translated fiction

Book Review – Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami

books, reviews

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I like tot think that I’m a big fan of Japanese fiction because I’ve mostly enjoyed everything I’ve ever read by Japanese writers. Of course, I don’t think I actually read enough of it to justify that classification. It’s all just part of a wider issue where I still mainly stick to British or American writers. As part of my plan to improve my range, I picked this beauty up last year. I found it in a bookshop when I was waiting to meet some friends. It was part of their books under 200 pages display which was basically everything I was looking for in a book in 2022. I was fully drawn in because of the bright blue cover and quirky premise. It just sounded like something I would enjoy but that wouldn’t take much work. Of course, it’s taken me almost a year to get around to reading it but better late then never, right?

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Book Review – She and her Cat by Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa

books, reviews

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Picking up the right book at the right time makes all the difference to your enjoyment levels. If you pick up a sure-fire hit at the wrong time then it can become a nightmare. I won’t say that December was the worst time for me to pick up this book but it certainly didn’t make it easy. She and Her Cat is the kind of book that I should have been able to read over a couple of nights or in one day over the weekend. What actually happened is that I slaved over this book for about a week. I’ve been so tired that I couldn’t manage more than a few pages a night. It was painful. I really wanted to read it but I just couldn’t. Last night, I decided to power through and finish it. I’ve been struggling at work today but at least it’s done.

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Book Review – The Vegetarian by Han Kang

books, reviews

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I have a problem when it comes to buying books. The problem is that I buy more than I could possibly read. So, I end up with a lot of books on my shelves that have been there for years. My latest read is one of those books. I’ve had a copy of it since it won the Booker Internation Prize in 2016. Despite it being a really short read and despite the fact that I’ve only heard positive things, I just never picked it up. Until this month. Not only did I need a V title but I needed some short reads. I decided to listen to this at work this week but would it be worth the wait?

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Book Review – The Reader on the 6.27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent

books, review

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I’m on holiday next week, so I’ll be taking a break from blogging for a bit. Meaning, this will be my last book review for a while. It better be a good one I guess. I’d never heard of this book until Amazon suggested it to me. I know that I should use Amazon as little as possible but I’ve discovered so many novels thanks to its algorithm. This one was perfect for so many reasons but mostly because I was struggling to find shorter reads for my September reading challenge. I’ve got so many letters to cross off but the majority of the books I’d lined up were all over 300. That wouldn’t do. The Reader comes in at under 200, which means I already loved it before I’d even opened it.

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Bitesize Book Reviews 4

books, reviews
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I fell behind with my reviews last week because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. To make up for it, I’m back with 3 mini reviews in on post. I guess book reviews are like buses. You wait a week for a new one and then 3 turn up at once. Really though, it didn’t seem worthwhile giving any of these books their own post, which means that they’re all clumped together. Enjoy a bitesize analysis of my last 3 reads.

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Book Review – Jokes for the Gunmen by Mazen Maarouf

books, reviews

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Despite the fact that I vowed to buy fewer books this year, my Spell the Month reading challenge has made it difficult to do this. I have a lot of unread books but there are plenty of letters that I still don’t have books for. J is one of the most awkward letters for me at the moment and I had to go searching for something to pick up. I read about this when looking on the Booker Prize website. I’m not normally a fan of short story collections because I prefer a longer form. However, this sounded like something that I couldn’t miss. The fact that it’s a J title was an added bonus.

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Book Review – The Employees by Olga Ravn

books, reviews

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I’d love to be the kind of reader who keeps up with all of the literary awards. You know the person I mean. They take note of the longlists and shortlists when they’re released. Then they manage to make their way through them before the winner is revealed. For one thing, who can get their hands on that many books? For another, who has such a small TBR that they can happily add so many books to them? If I tried to do this with the major literary awards then I’d never cope. So, I tend to have a look through the lists and then see if any take my fancy. Even then, I don’t tend to read them in time because I never do. However, sometimes a book comes along that has such an exciting premise that I can’t not pick it up. The Employees was one of those books. I knew that I had to read it and I had to read it soon.

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Book Review – Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

books, reviews

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I’m really happy with how all of my reading at the moment. I don’t know whether it’s just that I’m coming out of a very recent slump or that I’m just reading better books. Whatever it is, I’m very pleased with how it’s all going. I’m not necessarily as fast as I normally am but I’m definitely inspired by the novels I’m finishing. The latest one was a book club pick but also a book that I’ve wanted to read for ages. Longer than I actually realised. When I was about halfway through the paperback version, I realised that I had bought a Kindle copy of this book in 2016. So, I’ve been meaning to read this for 5 years and had forgotten all about it. My Kindle is full of books like that. Ones that I buy when they cost 99p but forget about moments later. At least I can finally cross one off the my list of unread ebooks.

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Book Review – after the quake by Haruki Murakami

books, reviews

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Yesterday was Haruki Murakami and I’ve seen plenty of people on Instagram picking up his books this month. I decided that I wanted to pick something up and decided to finally get round to this short collection. I’m not as well-versed in Murakami’s short stories as I’d like to be. It’s not about their quality but more about my attention span for short stories. I typically need a longer narrative to keep me going or I just lose my pace. I have lost count of how many anthologies I own but have never read more than one story. So, I was determined to keep to my “read more books from my shelves” resolution and finish this one.

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Book Review – Twleve Nights by Urs Faes

books, reviews

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

We’re so close to the end of the year which means that everyone is thinking about what they’ve achieved this year. For us bookish folks that mainly means the number of books that we’ve read. I’m already seeing people compiling their list of favourite books for 2020. How are they so on it? I’ve figured out which my top 5 rated books are but that doesn’t mean they were my favourite reads. Flawless books don’t always give us the same feels as slightly flawed books do. It’s not always the most fun to read a technically brilliant book. I have been looking back over my reviews for the year though. I think I get more wary of ratings near New Year’s Eve because I remember all of the great books I’ve read over the last 12 months. The books I’m currently reading start to pale in comparison to the books I’d long forgotten about until now. I blame that for my struggle to rate this book. I couldn’t decide so went with a bit of a compromise. Next year, I’m only doing rereads on December. It’s easier.

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