BW3: Coffee in Literature

 

“The fresh smell of coffee soon wafted through the apartment, the smell that separates night from day.”

― Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Happy Sunday! I woke up this morning to the wonderful scent of fresh roasted coffee beans. Hubby likes to do a dark roast so he choose to roast some Guatemala Xinabajul which is a earthy combination of dark chocolate, sugar, and caramel.  At Christmas time, we also received some homemade Kahlua made by one of my employees which was wonderful.  So now I'm craving an Espresso Martini.  Which is why coffee is on my mind as I sit down to write. Either subliminally or not so subliminally, I started reading At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities by Heather Webber this morning.   

I started thinking about all the book characters who enjoyed coffee from Eve Dallas in J.D. Robb's In death Series to Haruki Murakami's books in which his characters talk about and frequent coffee houses to Cleo Coyle's Clare, owner and barista of the Village Blend in Coffee House Mysteries. 

Books with Coffee (or various synonyms) in the Title

These 15 Books Set in Coffee and Tea Shops Will Charm You

Best Coffee Table Books 

Library of Congress General Books on Coffee

The Coffee Recipe Book

Home Roasting

If you're a coffee drinker,  what's your favorite type or flavor of Coffee?  If you enjoy other beverages, please share your favorite?

Please share your thoughts and reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

 

BW1: Welcome to our 2025 Reading Adventure

 

Happy New Year!  Are you ready for another adventure through the past, present, or future?  To take a pilgrimage, or journey around the world, or travel to the farthest reaches of space, or the depths of the sea? To read about dragons or other fantastic beasts, or delve into the intriguing world of science fiction?  How about dipping your toes into true crime, memoirs, narrative non fiction and other true life stories?   Yes! Great! 

We typically start our journey in East Asia in the country of Japan and traditionally start the year with Haruki Murakami who focuses on magical realism, although some of his books defy description. His books cover a wide range of genres from Bildungsroman to fantasy fiction to literary fiction to psychological and suspense fiction as well as short fiction and memoirs. I've been reading his autobiography What I Talk About When I Talk About Running which I'm enjoying and you don't have to be a runner to enjoy it as he reflects on his thoughts while running about writing and life.   Also on my nightstand is his most current book - The City and It's Uncertain Walls - which I'm looking forward to reading this month.  It also fulfills either the Bildungsroman or Surreal categories for our 52 Books Bingo.  Nudge, nudge, wink, wink!

Although Penguin suggests starting with some of Murakami's slimmer novels, my first introduction to Murakami was his chunky fantasy novel 1Q84, filled with magical realism, music, cats, weird characters, choices, and the meaning of life.  Which lead to reading most of his bibliography. 

If you want to discover more about Murakami, check out his memoir, Novelist as a Vocation in which he shares stories, his writing process, and so much more. It's fascinating. 

Japan is also on my bucket list and is one of my ten categories this year and I have collected a wide variety of mysteries, travel, historical, and literary books Japanese authors Banana Yoshimoto, Akimitsu Takagi, Durian Sukegawa, Hisashi Kashiwai, Kasuo Ishiguro, Kenzaburo Oe, and Pico Iyer which I'll be reading throughout the year. 

If you up for a spelling challenge, this year is devoted to fictional dragons with our Dragon Bookology and we are starting with Andarna from Rebecca's Yarros's Empyrean series. This challenge may be fulfilled by reading one book for each letter in the name, or reading the book in which the dragon can be found.  

Also, we'll be doing another round of A to Z and Back Again, highlighting one letter each week.  

And if you are new to the challenge, check out the menu bar above to peruse our perpetual challenges such as Well Educated Mind or Agatha Christie, or explore some of our past challenges. 

Alright, let's go! Put on your hat and walking shoes, strap on your backpack, grab your walking stick, and let's get started. 

Please share your thoughts and reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

BW43: Japanese Literature

 

Happy Sunday! I have been a fan of Japanese literature for a very long time. I usually start the new reading year with stories written by Haruki Murakami which are full of magical realism.  Fortunately he has a new book coming out in November, The City and It's Uncertain Walls. 

"We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life.

 Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world – a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along."

