Sputnik Sweetheart is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever reluctantly finished. Murakami (and a lot of credit for this goes to the book’s Japanese-to-English translator Philip Gabriel) has a true gift for prose and it’s that single characteristic more than anything else that compelled me to finish the book. I’ve never read one of his books before but from what I know about him, Sputnik Sweetheart is pretty typical of his body of work. It’s narrated by K, a young teacher in Japan with […]
Another Attempt with Short Stories
The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
I’m at a loss for how to review this book. Earlier today on Facebook I quipped that some reviews just boil down to read it if you want, here’s a plot description. This might be one of those reviews. I had received suggestions to read Murakami based on other authors I liked and a sense of getting out of my own rut. Great! The suggestions were warranted. I did enjoy Murakami’s style, I just didn’t necessarily enjoy the fact that it was encapsulated in short […]
This was a weird little book
Double cannonball, baby! This was my first encounter with Haruki Murakami, and while I’m not 100% certain that I actually liked this weird little book, it definitely piqued my interest in the author. “The tricky thing about mazes is that you don’t know if you’ve chosen the right path until the very end. If it turns out you were wrong, it’s usually too late to go back and start again. That’s the problem with mazes.” A lonely boy (do we ever learn his name? I can’t […]
Reading Under the New Moon
The Strange Library combines two things that I love dearly: libraries and strange supernatural occurrences. The story begins with a boy returning his books to the library. When he asks the librarian for help finding more books, she directs him to a confined room in the basement where a small old man helps him locate three gigantic volumes on tax collection in the Ottoman Empire. However, when he tries to check the books out, he is told that he must instead read the books there, […]
Cannonball Buster
I have a disclaimer in my CBR7 Review #8 that most of my books are in storage. Husband bought me 1Q84 and although it is a brick, I couldn’t put it in storage since it was a gift. I figured Cannonball was great motivation to tackle this beast of a book. Then I see on Amazon you can buy it as three books. Not only is it quite beautiful, you should buy it this way to get the bang for 3 books. And as one […]
“Every person has their own color.”
I am an avowed fan of Haruki Murakami. I look forward to his new books like they’re Harry Potter sequels. But besides my usual excitement, I had especially good feelings about this one. I loved the title. I loved the cover art. And best of all: It’s about a third the size of 1Q84. Domo arigato, Murakami-san. While I liked 1Q84, at 925 pages it did feel a little flabby. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki went the opposite route in that it left me wanting more. At […]
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