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2020 January

• Book Review: Atomic Habits by James Clear

  Jan. 29, 2020, 9:02 a.m.

  

  Hopefully managing to read at least one book at month this year, kicking it off with Atomic Habits by James Clear. I forget where I heard of this book, but it's highly recommended and an Amazon best-seller. I followed the author on Twitter for a while before deciding to buy the book. I read it sporadically through the month. It's not very long - less than 300 pages on the Kindle app. The book is fairly good and insightful, although I'm not sure if there are any ideas I haven't encountered elsewhere (especially if you read a lot of self-improvement

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Jan. 29, 2020, 9:02 a.m. #books #review

  Also on: twitter / 👍 1 326 words

2019 November

• Book Review: So Good They Cant Ignore You by Cal Newport

  Nov. 9, 2019, 8 a.m.

  Aha! I finally managed to finish a book again! I've heard of Cal Newport since years ago tangentially due to his Study Hacks blog, which was pretty good at the time. I haven't followed his career too closely, but he's an academic at Georgetown apparently. I wasn't looking for any career advice in particular, but I did have a recommendation for this book from somewhere so I thought I'd give it a go. The book is So Good They Can't Ignore You, and focuses on what it takes to have a "successful career". My favorite thing about this book is

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Nov. 9, 2019, 8 a.m. #books #review

  Also on: twitter / 638 words

2019 September

• My Personal Reading List

  Sept. 2, 2019, 8 a.m.

  I recently imported my old reviews from Goodreads into this blog as posts. These days I generally prefer just writing my book reviews here anyway, so I will likely stop using Goodreads as a service completely. To facilitate tracking of my read/unread books (and perhaps to inspire me to read more, as I really should), I've published an old file which I've been using as a sort of "to-read" list since 2010. I don't restrict myself to reading items from this list, but it serves as a helpful reference should I feel like picking up a new book. I don't

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Sept. 2, 2019, 8 a.m. #books #goodreads

  Also on: twitter / 160 words

2019 August

• Book Review: Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman

  Aug. 1, 2019, 1:56 p.m.

  I forget where I got this book recommendation from, but it did go on sale for Kindle a while back so I got a copy. The full title is "Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World". Summary: I really like this book, though I think it falls short in providing concrete steps for how to get from where we are to the idealized utopia he presents. Still, in this world of ever-increasing bad news and crises, the optimism of this book is a welcome respite. The book covers a number of "utopian" scenarios worth striving for, namely:

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Aug. 1, 2019, 1:56 p.m. #books

  Also on: twitter / 👍 1 1067 words

2019 May

• Game of Thrones

  May 20, 2019, 1:56 p.m.

  After a much-maligned eighth and final season, HBO's Game of Thrones is done. Unmarked spoilers follow. The eighth season was so notoriously bad, we got petitions asking for rewrites. Here's how I explained it to a friend after the notorious episode 5: It's not about characters being killed, it's about bad writing because they're cramming. The writers were determined to finish the show in 2 smaller seasons so they're skipping a lot of necessary character development and characters just do stupid things because the plot demands it. The most recent episode (spoilers follow, no apologies) has Dany do something really

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at May 20, 2019, 1:56 p.m. #pop-culture #tv #books

  Also on: twitter / 766 words

• Wheel of Time: Eye of the World

  May 11, 2019, 1:56 p.m.

  Continuing with the Wheel of Time re-read! I devoured Eye of the World much more quickly than I expected, finishing the book in less than 3 days. It helps that I had already read it before of course, but I think there's also a part of me that enjoys escaping into this fantasy world when the real world outlook seems dire. Anyway, the book shows a lot of Tolkien-esque plot influence, especially near the start: Some kids from a backwater village are visited by a magic user and after some troubles are forced on the run from black riders? Sounds

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at May 11, 2019, 1:56 p.m. #books #pop-culture #wheel-of-time

  Also on: twitter / 470 words

• Wheel of Time: New Spring

  May 8, 2019, 1:56 p.m.

  Since I was going to be taking a long trip in a month, I was looking for some books to read on the plane and in airports and whatnot while waiting. I settled on a re-read of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, a pretty good time for it since by next year we may have a TV series from Amazon (hopefully better than Game of Thrones). Side note: Wheel of Time is also why I'm not optimistic that GRRM can finish ASoIaF in just two more books - Jordan took forever and died before he could finish WoT and

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at May 8, 2019, 1:56 p.m. #books #pop-culture #wheel-of-time

  Also on: twitter / 748 words

2019 January

• Hardy Boys

  Jan. 30, 2019, 1:56 p.m.

