The Free Reader Gamer

一not everything, but what's worth your time.

  • What is Free Reading/Gaming?
  • Free Reading
    • How to Start Free Reading
    • How to Find the Right Read
  • Free Gaming
    • Introducing The Gaming Experience Index (GEI)
    • Everything and Anything Hearthstone
    • Chinese RPG Showcase: Scar of Sky – Xuan-Yuan Sword
  • Featured
  • Free Reader’s Essentials
  • Have a Taste
  • 中文區

Then and Again, I Say Yes—Ask Again, Yes

July 17, 2019 by Robin Chan

I finished Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane two days ago, and I waited and waited and waited, for everything to sink in before I write this final post and talk about my humble thoughts about it. Yes, it is that kind of book. No, I didn’t expect it. I expected good but this […]

Filed Under: Free Reader's Essentials, Latest Featured, Smoking Hot, Uncategorized Tagged With: askagainyes, familydrama, greatcharacters, heartfelt, marybethkeane, novel

A Tapestry of a Novel in the best sense of the word—Dear Edward

June 20, 2019 by Robin Chan

“Tapestry” is not a word I trust in a book blurb, no matter who has written it. Yet, 336 pages later and a month of carrying the book around every day, I have to concede—Dear Edward is a most fascinating tapestry of a book. My distrust in the word lies simply in that it tells […]

Filed Under: Featured - Reading, Free Reader's Essentials, Latest Featured, Uncategorized Tagged With: advancedreadercopy, annnapolitano, characterdriven, dearedward, lifeaffirming, literaryfiction, matteroftheheart, multiplenarratives, novels, tragedy, uplifting

There is Something Heroic about Being a Bookseller—The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

June 30, 2018 by Robin Chan

“Hey A.J.,”she calls. “There is something kind of heroic about being a bookseller.” When we first meet A.J Fikry, the recently widowed owner of the only bookshop on Alice Island, there seems nothing particularly heroic about him. He’s an irritable drunk who thinks he and his bookshop are probably too good for the island dwellers […]

Filed Under: Also Trending, Featured - Reading, Free Reader's Essentials Tagged With: books on books, bookseller, character-driven, fiction, Gabrielle Zevin, literary fiction, novel, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

越讀十年—說一本改變我人生軌跡的書

June 24, 2018 by Robin Chan

每個行業都有大師,出版業也不例外。國外的且不算—因為我暫時沒有知識—在華文界我知道且深受的影響的有一位—台灣的大塊文化董事長,Net & Books創辦人郝明義先生。不記得在哪讀到,但稱他卓而成家的—出版家—不是我的創見。而我認識先生,繼而深受他影響正始於他寫於2007年的《越讀者》。 這本談閱讀方法、理論及實踐的書對青年時迷茫的我無異一本真正的啟蒙書。自此書起我方知閱讀可以有方法,而且我國備受愛戴景仰的大賢如諸葛亮、蘇東坡、陶淵明及朱熹等早已傳下種種法門,各有妙用;也是由此書我知道了關於閱讀方法論的外國大學者Mortimer J. Adler著作《如何閱讀一本書》(How to Read a Book)提到的四種層次的閱讀;然而最為重要的,是先生在此書中字字句句滲出的閱讀的美好和可能性,在情感上直接使我之後的人生與書結下深緣。誇張的說一句,假如我沒有讀過這本書,我今天不可能成為一名選書師。 提幾個此書對我最直接的影響。首先,先生直接啟蒙了我對漫畫(Graphic Novels)的欣賞(Part 4圖像與漫畫的作用)。在此之前,我對漫畫此既深且博的載體(medium)還只停留於幼時愛看的叮噹(Dorameon)和花生漫畫(Peanuts)。到現在當然對此道還是連入門都談不上,但起碼真的去找了幾本還真不錯的Graphic Novels來看,比如Craig Thompson的Blankets、蓋曼大叔(Neil Gaiman)的Sandman系列,又比如非常狂野的Sex Criminals或近新的Monstress,都是大開腦洞的佳作。 由此而進,先生對閱讀的整體性思考也深深影響了我,對於書以外文本(non-book texts)的閱讀(Part 3為什麼不必是文字與書)—當然先生不是第一位說類似的道理,比如我從沒讀過而只二手閱讀的沈從文先生就說過讀小書和讀大書的道理,但真正影響我的還要數先生此書。可以說,我開始寫影評、寫遊戲點評(Games Commentary)也是從此開始。 此外,先生提及最好有一個心儀的對像(Part 7)。他的對像英國哲學家羅素(Bertrand Russell)直接成為了我的首幾位最愛的作者及哲人之一,此中種種的二度影響不在話下—在看了無數自我成長(Self-Help)類的書後,真要感嘆於近一世紀前寫成的羅素的The Conquest of Happiness的簡潔精闢完爆當今多少暢銷作品。正是因為先生在書中對羅素的由心敬佩,為我開啟了對知識追尋的這道大門。 說《越讀者》改變了我人生軌跡有點誇張,細思之下卻是不爭的事實。如果你只讀一本關於閱讀的書,我衷心推薦這一本。

