January 2022 Books Reading Summary

In order to encourage my reading habit, I will summarize a short review of reading each month. Below is my reading summary for January’ 22

Animal Farm (George Orwell)

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I’ve known this book for a long time because peeps usually relate its story to the current situation in my country, so I decided to give it a try. And what came out really good, I felt like I was reading a history book, it’s not only related to communist countries but also all the countries that have ruling class exist. I realized how I myself and other poor working-class people are related to the character Boxer, being fooled like sheep and working like the horse for the wealth of the tyrant.

“I will work harder!”

I think we should definitely teach this book in school.

The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde)

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I was reading this book because I know Oscar Wilde through his book “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, and the title of this book is kinda funny. It’s a short play, I read it in only 1 or 2 hours but the story is very hilarious. It’s all about a drama of 2 guys loving 2 girls and fooling around with the name Earnest, the story is like 2 ropes twisted to each other.
I think we can more easily see the value of this play when we put into account the social norm in 1895 when the book was first published.

“Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.”

“Girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right…it is a great truth.”

Ps: someday, I want to write a story that has name “The importance of being honest”

The Stranger (Albert Camus)

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Well, it’s a philosophical book and gave me a lot of thought. Existentialism, absurdism, bla bla, what is matter? in the end, we only want to be happy and truly know that we are happy. But sometimes we can not explain ourselves, we don’t know the point, and society usually doesn’t give a fuck about that. I still sleeping on this book, maybe I will write an insightful blog about this book once I get it through.

“All my time is spent in watching the slowly changing colors of the sky, as day moves on to night. I put my hands behind my head, gaze up, and wait.”

“But,” I reminded myself, “it’s common knowledge that life isn’t worth living, anyhow.”

Ps. I love how Albert Camus described scenes and things

The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)

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This book had sat on my to-read list for like 5 or 6 years :)) and I wish I have read it in my teenage time. It told a story about 2 groups of youthful boys who lived in 2 different social classes through the eyes of a sensitive, smart boy. I think the main idea in this book is the goodness inside each people regardless of their social status or other shit. The story is kinda soft and sometimes heartbroken (maybe because the author is female?)

“Rat race is a perfect name for it,” she said. “We’re always going and going and going, and never asking where. Did you ever hear of having more than you wanted? So that you couldn’t want anything else and then started looking for something else to want? It seems like we’re always searching for something to satisfy us, and never finding it. Maybe if we could lose our cool. we could.”

“Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren’t so different. We saw the same sunset.” Ps. I especially like the quote about sunset, because I was watching the sunset over my hometown’s mountain a lot when I was a boy, it gave me some sort of chill. I still like doing it nowadays.