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The introduction by Margaret Atwood was very useful and ease my reading into the first chapter.

I could only finish chapter 1 so far. I don’t find it as intriguing as other books. Maybe I feel it’s a little lacking in character building and natural flow.

Finished chapter 1 - I like how the omniprescient voice is kinda like telling what Therese is thinking and doing. Careful characterizations and stories - better than boring beach reads.

Characters are flat AND use language not distinguishable from each other. The way they talk is almost too similar despite differences in age and social backgrounds such as the ghost’s talking like a modern character! I’m not sure if I should persevere and read on 😱😱

Listening to summary: great insights: anxiety and worrying are actually addictive brain pathways

Pretty interesting introduction to pleasure & anhedonia, anxiety, addiction neuroscience so far

Very intriguing. His ups and downs tales, often laden with drug abuse, have so many interesting characters, restaurant mobs, owners, etc. Insights. I love his reference to classic cookbooks & chefs (mostly French influenced). I briefly read a few of these books at a glance. The experience is very eye opening and enlightening.

Wow! Love all the illustrated photos for techniques! I love it so much that I decided to buy the physical book to practice! It’s like a cooking school packed in a book. I found this book via recommendation from Anthony Bourdain on how to use a knife correctly! I just wanna be efficient and do my cooking well!

Understanding the circumstances behind a person = why the person behaves that way

Amazing tips on how to stock your kitchen from food to supplies. Wish I had read this before stocking mine. I always had fondness for spice stuff but after reading this, I’d tend to my herb garden & make my own stock broth more.

Interesting Fascinating look into French, Cape cod tales of the young Anthony Bourdain! His mischievous & sensualist personalities shine through

I’ve become more and more interested in American politics history recently. It’s quite interesting to hear about stories of segregation and how an African American girl grew up to be one of the most important politician in the recent years through her own story telling. At Chapter 14 now with stories about movement against Vietnam war & JFK & MLK (Mad Men tv show time period)!

Somewhat gruesome for children’s literature. Didn’t expect it. The author, though, has a talent in telling it as if it’s written by a child of that age (middle school age). Came across this author due to recent news and learned that she inspired an entire sub-genre. Wonder if the Netflix show 13 things was inspired after this genre.

This subject – ‘dying of grief’ – is discussed with great penetration in Chapter 2 (‘The Broken Heart’) of C. M. Parkes’s book Bereavement.

Such studies and similar observations upon the very young, the very old, the very ill, and the regressed, indicate that human care is literally vital, and that if it is deficient or absent we perish, the more quickly and surely the more vulnerable we are; and that death, in such contexts, is first and foremost an existential death, a dying-away of the will-to-live – and that this paves the way for physical death.

Spitz has provided unforgettable descriptions of the effects of human deprivation on orphaned children. These orphans (in an orphanage in Mexico) were given excellent mechanical and ‘hygienic’ care, but virtually no human attention, warmth, or care. Almost all of them had died by the age of three.

1. Learn pronunciation first.
2. Don’t translate.
3. Use spaced repetition systems.

“When’s the last time I saw a gato?”

• Learn the sound system of your language
• Bind those sounds to images
• Bind those images to your past experiences

Maybe I’m crazy but I just wanna pick up some basic French so I can read Sans Famille in its own language & understand some basic structures of the French language ‘plaguing’ lots of historical and high fashion texts 😂😅

Sth about the way the prose is, humbling, real emotions (anger, sassiness, innocence), it keeps you reading. The character feels real. The story wasn’t trying to lecture. It just tells it as it is. All foils and faults. Lots of ups and downs. Hopes and hopelessnesses.

The life story of Alice tells of why it’s important to pay women a living wage, of why forgiving and understanding family bonds are important to keep women out of Stockholm’s syndrome pimps, why it’s important to help women and social justive for them.

Interesting look into the simple subsistence economy of small towns back in the days before the commercial economy. Reminds me of the simple life for the childhood of the Educated book author Tara Westover. Also reminds me of the Breakfast at Tiffany of how the main character had a old doc husband in her rural village: poor healthcare and surplus of women to eligible bachelors.

I’m listening to the audiobooks. Currently I’m quite interested in the French colonial time period (1930s) in Vietnam literature. Maybe because I grew up Saigon which was the French colonized Indochina capital in 1930s. I was always intrigued by the cityscapes and the historic buildings leftover from the French colonialism time. This author is from the North, not the South. Yet, interesting looks into the time

The protagonist/author’s obssession with ‘Hélène Lagonelle’ reminds me of Holly Golightly’s lesbian tendency which was characteristic of escorts back then according to Truman Capote https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-...

Interesting racial privilege info about whites vs ‘half-castes’ in the boarding school in Saigon, Vietnam back in the French colonization time: a few total white girls there got away with their wants bc the school needed whites.
And info about socialite lives (Marie Claude Carpenter & Betty Fernandez) in Paris During Nazi occupation
I think she tried to show how ppl of the colonizing parties conduct themselves

Lots of feelings and thoughts. It seems she tried to tell her brain one thing (she’s only with him for the money) repeatedly only to cover up some deeper feelings she had for him: She resented her family the way they treated him. She must have some real feelings for him to resent how her family treated him. She disgusted with her brother (insulting violence) and her mom (money hungry) and complimented her man.