WORLD CULTURE BOARD
World Culture Board
Culture, cities, history, and world affairs are gathered for slower reading.
5 Books the World Is Reading | August 25, 2026
5 Books the World Is Reading | August 25, 2026
English-language 2 books
Mad Mabel
Author: Sally Hepworth
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is an eighty-one-year-old grandmother. She lives on a quiet street called Kenny Lane in Australia. She has lived on that street for sixty years. She is the person who has lived on that street the longest among the neighbors. She is always grumbling and has a blunt way of speaking. She lives on her own without relying on anyone. She spends her day with a cup of hot tea by her side. One day, an elderly neighbor is found dead. That death occurs on Kenny Lane where Elsie lives. At first, none of the neighbors think it is strange. Then, people find out Elsie's old name. People called her Mad Mabel back then. The name Mabel became widely known in Australia when she was young. The neighbors find out late what kind of person Elsie was. Eighty-one-year-old Elsie and young Mabel appear alternately. The events that happened to Mabel in her youth also come out one by one in turn.
Author profile
Sally Hepworth is an Australian novelist. She grew up in Melbourne, Australia. Before becoming a writer, she worked in event planning and human resources. While resting after giving birth to her first child, she wrote the novel Love Like the French. This book was released in Germany in 2014. In 2015, she released the novel The Midwife's Secret, which contains the story of three generations of midwives who deliver babies. After that, she released The Things We Keep in 2016, and The Mother's Promise and The Family Next Door in 2017. She won the Davitt Award for Adult Novel in 2021 with her novel The Good Sister.
Delusional
Author: James Patterson & James O. Born
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Michael Bennett is a police detective who has been taking on cases in New York. Rob Trilling is also an officer working for the same New York Police Department. Before becoming a police officer, Trilling worked in the military. In the military, he was a sniper who hit distant targets with a gun. It has not been long since Bennett and Trilling started working together. One day, a bomb explodes in the middle of downtown New York. The explosions do not end with one, but continue several times. Many people lose their lives due to the explosions. The two of them investigate this bomb case together. The investigation does not end only within downtown New York. Bennett and Trilling leave New York and go to Montana. Montana is a state located very far from New York. There, the two also continue their investigation of the case. The case crosses state lines and extends to several states. The case is also connected to the affairs of the members of one family. The bomb that went off in New York and the matter in Montana are ultimately one case.
Author profile
James Patterson is an American writer born in 1947. He wrote this book with James O. Born. The name James Patterson is a name used by several people. A U.S. Senator from New Hampshire and a U.S. Representative from South Carolina also used the same name. There are also people with the same name among Canadian politicians and mayors of Memphis, USA. The name of the politician who served as the Premier of Victoria, Australia, is also James Patterson. There is also a Jim Patterson among Scottish soccer players and Irish cricketers. Jim is a shortened name for James.
Russian-language 1 books
Капля духов в открытую рану
Author: Катя Качур
Publisher: Эксмо
The protagonist is a woman with an exceptionally keen sense of smell. Because of this ability, she remembers love, joy, and disappointment through scents. A specific scent lingers with each moment of her life. She knows all the back alleys and passages of Moscow's perfume market. She even visits places where hidden transactions take place. In the past, she made a name for herself as a talented journalist. She had many followers and also received jealous glances. Now, almost no one remembers her name. The words of praise once showered upon her have turned into ridicule. She lives inconspicuously in the crowded city. A man still views her as a radiant person. The man's face is displayed on a large billboard in the capital city. The man is currently at the peak of his popularity. The woman spends her days quietly at the bottom. The woman does not know the feelings of the man looking at her. The emotions between the two are painfully connected.
Author profile
Katya Kachur is a Russian writer born on December 7, 1973, in Kuibyshev, a city on the Volga River. Kuibyshev is now known as Samara. She loved writing, creating poems and stories since the age of three. After growing up, she studied at Samara State University. Her real name is Ekaterina Kachur, and she works as a writer, journalist, and literary editor. She has worked as a television reporter for over 20 years, producing various programs. She writes novels and short stories in Russian. Her writing is characterized by explaining complex stories in simple language and incorporating humor and gentle irony.
Japanese-language 1 books
ちいかわ お友だちとのつき合いかた
Author: ナガノ、加藤 裕美子
Publisher: KADOKAWA
Chiikawa is a small and cutely drawn character. There are friends who always stay by Chiikawa's side. The scenes of spending the day with friends are shown one after another in illustrations. It teaches step-by-step how to make new friends. It also shows how to get along with existing friends. Sometimes friends do not agree with each other. In such cases, it offers guidance on what to say. There are times when communication goes slightly awry, causing discomfort. Ways to resolve such situations are also included along with illustrations. Readers can learn step-by-step by following the experiences of the characters. Illustrations and short texts are placed side by side on each page. It highlights common occurrences that happen among friends. It explains using simple words that children use instead of difficult terms. It addresses friendship issues that children are curious about one by one. It covers everything from making friends to experiencing conflicts. It is helpful for children who want to get along well with their friends.
Author profile
Nagano is a Japanese illustrator and manga artist born in 1988. Their drawings are characterized by soft lines drawn with brush pens, mechanical pencils, colored pencils, and Copic markers. Their name spread widely as the illustration 'The Bear Who Interjects Alone' posted on Twitter became popular. They created various characters like Mr. Pug and Miyake Cat as Line stickers, ranking first in Japan multiple times. In 2013, they drew Shibushi Shishimaru, the official character of Shibushi City, Kagoshima Prefecture. In 2018, they collaborated with Pokemon. 'Chiikawa,' which began serialization on Twitter in 2020, was adapted into an anime in April 2022.
Chinese-language 1 books
思考，快与慢（第二版）
Author: [美] 丹尼尔·卡尼曼
E-book platform: 豆瓣阅读
There are two ways of thinking in the human mind. One is System 1, and the other is System 2. System 1 quickly judges the situation at hand. It relies on intuition, emotion, and memory to produce answers immediately. System 2 moves slower than System 1. It examines things step by step and thinks logically. It explains how the two systems work in the brain. Quick judgment widely intervenes in people's thoughts and choices. It shows this process one by one through vivid conversations and experiments. It distinguishes between when to trust intuition and when not to trust it. Using slow thinking well can lead to better choices. It challenges the idea that people always choose based on reason. It examines how people judge under uncertain situations. The judgment appears different from predictions made by economic theories. It introduced prospect theory and opened the field of behavioral economics. It teaches how to prevent mental biases that cause trouble for people.
Author profile
Daniel Kahneman is an Israeli-American psychologist born in Tel Aviv in 1934. He received his bachelor's degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1954, majoring in psychology and minoring in mathematics. After graduation, he took on the role of evaluating the psychology of officer candidates in the Israel Defense Forces. In 1958, he went to the University of California, Berkeley, and received a Ph.D. in psychology. He researched visual psychology while working as a lecturer at the Hebrew University. Together with psychologist Amos Tversky, he published prospect theory in 1979. He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for this research. In 2011, he published the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow".
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