Tag: japanese literature
An interesting short story. I haven’t read much of Murakami but what I have read has been okay. This was a short and fun read, a bit odd too. I did squirm at the end reading about the bugs especially being tucked up in bed myself.
The illustrations and design of the book are excellent though makes a little tricky reading on the Colorsoft Kindle. It does showcase the abilities of coloured e-ink though. See Kindle screenshot below.
This is a book I have read many, many times in the past, its a haunting novella focused around the Japanese tea ceremony and of a man who gets involved with his dead fathers mistress and the shadow of his fathers previous long term mistress hovers over him constantly. A very tragic novella and one where the past weighs heavily on the present.
Despite the bleakness of his works, I have yet to read a Yasunari Kawabata book that I did not like. His books are my gateway to Japanese literature in general. They are ones I come back to yearly especially this one and Snow Country. I do have five of his translated works yet to read, and I should get around to them soon. The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa, The Lake, The Old Capital, The Rainbow and Dandelions. I also want to read The Sound of the Mountain and The Master of Go again, having only read those once.
I notice this book is also newly re-published here (UK) as one of the 90 new Penguin Archive books. All short stories or novellas re-released with a beautiful minimalist new cover.
This makes it 10 books for the year so far, I was tempted to increase my years target to 50 but I think for now I will keep it at 25. I have plans for some longer books which I may get bogged down in.
Happy Easter.
When I posted last on here it was my intention to update the blog regularly with my reading progress but for one reason or another I didn’t seem to get around to it, which is a shame. This coming year I will make more of an effort to update and maintain this site, it will be my goal, regular updates (not that anyone will read them).
On to this pasy year, it has certainly been an eventful one this year. My trusty Sony Reader PRS-650 bit the dust and for my birthday I received an 8th Gen Kindle and subsequently upgraded to a 10th Gen on Black Friday. They have, along with Amazon in general changed the way I read, so convenient and cheap, some cracking deals on books for 99p or pocket change.
Kindle Unlimited has been great too and through it I have discovered some books and authors that I now count amongst my favourites.
Initially I had a goal of 24 books for the year, conservative estimate but I think I achieved it by March. Aside from one day that I can remember I pretty much stuck to my reading daily goal. I also read more frequently such as in the car, when waiting around and now I take my Kindle everywhere with me. Can always fit in a few pages here and there. I finished at 98 books read for the year and since March and my birthday they are almost exclusively digitally read, just so convenient and easier to take when heading out.
I also discovered Audible and have completed and thoroughly enjoyed several titles on there, most notably being Shogun by James Clavell, I read and listened to it. Audible is superb and my library is currently has 31 titles. They have some superb deals and the credit pricing is reasonable and a book s far more palatable for a £7.99 credit than £30+ purchase price. Whisper-sync is also something I never heard of prior to both using a Kindle and Audible, it is fantastic and accounts for most of my Audible library where you buy the ebook and get the audiobook at a vastly discounted price and progress in either copy carries forward between devices.
That’s enough waffling about Kindles, this is supposed to be about books. Onto the stars of the show…
I didn’t realise I had read so much but by reading a bit each day I seem to have raced through hell of a lot of books, not too quickly though that I can’t recall them, one or two were forgettable but on the whole I enjoyed almost all of what I read this year. Gosh 93 books and over 26000 pages read. Seems a lot when you take stock and look at the figures. My detailed yearly reads can be found here.
I made some great discoveries this year, the biggest being detective fiction. Having stumbled upon and loving several series most notably Marco Vichi’s Inspector Bordelli series of 6books (so far) a wonderful light hearted journey to 1960’s Florence with the titular Inspector and his underling Piras. Another Italy based dectective I very much enjoyed was Valeri Valero’s Commisario Soneri, a mondern day dectective in the misty City of Parma, quite enoyed him but Bordelli jut shades it for me. A final series I enjoyed was Martin O’Brien’s Jacquot series of books, following French detective Daniel Jacquot in Marseilles and regional Provence. I am currently 5 books into that 9 book series and have loved every one so far.
This coming year I have no plans for anything specific beyond finishing a few series and starting others. As for a set goal I would set a token goal of 36 books for the year and much like last year read daily with quality over quantity.
That said some specifics I would like to knock off are:
Aside from those I will see where my interests take and hopefully I can discover lots of new favourites and enjoyable reads. I don’t expect to reach 98 books and I’m not even going to try. If I can achieve one of my bullet points above I will be very happy. The most important thing for me is to get enjoyment in reading.
Hello and welcome to my blog, as of the time of writing this I have no idea where I am going wih this.I plan to use this site as a place to post my thoughts about the books I read, in hindsight I should have done this seven months ago when I started my Goodreads Reading Challenge. Better late than never I suppose.
For this years Reading Challenge I decided to be modest and set an initial target of 12 books for 2017. Subsequently I have exceeded it so raised the target to 18, I am currently at 15 books read so will likely raise it yet again to either 24 or 30. Considering I slacked last year in my reading, I am pleased to see me making good progress and experiencing new genres.
Currently I am reading a lot of Japanese literature, Yasunari Kawabata in particular. I am not sure why I got into this genre but I certainly am glad that I did. I suppose that is a blog post in itself, so far I have read several books by both him and others and thoroughly enjoyed them, even found a novel that is in my all time favourite reads.
Enough waffling for now, I’m not sure when I will get around to it but soon I will start using this site
Valley Reviews 