  Between the ages of 10-12, my reading diet consisted almost exclusively of the teenage-targetted detective series The Hardy Boys. For me, the term invokes the names Frank and Joe before the Matt and Jeff of WWE fame. We had a fairly wide collection of the blue-hardcovered books of those days. And I believe I made the effort to read every single book in that particular series, through borrowing and such. I think I was successful, but I can't be sure. In any case , that meant this article piqued my interest: The Knotty Nostalgia of the Hardy Boys Series Why

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Jan. 30, 2019, 1:56 p.m. #books #pop-culture

  Also on: twitter / 504 words

• The Quezon City Public Library

  Jan. 21, 2019, 1:56 p.m.

  I pass by the Quezon City Hall every so often, and I've always been curious about the QC public library they have there. It got a bit of press a while back about how it was a nice place to hang out (for a government institution at least), so I had a todo list item about checking it out. Well, last week I did! I passed by on a weekday afternoon about 4pm after running some errands. The library was open until 7pm, so the timing was fine. I went up to the building and the guard asked me what

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Jan. 21, 2019, 1:56 p.m. #quezon-city #books #philippines

  Also on: twitter / 554 words

• Konmari

  Jan. 15, 2019, 1:56 p.m.

  I don't know much about this Konmari thing. I think it's been around for a while, but got a boost recently due to a Netflix special. I think I agree with it in principle, or at least what I know of it from secondary social media commentary. Minimalism is a worthwhile goal, and so is getting rid of things that do nothing for you other than take up space. Some people aren't reacting well to the idea of throwing away books though: Edit 22 Jan: The account has gone private, so the previous embedded tweet is no longer accessible. I'm

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Jan. 15, 2019, 1:56 p.m. #books #self-improvement #pop-culture

  Also on: twitter / 378 words

• Form good habits and become their slave

  Jan. 3, 2019, 1:56 p.m.

  New year's resolutions are hard to maintain, so much so that people will make jokes about opening a gym that only runs during January, since most gym NYRs run out of steam by then. One of the best pieces of advice I've found regarding acquiring new behaviors comes from the first motivational books I ever read - The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino, which for some reason we had a copy of in our house when I was young. The book tells us that: humans are slaves to habit bad habits can only be replaced by good

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Jan. 3, 2019, 1:56 p.m. #books #self-improvement

  Also on: twitter / 182 words

2018 December

• Book Stores

  Dec. 20, 2018, 10:56 a.m.

  The other day I was passing through the QC memorial circle (as is my wont) and I decided to walk around the tiangge/flea market that's often there. It seemd larger than usual that day, so I figured I should finally take a look. And in the process I remembered what I dislike about local flea markets: 90% of the stalls are selling some form of clothes (which I have no interest in browsing - maybe if these stalls sold something my size for once!) and maybe 9.9% are selling cheap knockoff toys (which might interest me if they were free

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Dec. 20, 2018, 10:56 a.m. #books #pop-culture #philippines

  Also on: twitter / 947 words

2018 November

• Shogun, and the rest of James Clavell's Asian Saga

  Nov. 1, 2018, 1:03 p.m.

  

  1901150_10152838020443912_1173953250_n1.jpg (Click to view full-size) Shogun was the first novel I ever read outside of required school readings and it remains one of favorites to this day after many rereadings. It had it all -- the age of exploration, religious conflict, language barriers, duty, honor, love, betrayal, war, sacrifice, samurai, ninjas, guns, cannons, etc and it still influences my thinking to this day. One of my favorite quotes from this book: Toranaga: "Tsukku-san says that the Netherlands were vassals of the Spanish king until just a few years ago. Is that true?" Blackthorne: "Yes." Toranaga: "Therefore, the Netherlands – your

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Nov. 1, 2018, 1:03 p.m. #books #pop-culture

  Also on: tumblr twitter / 362 words

2018 October

• Book Review: Masters of Doom by David Kushner

  Oct. 14, 2018, 9 a.m.

