As some of you may noticed, there was no newsletter in July. The month went by too fast. I was busy with finishing up my philosophy internship and working on my thesis. I only finished reading one book at the end of the month. So I decided to combine July and August in one newsletter.

Read in July & August

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King (1999) 3.5/5

A fun and suspenseful book! And my first Stephen King book of this year. I plan to read his newest book, You Like It Darker, before the end of the year.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon follows a young girl named Trisha on a hiking trip together with her mother and brother. Outdoor activities is something that her mother plans every weekend for them since the divorce. The idea behind the activities is to achieve a better relationship between the family members. But every time it only contributes more to negative feelings and fights, especially between the mother and the older brother. This hiking trip is no exception. Trisha is fed up with the fighting and decides to get off the trail. Only much later is her absence noticed by her family. At that point, she is far into the woods and already very lost. Now she has to survive on her own in the Appalachian forest, however, she is not entirely alone. Something is closely watching her every step.

I loved the survival elements in the story. At some moments it was a bit unrealistic but this did not bother me. As always with King’s stories, the main character was well-written and had an interesting backstory.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1879) 4/5

In August, I finally finished reading The Brothers Karamazov. I started this novel in 2023 and I have been reading it for more than a year. In the beginning, I found it difficult to get through because I was reading it in Russian. Even though Russian is my native language, I have moved countries when I was still very young and I never read anything more than children’s books in my mother tongue. Thus reading such a long classic was a real challenge. I have noticed that my Russian has improved, especially my reading skills. I’m able to read much quicker now than I used before. After getting through the first half of the book, I didn’t experience much trouble reading anymore.

The Brothers Karamazov is a famous story about three brothers and their deadbeat father. The brothers are all very different in character and they all have their own demons to face. The oldest brother, Dimitri, has the most resentment towards his father. But he is also the one who resembles him the most as well. He likes to party, drink and gamble. The middle brother, Ivan, is the intellectual one. He is struggling with philosophical questions about faith and religion. And then there is the youngest brother, Alexei, the innocent one. He is very loyal and tries to keep the family together, religion plays a major role in his life.

I really liked the philosophical dialogues about faith, God, and religion. One chapter in particular, about the Grand Inquisitor, was a real eye-opener. The Grand Inquisitor was Ivan’s little thought experiment about organized religion and people in power. Before telling this story to Alexei, he first told him that even if God existed, he still would not accept a world with a God because it is not right that innocent children have to suffer for our salvation.

Besides this chapter, I also enjoyed reading the trial at the end and the epilogue. These chapters made the whole story complete and logical. Alexei’s side quest became of much importance in the epilogue. One could argue that it was more important than the main story itself. As I understand, Dostoevsky had planned to write a second book which would follow Alexei’s life. He would become a revolutionary person with great deeds. Unfortunately, Dostoevsky died before being able to continue Alexei’s story.

Reading this novel was a memorable experience. This could have been a five-star read if it was not for the female characters. I disliked them all. They were all horribly hysterical, spoiled and arrogant. One of them was so unnecessary for the whole story that she even was omitted from the movie at all (I watched it too after finishing the book). I think this was done on purpose, the women in the story were responsible for a big part of the tragedy surrounding the brothers and could not have been perfect characters, still, I wished there was at least one decent female character.

The Darkside of Japan by Antony Cummins (2017) 4/5

A short introduction to Japanese mythology and superstition. I enjoyed this book as a light read, but you should not expect too much from it. The book contains summaries of stories from other mythology books about demons, gods, shinobi and other Japanese mysteries. Many retellings of Lafcadio Hearn’s stories as well.

If you would like a short and light read containing historical information, then I would definitely recommend this one. But if you want to dive deeper, learning more, then there are probably better books out there. You could start out with Lafcadio Hearn’s stories for example.

Currently Reading

Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (340BC)

A read-along hosted by Jared Henderson (see his Substack for details and schedule). I think that it is good to read difficult philosophical works together and at a slower pace. However, I have to admit that I’m way behind the book club schedule: I’m still on chapter two. I hope to make some progress in September. Nichomachean Ethics is a fundamental work in ethics. Written so long ago and still influential and useful.

Technology and the Virtues by Shannon Vallor (2016)

I planned to read this philosophical non-fiction during the summer months. I need it for my thesis. But unfortunately, I did not come far in it. So this book will move to my September reading-list. In her book, Vallor tries to come up with a plan to tackle upcoming problems with technology. She turns to virtue ethics for answers.

