Book-drier Nha Yue picks up books |

No.10

Guan Yu: History and Imagination by All Gods

(Netherlands) Tian Hai / By Wang Jian / Yin Wei / Yan Aiping / Qu Xiaoyu / Translation Nova Publishing House February 2022

Chinese who have always been practical needed gods, and Guan Gong is one of the most popular Chinese gods throughout history. The spread of Guan Gong's faith is often considered to be due to the fact that Guan Yu's deeds were known to the general public due to the writing tradition, especially novels such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". The Dutch sinologist Tian Hai questioned this, and according to his research, the Guan Gong faith was spread between different regions by word of mouth. Tian Hai did not mention much about the printing history of the reading materials on the theme of the Three Kingdoms, but started from the distribution of the Guan Gong Ancestral Temple, the content of the relevant inscriptions, theatrical performances, the records of the "strange and chaotic gods" handed down in different eras, etc., to examine the image of Guan Yu in people's minds: why they needed a Guan Yu deity, what kind of Guan Yu deity they needed, and what this deity brought to people.

In addition to the well-known god of wealth, Guan Yu also became the embodiment of a dragon that could flourish in the clouds and rain, and also became a Taoist Chongning Zhenjun, who could exorcise demons and stop violence, because the worship of Guan Gong flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties, so the author also came to see the anxiety, fear and concern of the people in the late empire.

No.9

The Power of Algorithms: How Humans Can Survive Together

Jamie Sascade / by Li Dabai / Translated by The Republic of Beijing Daily Press, February 2022

Regarding algorithms, the existing various studies and writings will repeatedly emphasize its all-round penetration of social and personal life, and even manipulate people's thinking. In this book", the author focuses a lot of attention on the past, so that the reader can see that the various technical realities in the world today have long been looked forward to by people half a century or even a century ago. This is written correctly, and it makes people move from the anxiety of being unable to extricate themselves to the reflection of "how we got to this point".

The author hopes to raise an open-ended question with a more just and rational attitude, that is, what kind of political theory is needed in the era of big data? The solution he tried was unsuccessful. But after reading this book, you will at least understand that the various discussions about the fear that intelligence will replace the living reflect that this worry is actually not worrying, because the dangers that people can foresee and discuss will not "happen precisely", and will happen in other forms.

No.8

"Unnecessary Reading"

(Poland) Vistava Szymborska / By Huang Canran / Translation Oflin Publishing House, April 2022

In the Eastern European world, the most outstanding country of literary performance is of course Poland, just to say that the world-class poets, it contributed Milosz, Herbert, Zimborska, Zagaevsky, etc., and Simposka is undoubtedly the most beloved of them, I believe that her poetry is brilliantly translated into any language; she is so clever, when asked why she wrote only three or four hundred poems in total, she replied, "I have a wastepaper basket." "Non-essential Reading" is her column collection, and in fact the title can be changed to "non-essential writing", because the articles are mostly only a thousand words long, and seem to be just to complete the task. Yet wisdom appears between the lines, and they indicate that the author is not only firmly critical of social reality, but also extremely good at discovering the interests of normal phenomena, and this ability to discover nourishes both poetry and columnaries. In a short review of Montaigne's Essays, she said that "I am amazed by the existence of anything good these days," and in reviewing a 1973 Wall Calendar, she said that "the calendar is the only book that does not intend to live longer than we do, and does not hang idle jobs on library shelves." ”

Commenting on a popular historical book on ancient peoples and cultures based on archaeological research, she said that all archaeologists and historians would say that "the city was occupied and destroyed in a certain month of a certain year," but no one would say how the city was razed to the ground. And she was interested in this "how". This is for everyone, all of whom are living in the history that is happening, the "how", but how many people are actively thinking about it?

No.7

A Brief History of Geomagnetism

(Plus) Alana Mitchell / Feng Yongyong / Xiang Lingwei / Translation Commercial Press January 2022

Human excellence lies in the ability to observe and think permanently about what is invisible to the naked eye: to God, to the air, to bacteria, to magnetism. Magnetism does not seem to be as close to people as electricity, but a brief history of geomagnetism appears in the natural sciences from Halley to Faraday, from Alexander von Humboldt to Wegener, and the exploration of the mysteries of the Earth's magnetic field is integrated with the research of astronomy, geology, electricity and many other fields, and new discoveries continue.

