The Tipping Point is the lead book for June’s Six Degrees, hosted at Books Are My Favourite and Best. It’s not a book that I’ve heard of, let alone read. So which way will my book chain go? Continue reading
I slowed down my reading during January, trying to get more depth of engagement with what I read, relishing it more. This includes books of less than 150 pages that I would typically zip through. Recently I read three short books from Penguin, all of them full of big ideas. It took longer than I expected, and I found strong links between the three, so I’m reviewing them together.
Read 20/09/2017-22/09/2017
Rating: 4 stars
My husband noticed this on the non-fiction shelves in the library. I like Peter Carey’s novels, and a memoir of how he and his teenage son became captivated by manga and anime and travelled to Tokyo to meet artists and directors in each industry sounded interesting. Continue reading
Read 12/01/2017-14/01/2017
Rating: 5 stars
Read for The Reader’s Room Winter Challenge
It isn’t often that I read a book and don’t want to review it for fear of shattering its beauty. Thousand Cranes is such a book. I can talk about what I love about it. I can boil the plot down to mundanities. Or I can tell you to read it and find out for yourself what makes it such a compelling book.
From the very first lines I was hooked. Continue reading
Read 17/12/2016-22/12/2016
Rating: 4 stars
In his introduction to this book, Haruki Murakami has all kinds of thoughts about why it isn’t a novel, and why, if Sōseki had had more time to think about it instead of a looming newspaper serialisation deadline to meet, it wouldn’t have been written at all. Continue reading
Read 22/08/2016-28/08/2016
Rating: 3 stars
Read for the Reader’s Room Olympic Challenge
A while ago, I read John Dougill’s book about the Hidden Christians of Japan, in which the author goes on a pilgrimage of sorts to understand the history of Christianity in Japan. Dougill refers to Endō’s novel Silence. I was reminded of it when I read that Martin Scorsese was directing a film adaptation of the novel. And so, I bought myself a copy. Continue reading
Read 30/05/2016-04/06/2016
Rating: 5 stars
I immediately loved this book. Ōe’s writing style is incredibly Western, so much so that I found myself wondering during the first chapter whether it was set in Japan or not. It had a West Coast American feel, and put me in mind of Charles Bukowski and Kurt Vonnegut in its straightforwardness.
The main character, Bird, is unlike anyone in the family he has married into. He is a worrying and detached personality, similar to those found in Murakami novels. I recognised Ōe’s influence on Murakami when I read The Silent Cry, and this book cements that impression. Continue reading
