Mike Han

A series of letters from Daw Aung San Su Kyi during the brief gap of 20 plus years long house arrest during the 90s to be published in a certain newspaper. (She might have mentioned the name in the book, but I couldn't remember)

Unlike her other book Freedom from Fear, this book is filled with many poignant stories about her daily life, lovely stories of cultural events and political events centered around her life as a political dissident. I love many of her delicate metaphors. The tremendous mental strength - facing the challenges that laid before her - emerges through her writings and inspired me unlike any other books I have ever read.

There is no you-know-who that the whole world should be afraid of, there is no single hero with boundless moral authority, there is no global issues that tells epic stories. Each and every character are the villains and the heroes of their own story (more or less) and their challenges, as small as they may be, are real and relatable.

It started out slow and stoppable until I was half-way in. I thank myself now that I persisted.

Predictably Irrational informs how ignorant we are about our irrational behaviors through stories and experiments. The ingenuity of the experiments, and the mere knowledge that the author himself is the one (of the many) who conducted them made the book much more enjoyable. Definitely the book to read if you want to feel smarter.