The Reason I Jump

by Naoki Higashida (translated by KA Yoshida & David Mitchell)

I just finished this book today. A good short read, it was written by a 13-year old autistic kid. Very insightful into the mind of an autistic person and their struggles, conditions and aspirations. One point to note was that one will never know where the austism starts and the personality ends. What I mean is what trait is due to the individual's personality, and what is due to the condition that is autism. However, I am very much able to draw a lot of similarities between how I feel and the experiences described by the author. This is either a great testament of the author's ability to connect with the reader, or simply I am perhaps exhibiting some autistic tendencies as well. Or perhaps it is simply these emotions are commonalities for all human beings and autistic individuals are simply more sensitive and atuned to their emotions. Overall, a very good read and breaks a lot of taboos on the subject of autism.

Reads Update

I have not been updating my blog because work has been hectic and PhD. has gone a bit on the wayside lately. But here's the stuff I have read lately and some notes.

1. For One More Day by Mitch Albom - This is a nice book about appreciating life and what if we had one more day to spend with our loved one when they say their final goodbye. The themes of Albom's book are pretty much all the same. Same vein if you have read any of his other work, just as good.

2. The Associate by John Grisham - Who can write better law thrillers than Grisham? Not many. Good solid story about a lawyer caught between his conscience and an industrial espionage ploy.

3. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult – This story is about a family who have a daughter that has cancer (I think?), then the family has the idea of genetically engineering another child to be a perfect donor match for their sick child, so she could donate bone marrow and blood for the sick child to survive. This book is about their life journey, struggles, etc. The book started off well enough, but I felt the story towards the middle and especially the end was really terrible. Firstly I did not like the ending. Secondly all the subplots are very self-serving and too nicely encapsulated within themselves. Very predictable, not organic.

4. The Street Lawyer by John Grisham – Another lawyer book. This is about a lawyer who decided to trade in his high-paying corporate law job for a public interest law job for the homeless. Defending the weak and poor as it were. He decides to do this after undergoing a traumatic experience. I love Grisham books. Perhaps it is his story-telling, very straightforward and to the point.

It made me wonder how colourful and stressful lawyers’ lives are. Then I thought about my own work as an engineer. I mean both are professional jobs, but I think if there is an engineering story, it’d be like watching paint dry. If there are good engineering stories out there, I’d be all for reading those too though. I guess there would be great stories in the form of industrial espionage, the inspiration of engineering creations. Nah, there is space for nice engineering fiction, just need to find out who writes those…but for the moment, I am still very much into Grishams. So will read a few more before I move on.

Bonk

by Mary Roach
Very interesting book about sex. Sex is such a fundamental thing to humans, and to most living creatures. But there is so much taboo surrounding it, due to society's beliefs, religion etc. This also has hampered the progress made on human sex in the field of science. There is so little research done on this matter, because, well, it is awkward. Where would researchers get funding, and they get skeptical looks from their peers, as being perverts. Well, this book gathers all there is to say about the matter, about science and medicine and sheds light on the many taboo topics of sex. Like did you know, a person paralyzed can still achieve orgasm. I did not know that, so that was interesting. The book talks about mechanics of sex, and also people's reaction to matters of sex, and most interesting to me as a fellow researcher, the scientific process in sex research. Anyways, nothing too technical, easily understood by the layman, and Roach does amazingly in talking about the subject matter with such wit. Wonderful book.