1984 by George Orwell (1949)

A dystopian classic that needs no introduction. I started this novel years ago but never finished it. Not because it was boring, at that time I didn’t finish a lot of my books. But now will be the time that I finally go through it from beginning to end.

Last year, I read Animal Farm and some of Orwell’s essays on writing. I enjoy his writing style. It is simple, and direct and contains many ideas to reflect upon. His fiction and non-fiction are equally good.

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (2009)

I have been waiting to start reading this novel for a long time now. It lay for years on my bookshelf. I wanted to read Orwell’s 1984 first, but I decided to read them together now. So far I really like the story. I hope to finish it in September.

Language Learning

I kind of abandoned learning Japanese in July due to being busy, and I needed some motivation to get back into it. There is one method that always works for me: learning Spanish. This happens every time. I would lose the motivation to continue learning Japanese for a while and then after a couple of weeks, I would pick up Spanish (usually through Duolingo or YouTube). After learning Spanish for a week or two, I would start missing Japanese and return to it. Spanish is my gateway to Japanese.

This time was the same. I started doing some Spanish lessons on Duolingo. Then moved on to reading El Principito. First, the physical book and later on I continued on LingQ. This continued for a month and in August I really wanted to get back into learning Japanese again.

In August, I finally decided on my study plan for Japanese. For years I have been struggling with this. I used multiple learning resources at the same time which prevented me from progressing in either one of them. My studying lacked a daily routine.

Using many learning resources was not for nothing. I discovered different learning approaches and now I know what works for me and what doesn’t. This allowed me to do a ‘’deep cleaning’’ of my Japanese resources. I cancelled all unnecessary subscriptions to apps that I didn’t use right now (Kanji Garden, LingQ, Satori Reader, and a couple of others). It’s not that these apps are useless or bad in some way. I really like them. However, they all need a specific time dedication. Time that I don’t have right now. I can only focus on one or two apps or websites at the same time.

So here is my current daily study routine for Japanese:

Anki

This is my most important learning tool right now. Daily I try to get through the Core 2k/6k Japanese Vocabulary Deck. My settings are six new words every day and unlimited reviews. I think that this is one of the best vocabulary and kanji decks out there. If you would like to know more about Anki and specifically this vocabulary deck, then I would suggest this YouTube video.

Immersion

Next, I try to do some immersion. This could mean that I will watch a YouTube video in Japanese and make flashcards of the new words or grammar points that I encounter. One of my favourite channels for immersion right now is Speak Japanese Naturally. Or I will read a book (currently I’m still reading ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂).

Now here comes a small change in my flashcards system. I used to make my flashcards in Anki, but I stopped doing this for now. I decided to use Kanshudo for this. Normally, I would look up a word in Jisho.org and make a quick card in Anki. Then when I would review this card on my laptop, I would have to make some changes to it (add an example sentence and a picture). I could not look up grammar points in Jisho, so I would google it separately. All things considered, it took too much time.

Last year, I bought a lifelong subscription to Kanshudo with the idea of going through their beginner and intermediate lessons. But this website also functions as a dictionary; a very detailed one too! You can look up not only vocabulary and sentences but also grammar. Thus I switched my own flashcard deck to Kanshudo. I only use Anki for the premade online decks.

WaniKani

When I’m finished with the first two activities (Anki & Immersion) and I still have some time (usually not a daily thing) I will then move on to WaniKani. I have a love-hate relationship with this tool. It has taught me my first kanji in a very effective way. It has many advantages, for example, it is both a website and an app, so it’s very easy to use on your mobile. It explains the principle of radicals and has a strong spaced repetition system. But for some reason, I’ve been stuck on level 7 now for more than two years! I really want to get to the end level (level 60), therefore, I decided to focus on this resource for now and cancel all the other kanji learning subscriptions that I had.

In summary, my Japanese learning routine consists of three apps: Anki, Kanshudo, and WaniKani. And I focus mostly on improving my vocabulary through the 2k/6k deck and immersion. When I have the time, I spend that with learning kanji through WaniKani. It is one of my oldest kanji resources and I cannot part with it yet.

Lastly, I have also been working on my website’s ‘’Guide for Learning Japanese’’. I’m slowly adding more information on my language learning journey and how I would recommend starting with the basics (hiragana, katakana, first few kanji, etc). I hope that over the years it will become a complete and useful guide to other learners. I would really appreciate it if some of you would leave a comment on the guide and let me know what you are missing. This way I could add more information and make it more useful. What are you struggling with when learning Japanese?

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