The purpose of this 读书札记 column, which was set last year, is to record all the mental processes, the fresh thought, feeling and emotion, nurtured during and after reading.  Yet, I have been dragging my heels and not lived up to the expectation that I had in my mind – I have just taken notice that the very last reading note, in the bona fide sense, was written in last July.  So, it’s been almost a year and half that I have not written anything about what I have read.  What a shame to have this “garden” (读书园地, interposing: it seems there is always a way to say things figuratively in Chinese) withered away.  Well, let’s blame the social climate for now.  It hasn’t been a good year, has it? People have reason to be sluggish. :-)

Hope this little note will prod me to do better in the future.