I've branched out quite a bit over the years and have acquired many more books written about and by Japanese authors.  From Reading the City series,(I hope to eventually read them all) I have added the Book of Tokyo, A City in Short Fiction, with short stories written by Banana Yoshimoto and more:

"A shape-shifter arrives at Tokyo harbour in human form, set to embark on an unstoppable rampage through the city’s train network… A young woman is accompanied home one night by a reclusive student, and finds herself lured into a flat full of eerie Egyptian artefacts… A man suspects his young wife’s obsession with picnicking every weekend in the city’s parks hides a darker motive… At first, Tokyo appears in these stories as it does to many outsiders: a city of bewildering scale, awe-inspiring modernity, peculiar rules, unknowable secrets and, to some extent, danger. Characters observe their fellow citizens from afar, hesitant to stray from their daily routines to engage with them. But Tokyo being the city it is, random encounters inevitably take place – a naïve book collector, mistaken for a French speaker, is drawn into a world he never knew existed; a woman seeking psychiatric help finds herself in a taxi with an older man wanting to share his own peculiar revelations; a depressed divorcee accepts an unexpected lunch invitation to try Thai food for the very first time… The result in each story is a small but crucial change in perspective, a sampling of the unexpected yet simple pleasure of other people’s company. As one character puts it, ‘The world is full of delicious things, you know."

My family are also big fans of the Godzilla movies created by Toho Studios in Japan which lead to us wanting to eventually travel to Japan.  The closest we have gotten is through our armchair travels which is why I recently picked up Pico Iyer's A Beginners Guide to Japan:

"In A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, Iyer draws on his years of experience—his travels, conversations, readings, and reflections—to craft a playful and profound book of surprising, brief, incisive glimpses into Japanese culture. He recounts his adventures and observations as he travels from a meditation hall to a love hotel, from West Point to Kyoto Station, and from dinner with Meryl Streep to an ill-fated call to the Apple service center in a series of provocations guaranteed to
pique the interest and curiosity of those who don’t know Japan—and to remind those who do of its myriad fascinations."

I enjoy translated books from a variety of countries but there is an emotional richness to Japanese literature, with layers and complexity that will capture your attention. 

Japanese Literature divided into four periods

Why I love Japanese Literature

65 Best Japanese Books of All Time

Contemporary Japanese Literature 

Where to Get Started with 57 Essential Japanese Books in English

Happy Reading! 

BW1: Welcome to our Wild and Whimsical Reading Quest

 

"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, 

you can only think what everyone else is thinking."

— Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)

Happy New Year! Welcome to another year of Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.  Welcome back to all our regulars and our newbies. If you haven't participated in years past, the goal is to read 52 Books. How you get there is up to you. And if you prefer to set your own goal, you are welcome to do so. We don't have a set reading list so you can choose to play along or chart your own path in your quest to read.  All that matters is the reading. 

To aid in the journey, there are a number of weekly, monthly, annual, and perpetual quests along with an updated quirky 52 Books Bingo and our author of the month Bookish Bookology to explore.  

We traditionally start out the year in the weird and wonderful world of Haruki Murakami, our January author of the month. While we wait for his newest book, The City and It's Uncertain Walls to be released in the United States some time this year, I'll be exploring his non fiction conversations with Seiji Ozawa in Absolutely on Music, and dive into the fiction world of Sputnik Sweetheart.

Although Penguin suggests starting with some of Murakami's slimmer novels, my first introduction to Murakami was his chunky fantasy novel 1Q84, filled with magical realism, music, cats, weird characters, choices, and the meaning of life.  Which lead to reading most of his bibliography. 

Discover more about Murakami in his non fiction memoir, Novelist as a Vocation in which the man seriously doesn’t think he is a good writer, but shares his stories, his process, and so much more.

Plus, we are traveling through the alphabet again with A to Z and Back Again. There are a variety of ways to complete the project and you don't have to stick with authors or titles only. The choices are unlimited, including:

• Choose an author whose first or last name begin with the letter. 
• Pick a book starting with the letter in the title of the book. Except for those pesky articles or prepositions. 
• Read a book with a character whose name starts with the letter. 
• Choose a book in which the setting of the story starts with the letter. 
• Choose a genre that starts with the letter.
• Read a book with a literary term or plot device starting with the letter. 

