Books read in 2026: No. 14 -- The Religion of the Samurai

by Kaiten Nukariya

Started: October 8

Finished: October 21

Notes: It's been a while since I've read something from out in left field, so I glanced at my Kindle and saw this e-book from 1913 that I had picked up probably more than a decade ago. Apparently it was common for samurai to be Buddhist, a religion of which I only have a bare understanding, so perhaps I'll learn from this.

Mini review: The title here is somewhat misleading because there's next to nothing here directly about Samurai. Most of this book is a history of Zen Buddhism with an explanation of tenets for the religion as well as some ideas about practicing meditation. I found a lot of practicalities here, mostly about meditation and how it can help someone, but toward the end of this book it started to get into more mystical stuff which did nothing for me.

Books read in 2026: No. 13 -- The Screwtape Letters

by C.S. Lewis

Started: Sept. 27

Finished: October 8

Notes: I just finished this authors' novel The Great Divorce and found it interesting enough to want to consider reading further of his material. Outside of his Narnia fantasy novels, this Christian fiction is perhaps the author's best known work. This novel is about a demon writing letters to his son, but the demon eventually comes around to a Christian point of view. Or so I've heard. I'm looking forward to this one.

Mini review: Turns out it was a demon uncle writing to his nephew. This one could grow monotonous as its just letter after letter, but those letters did provide an interesting look at how our lesser actions or thoughts can become sins. The best part was the final chapter, which was not a letter but a speech from the demon named Screwtape, and it sounded very prescient to our day and age despite having been written about seventy years ago.