I only read the beginning and the end of this book in Chinese translation. But I enjoy a central tension it explores. On the one hand Confucianism as a matter of history relied on the absolute power of “the Son of Heaven” for legitimacy and propagation. On the other, Confucians have always emphasised the need for benevolence and tolerance. One resorts to law and force only as the very last measure....

One of my friends from university joined the Society of Jesus after graduation, and I was privileged to be invited (with A) to join their community in London for dinner. The meal was simple but delicious, and we were given a very warm welcome. It reminded me of my days staying and studying at St Deiniol’s Library (now Gladstone’s library): a community of scholars gathered together at the dinner table to discuss what they have read and thought....

The characters in these stories may be drawn from the upper-crust of the English society. But they have one thing in common with 21st century start-ups: everyone is desparate for money. Both plots are driven by the need of hard cash: the leading men needs it to marry the women of their dreams. Founders now need the same to escape the 9-5 and make their lives complete. Even the side plots are all about bets: on horses, on trophy pigs, on the length of sermons (cf....

[These notes are jotted down long after I read the actual book; the details are more likely than not to contain errors.] In the University in Ruins, Professors Bill Readings(!) argues that the origins of the modern research university lies in Germany, where the idea that a Culture can unite disparate polity polities took hold. In his interpretation, the reason why there are so many influential German philosophers is not anything inherent in German culture as such....

From the time of 詩經, Chinese poets have compared people as passing guests in a wide world that does not age or care for human feelings. According to 吉川幸次郎, 蘇軾 turned this lament on its head: 吾生如寄耳，寧獨為此別。 The world is wide and in no hurry to disappear. We part today; but why think this is the last time?

1 My take is that there is no way one can prove the existence of a Judeo-Christian God by logic or science. In fact, I am not interested in this approach. The writers of the Bible cannot have any idea of modern logic or science, and this approach seems to be shoehorning clear-cut ideas into a complex term with much historical baggage. Instead, the most we can do is to show that the concept of a Judeo-Christian God is intelligible and not self-contradictory....

Both women characters, Emma and Lucy, are very likable, each in their own way. I enjoy the idea of Lucy being a 20th century Marie Kondo with an Oxford Maths Starred First: there must still be people like her to help the super-rich enjoy their riches. The book is also a reminder on how modern Agatha Christie was. Even though there were still (some) porters at her train stations, there were already broadcast systems with impersonal voices announcing times for trains....

I picked up this book when visiting a bookshop with a professional research mathematician. Because of nothing much other than the serendipity, I decided to get it and have a read: haven’t read much popular mathematics in a while. The prose flows well, even if many of the examples the author gives are somewhat familiar even to the interested layman. Malinowski’s Music Animation Machine was an unexpected highlight though. The argument is quite loose though, and I agree with many of the reddit criticisms on his article I no longer understand my PhD dissertation (and what this means for Mathematics Education)....

The pen portrait of a top-of-the-line single sex boarding school rings true to me. The girls, the teachers and the headmaster are all convincing, realistic characters. Of the three reveals, I anticipated one, missed the other and am unhappy with the third. But the clues are just the excuse: it is the atmosphere that counts.

Soon after attending a friend’s wedding in Yorkshire, I found and enjoyed Bill Bryson’s “Body, a User’s Guide” in a few days. So when I saw this Bill Bryson classic on the bookshelf, I couldn’t resist taking it down. I had first come across “Notes from a Small Island” some 20 years ago. I hadn’t visited the UK then; re-reading it now feels very different. I enjoyed Bill Bryson’s sense of humour, which carried the narrative through an otherwise quite drab period of 20th century English history....