Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Life is a long quiet river…

La brocante Nakano (The Nakano Thrift Shop) by Hiromi Kawakami (translated by Elisabeth Suetsugu)

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This is the second book by Hiromi Kawakami I have read and even though I don’t remember many details about the first one, it apparently was enjoyable enough that I bought three other books by her… I hope the other two are more to my liking because this one was a struggle. I enjoyed the writing. The story was very slow but that doesn’t bother me as a rule. I just found every single character to be extremely uninteresting. Even the not particularly nice ones. […]

Sometimes, rarely, you get precisely what you want in life. This is one of those times.

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For reasons I can’t fully explain, this book has always held talismanic powers for me. I’ve walked passed it numerous times in the book store, always intending to read it, but never buying it. Until, one day, I did. But then it sat on my shelf unread, collecting dust, and taking up space in a room infrequently visited but never entirely free of my interest. I went on to read other Murakami books, and loved many of them. But Norwegian Wood has been a consistently […]

“Lady, did you ever see anyone shot by a gun without bleeding?”

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My year of Murakami continues with Sputnik Sweetheart, a brooding and disturbing book about connection and isolation, what kind of pants people are wearing, and writing. While it’s not my favorite Murakami work, it’s still more gripping and provocative than most of the fifty-something books I’ve read this year. All of his books either change my worldview or spur me towards my own creative pursuits. That’s good art. Sputnik‘s protagonist is the typical Murakamian narrator. Male. Enjoys alcohol and thinking, does ok with the ladies, interested […]

The first Murakami is….much like any other Murakami

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I came to Murakami relatively recently. I’d heard the name before, but, like Margaret Atwood and numerous others, my perception of his work was that it existed on some literary plain far beyond my understanding. So it wasn’t until 1Q84 that I decided to give him a shot. And I don’t really even know why. After devouring every book I could find as a teenager, my reading habits tapered off in college. It wasn’t until 2009 that I really started to pick up the habit again. […]

“If you remember me, I don’t care if everyone else forgets.”

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Kafka on the Shore is a strange book, even by Murakami standards. This is my second reading but sadly I don’t remember what I thought about it the fist time I read it 12 years ago because back then I didn’t take notes or write reviews. All I know is that I thought it was a four-star book. Haruki Murakami has been one of my favorite writers ever since I “discovered” him almost 17 years ago. I read a review of The Elephant Vanishes in […]

Murder in a grove / Unreliable viewpoints / Mifune will rise

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While technically a short story, I think this still qualifies for the Cannonball. If graphic novels count, then I’m including this. And I’m a bit of an iconoclast, so there. This classic of Japanese literature formed the basis for the iconic Akira Kurosawa movie, Rashomon. It tells the story of a young man’s murder via the viewpoints of seven different individuals, ranging from the woodcutter who found the body to the spirit of the victim, himself (via a medium). That fairly well sums up the […]



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