For most scientists, bringing play into lives holds the key to true productivity. I learned from Ali Abdaal's revolutionary book Feel-Good Productivity how Richard Feynman came to work out quantum electrodynamics from playing with throwing plates up in the air, watching the wobbling plates.

According to Ali Abdaal, seriousness is overrated. If we don't want to ruin our lives, the first step is to be less serious and reduce the power of fear.

Well, that's comforting. To cite one of the rules

There's nothing quite like reading a runner's journey learning to run – and to live – like a Greek. That's how and why I borrowed the book The Art of Running by Andrea Marcolongo, who learned Ancient Greek at her liceo classico at the age of fourteen, and started her instinct to run along the Seine at the age of thirty-two.

The author experienced the vital impulse at a similar age as Haruki Murakami (who started to run at the age of thirty-three, the

Weird – and no doubt controversial – as it may sound, a book from fictional genre can resemble an autobiography.

Sigrid Nunez, an American writer, wrote her seventh novel The Friend in the first person voice. In the middle of reading this story of a woman mourning the suicide of a close friend and taking in his bereft dog, I had to look back at the call number on the spine of the library book. I checked the letter F and convinced myself it's indeed a fiction, and not a

Kiley Reid's book Such a Fun Age is a page turner about race and class.

The story is about a Black babysitter, Emira, who was accused by an upscale grocery store security guard. The security guard suspected Emira to be a kidnapper of a white toddler. The scene of tense standoff – security guard pointing finger at Emira's face, and rebuttal "The fuck are you doing? Don't touch me!" from Emira holding a two-year-old girl – was filmed by a

When I was preparing a lecture for geriatric medicine, I heard the news of President-elect of the United States at the age of seventy-eight.

Should there be an age limit for the election?

Yes, I know, that might seem like comitting the sin of ageism. Still, I have to say that there is nowadays an imbalance of power that favors the old.

It is not just in politics that our performance peaked when we were relatively young. This is also true in science and mathematics, according

Reading books from black-belt storytellers has improved my way of crafting sentences – thanks to my habit of collecting – after jotting down memorable paragraphs from their books.

I can't think of a good reason, but I like collections. One of my vocabulary building hobbies, as an early reader at junior grades, is writing new words (and their meaning from dictionary) on a notebook. That's not all. As I'm getting older, I use my smartphone or laptop to copy good sentences every

Autumn colours draw phenomenal crowds to Japan outdoor areas for the foliage, most prized of all being the maples. It's hard to resist. My wife and I have been grateful for the chance to view the vibrant colours during Kamikōchi trip this autumn.

Calendar checking is getting more difficult when the climate change has pushed back the peak of autumn leaf season over the past decades. A study in the United States has confirmed delayed arrival of red maple leaf colours by more than a month since the 19th

Kamikōchi has been revered as Japan's answer to the Yosemite or Patagonia. Even I have neither been to Sierra Nevada nor South America, I have to agree that Kamikōchi is the Holy Grail for hiking enthusiasts.

Situated at an elevation of 1,500 metres and along the banks of the crystal-clear Azusa-gawa, Kamikōchi is also known as the "Japanese Alps", a term popularised by the English missionary and conservationist Reverend Walter Weston. The town's popularity