Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth

KrispyPages
Non Fiction

Today, the European financial-cum-debt crisis rolls on from summit meeting to summit meeting, where German ideals of fiscal prudence clash with Spanish unemployment at 25 percent and a Greek state is slashing itself to insolvency and mass poverty while being given ever-more loans to do so. In the US, those problems take the form of sclerotic private sector growth, persistent unemployment, a hollowing out of middle-class opportunities, and a gridlocked state. What they have in common is their supposed cure: austerity.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

KrispyPages
Fiction

Published in Kundera’s exile in 1984, and without betraying the title, there is certainly a fundamental weightlessness to this book. Even after the third read, I can only recall fragments about the characters. A tangible milieu, a well-paced plot, and the extended passages of straightforward philosophical and political speculation, made it clear that this is not for readers who prefer the conventional storytelling.

The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan

The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan

KrispyPages
Non Fiction

The present washed away the past. We forgot the yesterday where the Silk Roads is the bridges between the East and West where great centres of civilisation rose.  Ancient civilisation such as Babylon, Nineveh, Uruk and Akkad in Mesopotamia were famed for their grandeur and architectural innovation. The yesterday where the Silk Roads is where the world’s great religions burst into life, where Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism jostled with each other. The yesterday where the Silk Roads is the cauldron where language groups competed, where Indo-European, Semitic and Sino-Tibetan tongues wagged along side those speaking Altaic, Turkic and Caucasian. The yesterday where the Silk Roads is where great empires rose and fell, where the after-effects of clashes between cultures and rivals were felt thousands of miles away.

The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham

The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham

KrispyPages
Fiction

The Moon and Sixpence is a book about the life of an unassuming British stockbroker, with a secret unquenchable thirst for art that he is willing to abandon the trivial pleasures of bourgeois life for the penury and hard life of an aspiring painter without considering himself ridiculous or vain. He is cold, selfish and uncompromising in this quest for beauty. 

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

KrispyPages
Non Fiction

Brooding rumination. That’s what people usually get into when they were awakened by absurdity. Once we cross that invisible line in front of our unwary feet, the world falls on its stunned head, and orientation is anyone’s guess. Just as Roquentin said, where truth lies now is in unending aporia. Yet, Camus posits a way out of despair by objectively exploring the Absurd, the topic of suicide, and the dilemma of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

KrispyPages
Fiction

When the outbreak of a pandemic swine-flu wiped out 99% of humanity, what will happen to the survivors? This book is not so much about apocalypse as about memory and loss, nostalgia and yearning, and the attempt of art to deepen our ephemeral impressions of the world. Whereas most apocalypse stories push harshly forward into terror or dystopia, this novel moves back and forth in time, illustrating the pre-apocalyptic world and twenty years after civilization has collapsed, when the worst is over and survivors have grouped themselves into isolated settlements.

L’Étranger by Albert Camus.

L’Étranger by Albert Camus.

KrispyPages
Fiction, Character Analysis

My favorite novel about Absurdism.

Just like his existentialist comrades, Mersault is buffeted like wreckage in the indifferent waves of the ocean. He is neither cynical nor optimistic. He demands nothing from life or people, and cultivates nothing. His indifference is not stoicism, for he buys into to no larger sense of nature. Nor is he a recalcitrant Diogenes, sneering at convention with derision…….

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

KrispyPages
Fiction

This is a world where an institution has perfected the ability to predict when someone is going to die. This same world has a call center named Death-Cast, that’s responsible for phoning individuals during midnight to let them know they are dying in the next 24 hours. Furthermore, this cruel world has an app, Last Friend, much like a dating service, that allows people to find other to-be-dead people to spend their End Day together.

Stoicism by George Tanner

Stoicism by George Tanner

KrispyPages
Non Fiction

George Tanner provides a lucid, comprehensive introduction to stoicism, adapting the history, philosophy and practices of Stoicism from a weighty and distressing academic venture into a manageable and overall pleasant literary experience.

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnecut

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnecut

KrispyPages
Fiction

Mother Night is a work of gothic melange of stygian ideologies. The novel embodies Vonnegut’s dark humor and philosophical introspections regarding the nature of moral ambiguity and what ideals we sacrifice on the altar of war.

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai.

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai.

KrispyPages
Fiction

Literary masochism required.

His penetrating insight that life is in essence a meaningless process of gradual, inexorable death lead him to his degradation. His feelings that he is a disqualified human being, is driven by his sensitivity to the frailty of human bonds in the urban world. Death is the only escape.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

KrispyPages
Fiction

“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”

-Miguel de Cervantes

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

KrispyPages
Fiction

Let me just put it this way: The book is magic. The writing is magic. The plot is about magic. When I said modern literature can hardly measure up to the classics, I didn’t expect to run into this sparkling and mesmerizing prose. The descriptions were immersive, atmospheric and pure enchanting that they encapsulate your emotions at the very point of the book they are placed.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

KrispyPages
Fiction

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secretes of the Universe is about two boys, Aristotle Mendoza and Dante Quitana growing up in El Paso, Texas during the 1980s. When Ari, a perpetually annoyed and angry teen met Dante, a sentimental and know-it-all young man, their whole world changed. As readers, we witnessed their lives from age fifteen to seventeen, watching their relationships with oneself, each other, and the world grow, change and strengthen.

L'Homme Qui Rit by Victor Hugo

L'Homme Qui Rit by Victor Hugo

KrispyPages
Fiction

The Man Who Laughs is a sad and sordid tale of the protagonist, Gwynplaine in early 18th century England. This poor little boy is deformed as he had his lips cut off and his mouth split open from ear to ear, mimicking a creepy smiley face. His face is frozen in a permanent rictus which makes him the subject of mockery. This tragic destiny echoes that of an entire martyred people, waiting for the coming revolution….

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

KrispyPages
Fiction

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”

—Henry D. Thoreau

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

KrispyPages
Fiction

There is the past and death. Then there is future and life, served on a silver platter, which one do you take? Seems like a no brainer. But what if the dead carry so much of ourselves that living without them is not quite living anymore? What if the prospect of the future feels like a brutal betrayal of the dead? Norwegian Wood is a sprawling peak into the lives of a group of severely broken youths confronting the realities of emptiness.

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