GRIT with Audible

I finished "GRIT" in Japanese. It was a good book. Grit is important for our business, study and life. 

I'll listen to the audiobook in English next. The Japanese edition will help my understanding for the audiobook in English. 

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GRIT

I'm reading "GRIT" in Japanese. I think I'll read the original text after the Japanese translation. Anyway, it shows the importance of grit. 

The author revealed that mature paragons of grit have four common features.  

"First comes interest. Passion begins with intrinsically enjoying what you do. 

Next comes the capacity to practice. 

Third is purpose. For most people, interest without purpose in nearly impossible to sustain for a lifetime. 

Finally, hope. Hope is a rising-to-the-occasion kind of perseverance". 

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Writing

I bought an English writing reference book. The book describes proper English sentences and structured writing. It may help my English writing. 

The book shows bad examples that English learners often make. These also indicate my mistakes. The author recommended to search correct sentences on the web. I should do it in order to make a proper English sentence.

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To Kill a Mockingbird

I found some tweets about an American novel, To Kill a Mockingbird on my Twitter timeline. A Twitter friend said that the book is one of her lifetime best five. She said that she first met the book in her high school English class. 

I knew the title, but I haven't read it yet. I quickly checked the summary and got interested in the novel. I'm busy for listening to audiobooks now, but I'll try to read it. 

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Bathing with a Book

Recently, I'm talking bath with a collection of short stories. The book is "Stardust Highway" written by Kataoka Yoshio and it was published in 1978. 

The themes of the book are photo and travel. The places in the stories are in America and Japan, mainly in rural areas. The stories are, of course, fictions, but these are so vivid that I can easily picture these stories. 

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Murakami Becomes Popular in the World

Haruki Murakami is the most successful writer overseas. No one can deny it. I thought he was not involved in the success directly, but I was wrong. As he described that in his new book, he tried to do so as much as he could. 

When he was around 40 years old, he decided to sell his books in the United States. He moved to the US and looked for his agent and publisher all by himself. They treated Murakami as an American writer. That was because Murakami himself ordered translation and checked it and then brought it to the agent and publisher. That meant they got Murakami's novels in English first. 

After twenty years efforts, some of his books often became the No. 1 selling book in America and other countries. 

An American magazine New Yorker gave him more credit on his works. They picked up Murakami's stories in the magazine 25 times in 25 years. 

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Reading English Novels

Haruki Murakami talked about reading in his new book. Reading was the most important thing when he was a student. He said that the things you could get from reading were more important than what you learn at school and these things last so long in your mind. 

He started to read novels in English when he was a high school student even though he was not good at English as a subject. He said that no students around him in his school could not read an English book. That was because he clearly had an aim for studying English, he wanted to read English novels. 

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A New Murakami

I bought a Murakami Haruki's new book. The book was a collection of essays. He wrote how he became a writer, how he writes novels and what brings him to write. 

They were very interesting essays and I was really happy to read his book especially in Japanese. He has lots of foreign fans and they are eager to read his works in Japanese. 

He wrote his thoughts on literary awards. He said that he doesn't care about awards. The most important thing is the work itself. No one can remember a literary award three years ago, even if it was the Nobel prize. But a good novel will be remaining in the readers. I'm totally agree with that. 

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Reading

I tried to read The Great Gatsby as reading with Japanese translation, but now I'm stuck. Later, I'll read it again, perhaps. 

Instead of the book, I'm reading Animal Farm by George Orwell. I listened a BBC radio drama version of the story four or five times before started to read the book. While reading the novel, I feel I became a narrator and that is nice.

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Hibana

I've just read an Akutagawa Prize novel "Hibana" written by comedian Naoki Matayoshi. The prize has boosted the sales. The number of the copies has surpassed a million according to the publisher. 

The story was about two comedians. They were struggling to be their ideal performers. The episode starts and ends at a firework festival in a local town. He made the characters in detail.  The two of them had to live in clumsy way. 

I like his writing style. It was a good novel, so I want to read his story more. I bet he'll be a remarkable writer in the future. 

