So i’ve been doing a bit of reading recently, and i thought i might aswell mention it here.

The first thing i’ve read recently is a wonderful book called “Night of the Milky Way Railway” by Kenji Miyazawa (yes… that was the book from episode 3 of Hantsuki… i just had to buy it, lol ), i must say it’s been a long time since i’ve read a book that provokes the imagination in the ways that this book does, it’s simply great (i can imagine Mr. Heaton would have a field day on this! ). It tells the story of one boy (Giovanni) who, feeling lonely from the taunting he receives from his classmates runs to a nearby hill to seek some time alone. He is then whisked away onto a train for a nighttime journey alongside the banks of the Milky Way, and sitting opposite him for the duration of the journey is his only friend… Campanella.

I don’t want to give too much else away, but it is such a brilliant, fairly short book, it deserves to be read by everyone. If you do want to buy it, don’t buy the recent version of this book… apparantly the translation is all screwed up, and they changed all the character names and stuff. The 1991 version i linked to above on Amazon is regarded as the best one, as the translation is accurate, and it includes some nice extra notes at the back of the book giving deeper insight into the writer’s life, thoughts, imagination, and motivations. (P.S. if you do buy that version, *DO NOT* read the introduction at the front of the book, or the blurb at the back, they both spoil the ending of the story)

The other thing i read recently was this rather insightful article on virii, and the part they play in the evolutionary puzzle: http://www.discover.com/issues/mar-06/cover/

Please read both pages of that article, it’s very interesting, especially the fact that most of our DNA is just made up of virii that are “just persisting”.

Are virii “living” things?

What defines something as “living”?

Are we “living”?