Filed Under: Free Reader's Essentials, Have a Taste, Latest Featured, 中文區 Tagged With: books about books, how to read a book, metareading, methodology, net and books, publishing, reading methodology, rex ho, 中文書, 大塊文化, 華文作者, 越讀者, 郝明義

John Green Did it Again— Turtles All the Way Down Review

April 8, 2018 by Robin Chan

Thank you, John Green, you did it again. Thank you for writing another great novel for all ages—forget the YA catergory—that illuminates, entertains, and provokes in equal measure. Thank you for outdoing yourself by not making romance the center of the new book, and making the wait after The Fault in Our Stars worth it. Every writer […]

Filed Under: Free Reader's Essentials, Have a Taste, Latest Featured, Smoking Hot Tagged With: book review, john green, mental health, novel, novel for all ages, serious, strong characters, strongly recommended, turtles all the way down, ya

Four Novels I Would Recommend to Anyone, AnyTime

February 20, 2018 by Robin Chan

So normally I believe that there is no absolute good or bad when it comes to recommending books; a good book for me might just be a mediocre one for you, and vice versa.  But there are a few novels I have read and enjoyed so much that I would recommend them to anyone, anytime. In […]

Filed Under: Featured - Reading, Free Reader's Essentials Tagged With: Ernest Cline, Haruki Murakami, Matt Haig, Norwegian Wood, ready player one, south of the border west of the sun, the humans, The Storied Life of AJ Fikry

So, What is Reading, Really?-Attitude and Thoughts of a Master of the Art of Living

March 8, 2016 by Robin Chan

Sooner or later, a reader would ask himself/herself, “What is reading?”, or sometimes, “Am I doing it right?”, or still, “Why am I even reading this?” I am a reader. And I am curious. Have been, will be, always. So yeah, I’ve been there. Today I want to talk about reading-the essence of the activity, […]

Filed Under: Free Reader's Essentials, Free Reading, Latest Featured Tagged With: alain de botton, Chinese culture, Lin Yutang, Marcel Proust, the art of living, the art of reading

Archaic Self-help on Getting Rich: A Review of The Richest Man in Babylon

January 28, 2016 by Robin Chan

If you are like me-a 20-something who just starts working but have no idea where to start on the road to financial freedom, look no further-The Richest Man in Babylon offers tips, rules, , as well as concrete advice, and above all hope. If you don’t mind the archaic-style English (Ten years ago when I stood at the gates […]

Filed Under: Featured - Reading, Free Reader's Essentials, Free Reading Tagged With: classic reading, personal finance, self-help book, storytelling

How to Always Find the Right Read in an Age of Far Too Many Choices

January 8, 2016 by Robin Chan

The Problem Reading has never been easier-when you can think of a title and have it downloaded into your device built and meant for reading in under a minute-and yet harder-facing an ocean of choices for every single genre and topic you can think of. But the problem here is obviously not only choosing the […]

Filed Under: Free Reader's Essentials, Free Reading, Latest Featured Tagged With: finding the right read, free reading, strategy of picking

How Reading can be Delicious: 4 Types of Reads Everyone Needs

December 31, 2015 by Robin Chan

The other day I got an Ask to Answer, aka A2A on Quora: How can I start tolerating books? I thought long and hard-about whether I should write an answer or not. Does the phrase tolerating books indicate the person asking is a lost cause beyond saving? I did write an answer (as you may guess). And I am glad I […]

Filed Under: Featured - Reading, Free Reader's Essentials, Free Reading, Latest Featured Tagged With: free reading, reading classification, reading motivation, start reading

About the Blogger

My name is Robin Chan. I currently work as a book buyer for an independently owned English bookseller in Hong Kong. In general, I enjoy my work—getting to know all the new books, restocking the old ones I consider good books, curating lists and catalogs and writing about them and getting paid for all that. But it’s not possible to talk about all your personal favorites if you don’t own the business. So here I am, this is my personal business about everything I love in reading, and yes—you see it already—gaming. I started gaming pretty young and I am proud to say that I still thoroughly enjoy exploring new worlds and characters and narratives which sometimes in their own unique ways surpass the ways books interact with you, and of course, it’s the same for books the other way round. And this is where I explore the interactions of my two favorite mediums.

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Recent Posts

  • Then and Again, I Say Yes—Ask Again, Yes July 17, 2019
  • 重回中文閱讀的懷抱—吳明益《複眼人》 July 1, 2019
  • A Tapestry of a Novel in the best sense of the word—Dear Edward June 20, 2019
  • Normal People Shows that Being Normal is Abnormally Hard September 6, 2018
  • An Enthralling Adventure into the Lost Civilization of Bugs—A Review of Hollow Knight July 1, 2018

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