Silence
An historical novel by Japanese writer Shusaku Endo telling the story of a young Portuguese missionary in 17th Century Japan. After being smuggled into the country a Jesuit missionary fresh from the seminary finds the Christian population have been forced underground by a government eager to stamp out foreign interference and values. Consequently he quickly finds himself a fugitive in a strange and frightening land and begins to doubt his mission due to the silence of his god.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
3mentions
3people
2017–2025years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Among non-fiction what stood out to me was David Bentley Hart's All Things are Full of Gods, great book also very fun to read written as a Platonic dialogue. To me one of the most compelling theologians today.
Bruno Maçães, World Builders. Good book on the impact of technology in geopolitics has been consistently interesting.
Among fiction re-read a lot of Lovecraft, noticed that I like the Dream Quest stories more than the horror these days which surprised me. But they're more compelling to me now because of how much you can see Lovecraft as a person in them.
The last three Dune books. Liked the last two about the Bene Gesserit a lot, was surprised how much I disliked God Emperor given the praise it gets, but it honestly reads like Frank Herbert posting twitter hot takes as a worm with no story
Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger. Among the best novellas I've ever read, very different in tone from most of his books.
Shūsaku Endō, Silence. Book about a Jesuit mission in early Edo Japan. My favorite Japanese book in a long time.
Among technical books, re-read The Mythical Man Month, probably more relevant than it ever was in an age of artifical man-hours added to projects. Robert Seacord Effective C, after not having written C in a long time. Really good intermediate level book for modern C. Also making my way through The Little Schemer as a replacement for advent of code in the second half of the month this year.
- Read 34 books (and audiobooks, I guess that counts) so far this year. Best have been
Fiction:
- Revolutionary road by Richard Yates
- Anathem by Neal Stephenson
- Silence by Shusaku Endo
Non fiction:
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Man’s search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl
- Getting More - Stuart Diamond. I still think this is the best book on the art of negotiation.
Getting Things Done - David Allen. If you have adult ADHD like me, and you haven't read this, it's the first system that's really worked for productivity for me.
Man's Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl.
Living Buddha, Living Christ - Thich Nhat Hanh.
Cosmos - Carl Sagan.
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. LeGuin.
The One who Walks Away from Omelas - U.K. LeGuin.
Wild Seed - Octavia Butler.
The Heike Monogatari - (tr. Helen Craig McCullough) “The sound of the Gion Shoja temple bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that to flourish is to fall. The proud do not endure, like a passing dream on a night in spring; the mighty fall at last, to be no more than dust before the wind.” If you need a comparison. this is the Japanese historical equivalent of Game of Thrones combined with a bit of MacBeth. The rise and fall of two shogunate families, and an analysis of the tragic flaws of character that brought their fall about.
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo.
Small Gods - Terry Pratchett.
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.
The Guide - R. K. Narayan.
Evidence - Mary Oliver.
All of Us - The Collected Poetry of Raymond Carver.
Silence - Shusaku Endo.
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Murakami Haruki. This and the next four are odd choices, perhaps, since it's a surrealist book, but IMO books that force your imagination to work hard do as much for creativity and fresh ideas as any of the more popular methods.
The Well-Built City (The Physiognomy / Memoranda / The Beyond) Jeffery Ford - Surrealist novellas best described as about the protagonist living and achieving agency within the constructs, dreams, and nightmares of a "Great Man's" mind.
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson.
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon.
Dhalgren - Samuel L. "Chip" Delany.