Alana Mitchell is a popular science reporter on the front line of magnetic research, who writes calmly and decisively, and has an excellent sense of scene. She used the entire book to convey a warning: the earth's magnetic field has been flipped many times and will be flipped again, which will bring great destructive power in today's era, because human civilization has completely changed the living space on land, it is difficult for animals to migrate freely and continue to survive as in previous times, and because the reversal of the magnetic field will damage the global electrical system and lead to a devastating crisis. In response, "we can only sit still for now." One of the scientists in the book said.

No.6

The Bergman Anthology: We Are All Circus

(Sweden) Ingmar Bergman / By Wang Kaimei / Translation Of Yazhong Culture CITIC Publishing Group February 2022

"Our determination is to tell stories in the simplest, most moving, witty and fun way possible. If we succeed, it is thanks to the great Shakespeare; if we fail, we can only blame ourselves. In October 1941, Bergman wrote these words in a handwritten note during the performance of his "A Midsummer Night's Dream." It is entirely possible to fall in love with him because of this, a real and living person, an artist who is both humble and proud, humble because he is in awe of stage and screen art, proud because of his desire to take on great responsibilities.

Bergman's sensual writing is often aggressive, forcing you to face his emotional catharsis and see the vitality of the person released from this catharsis. For what he most wanted to capture and express—the hidden pain of people in silence—he had no fear, and he was confident in using film and drama to grasp every moment of his individual. Considerable space is devoted to the understanding of Strindberg's plays, and he uses very few words to point out the value of Pal Lagerquist, Lagerlov and other first-class Swedish literary figures—he and they synthesized a group of extraordinary artists in high latitudes.

No.5

"Back to the Seeds"

(Colombia) García Márquez / Tao Yuping / Translation of New Classic Culture• South Sea Publishing Company January 2022

The essays, essays, and news reports of the author of the famous "One Hundred Years of Solitude" have been synthesized into such a collection, and when I read it, I remembered a description that I had not remembered for a long time: strange beans. To get into any of these articles, it costs a lot of brain power, and you need to capture real intellectual power in a basic satirical tone, rather than just showing off or cynicism about strange things. Read his December 26, 1980 essay for Le Nations in memory of John Lennon, who had just been assassinated: "This is a worldwide triumph for poetry. In this century in which the winners will always be the ones who fight the hardest, the ones who get the most votes, the ones who kick the most goals, the richest men and the most beautiful women, the death of a man who has spent his life singing about love can cause such a sensation all over the world, which is in itself inspiring. This is the heartfelt adoration of those who will never win..."

As a journalist by training, he has practiced a kind of alienating style in his perennial reporting, whether it is those who want to praise or those who want to be flogged, whether it is something that is worth affirming in secular moral concepts (such as rebellion against tyranny) or a human custom that has always been in a gray area (such as prostitution), which Is a kind of "world image" written by García Márquez, who treats them equally and defamiliarizing them, while at every turn stimulating the reader to pay attention to the unfair arrangements that exist forever. Notice the fact that Latin America continues to be exploited by its north American neighbors. The books "Scandal of the Century" and "The Postman Knocks On the Door Thousands of Times" all contain the shadows of many of his novels, such as "The Colonel Who No One Wrote to Him", which is a proof of the writer's unique "narrative self-consciousness".

No.4

The Division of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society

Arthur Jr. M. Schlesinger / by Wang Congyue / Translated by Shanghai Translation Publishing House, February 2022

"Harmony and difference" is probably the most light four-word proverb in the world, in the practice of human specific common life, people who can "and" are preferably "same" aspirations, and those who are not "same" end up "and" not together. Of course, the specific meaning of "same" and "and" needs to be more defined, but in today's world, this seems to be proved everywhere.

This book is a book by Arthur M. Little. M. Schlesinger, published in 1991, said that the United States represents a human ideal because it is willing to "unite the masses," but if this ideal fails, the United States will also be destroyed, which was foreseen by President Roosevelt Sr. as early as the beginning of the 20th century, and the elder Roosevelt warned that the United States could not be reduced to a "wrestling field" and a "place of entanglement" between the groups with a grudge, and that this foresight was becoming a fact in Schlesinger's time "The ideal multicultural theorists, who are really just separatists, spend their days denouncing the sins of the vast Western heritage, establishing new political correctness in order to eliminate the political correctness they do not like.