  

  I've had a copy of this book for quite a while now, but for some reason only got around to starting on it three days ago. It's not a particularly long book, but I pretty much devoured it in twenty four hours. Mandatory screenshot of old-school Doom (Click to view full-size) Mandatory screenshot of old-school Doom Oct. 14, 2018, 9 a.m. Close The book traces the paths of the lives of John Romero and John Carmack -- two legends of the software development world that changed PC gaming forever. It's a fantastic read for anyone who grew up playing PC

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Oct. 14, 2018, 9 a.m. #books #review #pop-culture #gaming

  Also on: tumblr twitter / 723 words

• Book Review: The 1-Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib

  Oct. 10, 2018, 9 a.m.

  I realise it's a bit weird for me to be reviewing a marketing book, given my self-proclaimed aversion to marketing and sales. A while back I wrote a review for Tim Ferris' book Tribe of Mentors on this blog, and for some reason someone decided to contact me citing this review and asked if I would review this other book and they would give me a complimentary copy. This was something new to me, so I thought I'd try it out! (I guess this a thing I do know. Feel free to send me books on random topics to review!)

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Oct. 10, 2018, 9 a.m. #books #review #pop-culture

  Also on: tumblr twitter / 342 words

2018 June

• Book Review: Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris

  June 17, 2018, 9 a.m.

  This book was on sale on Amazon Kindle a while back, I figured I'd give it a whirl. Some years ago I had read one of the author's previous books, The Four Hour Workweek, and I wasn't too impressed. It was interesting at least, but a lot of the advice seemed either difficult to apply to my personal situation or involved doing stuff I wasn't really interested in (i.e. sales and marketing and whatnot). But this new book intrigued me -- it's a collection of life advice from "mentors", basically successful people from a wild variety of fields including entrepreneurs,

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at June 17, 2018, 9 a.m. #books #pop-culture #self-improvement

  Also on: tumblr twitter / 955 words

2018 March

• Book Review: 11/22/63 by King, Stephen

  March 31, 2018, 8 a.m.

  11/22/63 by Stephen King My rating: 5 of 5 stars This was my first Stephen King book outside the Dark Tower series. Before reading the Dark Tower, I had pegged King as a writer of "scary" books because of his early works, and I wasn't too interested. This book is none of that. It's a nice, informative, well-written time travel story that wraps up nicely. I actually had no idea it was a time travel story when I started reading (you'd think the title would have given that away.)When reading novels with a compelling plot, I tend to charge forward

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at March 31, 2018, 8 a.m. #books

  Also on: goodreads / 207 words

2017 August

• Book Review: The Hero of Ages by Sanderson, Brandon

  Aug. 31, 2017, 8 a.m.

  The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson My rating: 4 of 5 stars It was ok. Some tropes turned around. Kind of frustrating how a lot of stuff just dragged out until the end. The identify of the Hero of Ages pretty much given away early on by the flavor text at the start of each chapter. I finished it in two sittings so that's something View all my reviews

  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Aug. 31, 2017, 8 a.m. #books #mistborn

  Also on: goodreads / 70 words

• Book Review: The Final Empire by Sanderson, Brandon

  Aug. 27, 2017, 8 a.m.

  The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson My rating: 5 of 5 stars Great book. The story's pace was a bit slow at first as Sanderson was doing his excellent worldbuilding and introducing us to the magic system in his world (he's good at that sort of thing!), but it picks up about a third of the way through. A lot of the plot twists and character developments are handled very well. The pace proceeds fairly quickly towards the end - I burned through the last third of the book in one night because things were escalating quickly. Looking forward to

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Aug. 27, 2017, 8 a.m. #books #mistborn

  Also on: goodreads / 110 words

• Book Review: The Well of Ascension by Sanderson, Brandon

  Aug. 27, 2017, 8 a.m.

  The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson My rating: 4 of 5 stars I finished Well of Ascension only two days after finishing The Final Empire. I think I enjoyed it a bit less than the first book - mainly because there's a lot of self-doubt here among the protagonists, a lot of paragraphs of "why am i doing this? I'm not good enough, etc". The plot also takes longer to solidify. Unlike the first book where they had a very solid objective until the end (the downfall of the Final Empire), the protagonists spend most of this book running

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  Posted by Roy Tang under blog at Aug. 27, 2017, 8 a.m. #books #mistborn

  Also on: goodreads / 193 words