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Crime Makes Money

The controversial book written by the Kobe child killer has published and sold about 100,000 copies. A crime has made a huge amount of money. The killer even didn't have any punishment. 

It's really disgusting. Freedom of speech and expression should be protected. Of course I know it. I just feel disgusting. The money should not pay for the killer. 

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POD

I bought a book about learning English. The title is "Power Ondoku Nyumon." The author is a Japanese-English interpreter who learned English all in Japan. What made him to be an interpreter is Power Ondoku, which he showed us in the book. 

I learned his method, POD, via YouTube before and tried a while, but I didn't continue to do that. It takes only 15 minutes to do the training for one set. If I have a strong will to be a good English speaker, it's not hard to continue to do the training. I'll practice the method everyday from now on and get the fluent English speaking skill. 

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Don't Publish the Book

In 1997, a 14-year-old boy killed two elementary school girl and boy, and injured three other students in Kobe. The boy did not get any severe punishment because he was too young to be punished and had mental problems. He got eight years of psychiatric treatment in some juvenile training schools. He became free in 2004. 

Now, he is about to publish a book about his murders or something. A father of a victims strongly opposed the publishing of the book. The father said that the book might hurt the victims and their families. He said he could not understand why he can do so. 

It's obvious that the book can do nothing but hurt many people. The killer never feel for others. That kind of person does exist. If he has compassion for others, he can't publish such a book. The publisher should withdraw the book immediately. 

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Reading Ishiguro

I've just started a Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, "A Pale View of Hills". He published the book when he was 28 and that was his first one. 

The story is so nice that I can read faster than ever. I've read 28% of it today. The story is about Japanese women in Nagasaki and the Britain. 

I'll finish it in two or three days and after that I'll read "When We Were Orphans" next. 

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Ask Anything to Murakami

A Japanese well known writer Haruki Murakami has opened a temporary website that anyone can ask him a question or make a comment on it and he will provide answers. 

That's a really interesting event. He did the same event nine years ago when he published Kafka on the Shore. After closing the previous site, he published a book about the event. I read readers questions and Murakami's answers on the book. 

I'll ask some question to him and I hope I can get his reply on that. 

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Yoshio Kataoka

Before Haruki Murakami appeared, my favorite author was Yoshio Kataoka. I really liked his style of writing and characters in the books. I remember that I wanted to be a person like in his stories at that time. 

They, both men and women, are independent and looking good in white T-shirt. They sometimes ride a motorcycle like Yamaha SR-500 or Kawasaki 650RS. 

There are scent of America in his books. They are so sophisticated. That was partly because his father was from Hawaii as a second generation of Japanese American. 

My best book of Yoshio Kataoka is Shiawase wa Shiroi T Shatsu, Happens is a white T-shirt. 

Recently, I bought his book about the difference between Japanese and English. I enjoyed it and learned a lot from the book. 

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The Giver

I'm reading "The Giver" for the second time. I read the book nine years ago for the first time . At that time I just restarted to learn English, so I couldn't read the book well. Even though I had poor English skills, I was really moved by the story.

After that, I've been trying to improve my English skills. I'm really glad that I can read the book so clearly now. I really enjoy reading the novel for now. 

Mas Oyama

I've read Oyama Masutatsu's biography. Oyama was a famous Karate master. 

He was born in Korea and he came to Japan when he was a teenager. He established a famous Karate organization, Kyokushin-kaikan and known as God Hand. 

I joined Kyokushin-kaikan, so I respect him as a karate master. I didn't know much about him. He loved karate, Japan and Korea so much. And of course, he was great.

Eating, Drinking, Talking

I'm reading "The Sun Also Rises" by Hemingway. I've finished only Book 1, though. They are just eating, drinking and talking in the book but I feel fun so far. 

Christie's Novel

I read my old blog post today. I wrote the blog in 2008. It was about a famous mystery writer Agatha Christie and the topic was my top five of her novels. In the blog, I said that I wanted to read her books in English someday. To tell you the truth, the day hasn't come yet. I'm really sorry....but I tried it before. I'll try it again soon. I promise!