Big A, little A, what begins with A -  Allusion, Angels, Agatha, Adams, Adventure, and Action all begin with A. 

Are you ready to go? Great! Put on your hat and walking shoes, strap on your backpack, grab your walking stick as we follow rabbit trails of thought throughout the world on a wild and whimsical reading quest.

Happy Reading! 

Please share your book reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

BW1: Welcome to another bookish adventure around the world

 

"A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, 

leading out into  the expanding universe" ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Happy New Year and welcome to our 15th year of Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks. If you are new to our reading quest, the official goal is 52 books. How you get there is up to you.  But I'll tell you a secret. Shh, I'll whisper, but don't tell anyone.  For those who hate setting goals, we have an unofficial goal which is to set your own goal.  Read what you want, explore and dive into those longer books, engage your mind and soul and don't worry.  Have fun. Follow as many rabbit trails as you like and see where they lead. 

To help us have fun, there are a number of mini, monthly, annual, and perpetual challenges to choose from.  For 2023 we have an updated Bookish Bookology which is our author of the month. There are a number of ways to complete the challenge, including but not limited to:  

• Spell out the author's name - one book per letter from the title on the cover.
• Read one or more books written by the author. 
• Read a book written in the country or time period of the author.

We traditionally start our year with Haruki Murakami, our January author the month, so we are going to dive right in and head to East Asia. Which coincidently fills our Eastern Bingo category.  Nudge nudge wink wink!!

I couldn't wait so I already started After Dark which is all about the magical hours between midnight to dawn. Standing by to reread almost immediately is 1Q84 which I think is one of Murakami's best stories ever.  According to Murakami it is a mind bending ode to George Orwell's 1984.  Also on my shelves are Novelist as a Vocation and his short story collection Men Without Women.  And if you like comparing books to film, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car was adapted from the short story Drive My Car in Men Without Women.  

We also have an updated Bingo which is taking us around the world, from the north to the south, from the east to the west as well as taking us through the libraries of Agatha Christie, Neal Peart, Jorge Luis Borges and Mind Voyages Science Fiction / Fantasy adventure.  And if you're working your way through Well Educated Mind, the list is available in the menu bar.   

We'll be working our way through the alphabet again with A to Z and Back Again. There are a variety of ways to complete the project and you don't have to stick with authors or titles only.  Check out the link on the menu bar for more information. 

Our A to Z and Back Again letter of the week is A.

Are you ready? Great! It's time to put on your hat and walking shoes, strap on your backpack, grab that walking stick and start our reading adventure. 

Happy reading and cheers to a wonderful, enlightening, fun reading new year! 

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Please share your year end wrap up, book thoughts reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week. 

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

2019 Rambling Roads Reading Adventure

Lady Enchanted by Josephine Wall

Happy New Year and welcome to another round of Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks. Our reading quest began ten years ago and during that period of time, our armchair travels have taken us all over the world and back again.  This year we are going to ramble and rove around the globe, follow multiple rabbit trails. Whether you are a fan of fiction or nonfiction, like to juggle multiple books at once, love to reread favorite authors over and over, explore different genres, new to you authors, or stick to the tried and true, this is the place for you.   

I know what you're thinking.  The goal is to read 52 books so you'll aim to read at least one book a week.  However, there are books that take longer than a week to read. And there are some books that can be read in two or three hours.   I don't want anyone to sacrifice quality for quantity by reading a short book just to make the goal for the week.  Read what you want, explore and dive into those longer books, engage your mind and soul and don't worry.  Do your best, challenge yourself and see what happens.   

To aid us in our reading adventures, we have several optional challenges to entice you.   Follow in the footsteps of  bookish detectives, sleuths, and private eyes with our spelling and reading challenge,  Whodunit Bookology.  Traverse different times, places, or spaces with another round of 52 Books Bingo.  Delve into the world of music and silence with The Sound of Silence.   

