Preface and Acknowledgment

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I am an engineer by training and my career was in engineering education and research.  I began to develop an interest in reading books not related to engineering in the summer of 1961, following graduation with the B.Sc. degree from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario that spring.  I continued to pursue a M.Sc. degree at Queen’s.   That summer, before the M.Sc. program formally began, I had plenty of free time.  I became interested in reading books unrelated to engineering.  I stumbled upon the works of the Russian masters,Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, and Turgenev.  I read many of their masterpieces.  Among them War and Peace (Tolstoy), The Cherry Orchard (Chekhov), Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky), Spring Torrents (Turgenev). I was also attracted to some of the “speeches that shook the world”, especially those of Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy.

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Over the years, my interest in reading has not waned, but I had limited time for reading books outside my field during my working years.  This changed when I retired in 2011.  In retirement, I was able to spend a good portion of my waking hours reading and listening to music, similar to what I did in the summer of 1961.  In the period 2012-2019, I read a number of novels by the nineteenth century French author Alexander Dumas, including The Count of Monte Cristo and the five volume D’Artagnan Romances which started with The Three Musketeers and ended with The Man in the Iron Mask.  I also read many mystery thrillers by modern-day authors: James Patterson, Richard North Patterson, Dan Brown and John Grisham.  

My first attempt in writing a book review did not take place until October 2020.  The review was on the novel "Rudin" by Ivan Turgenev.  I had no trouble getting it posted on the Amazon website.  By September 2021, I had written some 24 reviews.  The books reviewed spanned the spectrum of autobiography/biography/history, literature/fiction, leadership/philosophy, science, and music. A few did not belong to these categories and were labelled “others”.  With the help of my son, Steven, we created this website, kaifonglee.com for the reviews.  As of December 5, 2022, there are 65 reviews on the website.  For the 48 books bought from Amazon, their reviews are also posted on Amazon.

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A number of reviews have audio versions on YouTube.  The link to the audio version is given at the end of each of these reviews.

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The first quote appearing on this site, “You are what you read” is from the book "Contrarian's Guide to Leadership" by Steven B. Sample. The second quote has its origin in the legendary journalist Mike Wallace.  When Wallace was ninety years of age, he was asked in an interview why he remained active.  He responded by saying that retirement was not in his vocabulary, and he wanted to “Grow until you go”.  I added two words to make it “Read and grow until you go”.  I hope these two quotes will encourage young folks to develop the habit of reading, which is one of the most effective ways of seeking knowledge.  Both Confucious and Socrates believed seeking knowledge is the surest road to happiness.

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For myself, one of the best rewards in reading books and writing their reviews is to learn the rich wisdom that is scattered throughout the pages.  Many of them can serve as useful guides in our lives.  Below are examples of five such quotes:

• “When things cannot be altered, count your blessings” (Jane Hawking in Travelling to Infinity)

•  “Happiness lies all around us.  We only have to pick it up.”  (Erich Marie Remarque in Arch of Triumph)    

• “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”. (Aesop, a Greek storyteller in Ancient Wisdom, Timeless Truths) 

• "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, it’s also what it takes to sit down and listen."  (Winston S. Churchill in Wit and Wisdom of Winston Churchill)   

• “There is a direct link between doing your work and having your wishes come true.” (Barack Obama in A Promised Land)

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In addition, I would like to mention the quote by Richard Feynman in Feynman’s Rainbow: “Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter.  Explore the world.  Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.”  What a refreshing way of looking at life!                                                                                                 

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Feynman certainly adhered to this viewpoint throughout his life.  Indeed, on his deathbed, he saw the approaching death as his final discovery – what it is like to die.  He thought it would be  “IN-ter-ES-ting”.

Except for a few photos of my own, the sources of the illustrations/photos at the end of each review are from Wikipedia and are acknowledged here with thanks.

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Kai Fong Lee

December 2022

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