Every word in the book is aimed at today's United States and today's world. Schlesinger took a clear and square stand, describing the 1990s contest as a lucid rational versus fanatic: "Some people who believe they know part of the truth will do what they think God has instructed them to do." "Fanatics should become the common enemy of humanity at all times.

No.3

Boring Inventions Collection: 1000 Possibilities to Make the World Interesting

Steven M. M. Johnson/ By Wan Jie/ Translation Unread, Beijing United Publishing Company March 2022

In the space of nearly fifty years, Steven Spielberg has been a member of the United States. M. Johnson has always humbly called him an imaginative worker who specializes in "stupid" inventions. He made his invention into a picture and text, published it in the print media, and later moved it to the Internet. His painting style is quite realistic, which makes those inventions - solitary dining machines, physiotherapy furniture, pedal juicers, special taxis... It looks as if it is already a reality.

We see some of Japan's evil inventions, such as picnic boxes for bananas, or small fans hanging on chopsticks to cool down noodles, etc., which inevitably say "boring", because most of them drill the horns of the bull and create corresponding needs in order to invent; but Johnson's inventions are mostly based on the discovery of widespread needs: the lonely dining machine is for the unaccompanied, and the gloves that are integrated with the jacket are designed for the situation that gloves are easy to lose, "hill house" and "floating eggs" Obviously, it is an idea that came up after learning about the flood disaster, and there are many imaginations about shrinking cars that are aimed at the problem of limited parking space in the city... Some inventions don't seem to be very innovative, such as the shopping cart with a stroller, but the combination of pictures and texts is thought-provoking: "The shopping cart has become the favorite means of transportation for the poor in the United States", showing a tired mother feeding her baby.

When you see the strangely shaped houses designed for the rich in the book, you will find that Johnson is satirizing them. The title is a more obvious counterpoint: these inventions are not boring, and most of them point to the real lack of urban life—the lack of convenience, the lack of love, the lack of security, the lack of personality. Their existence proves what a mind free from boredom can do.

No.2

"The Kensington Past"

Muriel Sparkle / Bai Xue / Translated by Nanjing University Press Watchmen February 2022

The novelist Sparker's specialty is to turn brooding things into funny and playful, to turn themes that are particularly heavy for a woman—such as looking back at the past—like a light satirical poem. The narrator of the book is in the late 1980s, on sleepless nights, with her still-sharp ears open to the noises of thirty years ago in her own head, when she lived in an old house in Kensington, where the landlady was frank Irish; when she was a dedicated publishing house assistant, loudly telling a man that he was a terrible writer. Spark used a variety of smiling depictions to paint a picture of a post-war recovery era in which people of all stripes, especially in the publishing circle, sought fame and profit. "I like my own Puritanic, moralistic nature; whatever I might actually do, judging right from wrong always makes me happy. At the same time, I don't like revenge at all, or imposing justice on others or myself. Such a fluid confession that seems to be waiting to be punched in the face will impress the keen reader. Sparker herself converted to Catholicism at an early age, and her religious, writing, and life experiences were intimately intertwined, and she saw all real history, all the realities that were happening, as parallel fictions, thus becoming both fascinated and detached. Such an unusual British female writer deserves to be read and liked by more people.

No.1

Borges in the Diary: 1931-1989

(Argentina) Adolf Bioi Casares / by Daniel Martino (Argentina) Zheng Jingjing / Lu Kaitian / Xu Quan / Translation East China Normal University Press, January 2022

Borges put it this way of his lifelong friend Bioi Casares: We met in 1930-1931, when I was in my early thirties and he was seventeen, in which case one would assume that the older one was the master and the younger one was his disciple. This may have been true at first, but a few years later, when we started to really work together, Bioi was the real, hidden master.

In the first ten years of knowing Borges, Bioi tried to write some fantasy novels, but they failed, but in 1940, he finally broke the ice with the novella "The Invention of Morel", and it was from then on that he began to be able to really talk to Borges, and worked together, they co-founded publications, co-translated, co-wrote novels, and in the existing photographs, the two people's looks were so close that they saw that their souls and interests were connected. These diaries left by Bioi give us an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the few wise men who selflessly provide oxygen to save ourselves from the brink of decay.