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I thought that if I wanted to give my child an environment that encourages reading and helps build the habit, I would first have to start with myself. As of September 12, 2026, I have finished only two books. One was written by a Japanese author, and the other by a Taiwanese author. I found both by casually searching, liked their titles and tables of contents, and bought them to read.


It turns out my instincts were good. After reading them carefully from beginning to end, I do not regret buying either one at all.


The Japanese book was Read With Just One Sheet of Paper. The Taiwanese book was Precision Writing.


I feel that I could share a lot of thoughts about both books, but if I really tried to say everything, it would be too much—so I will mention just one thing for now.


It is quite interesting.

One chapter in Taiwan's Precision Writing is titled “Creating Friction Points for Readers: Four Principles and Six Techniques.” The general idea is that you should use contrast and connections to create sparks for the reader. So even when the meaning is the same, you find contrasting or related things to write about.


Meanwhile, the Japanese book Read With Just One Sheet of Paper teaches us how to deal with those times when we get halfway through something and no longer know what it is talking about. The key is to identify the main claim. The Japanese author offers a method: find what “keeps reappearing in different forms” throughout the text.


Do those ideas sound similar?


One is about finding different ways to write the same thing so that readers can understand it. (Could some people just be trying to pad the word count? Hahaha.)


The other is about finding the same meaning within a whole pile of words and sentences.


Speaking of that, it reminds me of the Bible. Does everyone know that the Bible is divided into the New Testament and the Old Testament? Together they form one book with more than a thousand pages, and the Old Testament contains the most words. The Old Testament consists of the books of the Jewish faith from before the Lord Jesus was killed and nailed to the cross. They contain records written over a span of about a thousand years by many prophets, kings, and statesmen.


A thousand years—just imagine how many words would accumulate over that much time.


That is why it also took me a long time to read through it once. By the time I reached the later parts, I may already have forgotten the earlier ones. Some of its stories are fascinating, and I believe that everything in them really happened. You can look into them for yourself.


But coming back to the point: with so much content, can everyone understand what God wants to say?


So when Jesus was in the world, He said:


“Matthew 22:37–40: Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”


I think the concept is like the situation with the Taiwanese and Japanese authors mentioned earlier. Jesus is like the reading method from the Japanese author: He summed up the essence in just one short statement. But it would not be right to say that everything written during the preceding thousand years was a waste of time. The writing lessons from our Taiwanese author are important too. To show the core ideas of loving God and loving others in a clear and accessible way, you need to write out the details.


Imagine a boyfriend and girlfriend. If the man tells the woman, “I love you—this is the main point,” but all he ever does is say it and he never does anything in everyday life, do you think those words mean anything?


But what if the man has done many things for the woman, and she has also devoted a great deal to him, and then one day he says, “I did all of this because I love you”? Does that not feel different?


Now that I am reaching the end, I look back and realize that I too have used a whole lot of contrasts and connections. I do not know whether anyone can understand what I am trying to say. I need to think about how to sum it up myself.