand”.  For example, take the title – the wind-up bird is something that the protagonist, Toru Okada, hears, but never sees – a “bird” apparently, that lives somewhere in the trees near his home, and often makes a strange call or noise that sounds like a mechanical wind-up bird.  Mr. Okada frequently comments that the bird winds up, or starts, the day, so the world can go on.  But the bird is sometimes described not as an actual flesh-and-blood animal but like a strictly mechanical contrivance that has no emotions, no goals, no remorse.  And, importantly, but mysteriously, Mr. Okada’s neighbor begins referring to him as Mr. Wind-Up Bird – and this nickname seems a little edgy… that he is a bit of a character and a little mechanical himself.  And, indeed, Mr. Okada is extremely emotionless and seems rather passive, yet eventually turns out to have extraordinary powers – powers that seem really to wind-up or change the world.  So, does the wind-up bird represent “fate” versus “free will”?

Very captivating and very thought-provoking…..and perhaps, like Shakespeare, doesn’t provide clear answers or conclusions!  

Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely

Predictably Irrational is a selection of short essays on the ways in which people are influenced by context and cognitive shortcuts (heuristics) to repeatedly make suboptimal choices. This field of economics, called behavioral economics, appears to be just catching up to what cognitive psychologists have been studying for decades. It was nonetheless an interesting book written in an engaging, chatty tone, and cited various studies by Ariely which provide new examples of these "predictably irrational" behaviors from an economic standpoint.

The World Jones Made

Recently read The World Jones Made by Philip K. Dick. This novel is set in 2002 on a post-apocalyptic earth that has been nearly destroyed by radiation and is filled with bizarre and disturbing mutants. The populace is ruled by a Federal World Government, aka Fedgov, and has been bullied into adopting Relativism, a philosophy that has led to the legalization of hard drugs and public acts of perversion. The plot revolves around the messianic fervor aroused by the titular character, Jones, and explores the issues of liberty and free will.