We have a few perpetual challenges including our Brit Trip Adventure along the Roman roads of England.  Snoop along with  Agatha Christie or dig into great books with Susan Wise Bauer's Well Educated Mind or the Nobel Prize Winners.   Explore the world of science fiction and fantasy with Mind Voyages or Feed Your Muse with poetry, essays and short stories. Read alphabetically with Alphabet Soup, or answer the call of those Dusty and Chunky books sitting on your shelves.  

Plus I'll introduce various mini challenges throughout the year to tickle your reading taste buds. As always, you may choose to travel along with me or follow your own path.  

Are you ready to go?  Grab your backpacks and a new pair of walking shoes, a map to all the bookstores and libraries around the world and get ready to ramble as we wander through the centuries and continents and across the seas and outer space.   

I'm headed to the other side of the world to the far eastern shores of the continent of Asia where traditionally we start out the year with Haruki Murakami, a fan favorite of many 52 Book a Week readers.  I have Kafka on the Shore and Killing Commendatore as well as a dusty and chunky book  - James Michener's The Source  -  which has been calling my name for quite a while.

“I still love books. Nothing a computer can do can compare to a book. You can't really put a book on the Internet. Three companies have offered to put books by me on the Net, and I said, 'If you can make something that has a nice jacket, nice paper with that nice smell, then we'll talk.' All the computer can give you is a manuscript. People don't want to read manuscripts. They want to read books. Books smell good. They look good. You can press it to your bosom. You can carry it in your pocket.”  ― Ray Bradbury

My shelves are overflowing with dusty books. They kept having babies, because I like to keep my books rather than use the library.   I amused myself last year reading way too many ebooks. So my plan this year is I can only read one ebook for every two physical books.  Plus I'm extending my book buying ban which includes those tantalizing freebie virtual books, through June. New releases from your 'I can't stand it, they published a new book in the series, what am I going to do, he or she is my favorite author' are certainly allowed. *grin*   Join me in clearing your tbr shelves and see how long you can go without buying a new book. 

  

~Cheers to a wonderful new reading year~ 

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For the first week, link to your I'm participating post, reading plans or to your most current review. Please link to your specific  post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment telling us what you have been reading.   Every week I will put up  Mister Linky's Magical Widget for you to link to your reviews.   No matter what book you are reading or reviewing at the time, whether it be # 1 or # 5 or so on, add your link to the current week's post.   The linking widget will close at the end of each book week. 

BW1: Welcome to our Open Roads Reading Adventure

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. 

They are the destination, and the journey. 

They are home.” ~  Anna Quindlen

Happy new year and welcome to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks. Welcome to all who are joining me for another round and all who are diving in for the first time.   The rules are very simple and the goal - Read 52 Books.  How you get there is up to you. 

We are going around the world again and to aid us in our venture, we have several optional challenges listed in the link bar above.  Our monthly itinerary may be found in Armchair Travels and Authors. Along the way, we are going to stop and spell the roses with Blossom Bookology, or entice your reading taste buds with another round of 52 Books Bingo, as well as delve into mysteries with the Great Mysterious England Road Trip.  

You may decide to engage with the greats through the Well Educated Mind or Nobel Prize Winners of Literature,  or fly through the world of science fiction and fantasy with Mind Voyages.   You may choose to read alphabetically with Alphabet Soup, finally dive into those dusty and chunky books that are probably yelling at you by now, or Feed Your Muse with poetry, essays and short stories.   As always, you may choose to travel along with me or follow your own path.  

Grab your walking shoes, backpack and maps as we begin our Open Roads Reading Adventure on the Silk Road which extends from the west coast of Japan to the Middle east. We'll begin our travels in Japan with our author choices of the month:   Haruki Murakami and Miyuki Miyabe.   

It has become a tradition to start our reading year with Haruki Murakami.  Join me in going back to his beginnings and read his debut Trilogy of the Rat -  Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball, and A Wild Sheep Chase - or choose one of his other books if you've already read them. Learn more about Miyuki Miyabe and dive into her debut story, All She Was Worth or one of her many other novels.   I currently have her paranormal story The Gates of Sorrow waiting in the wings. 

Our Blossom Bookology's reading challenge begins in ancient times.  The flower of the month is Chrysanthemum which was cultivated in China in 15BC, brought to Japan in 8AD and became the symbol of the Japanese emperor and the imperial family, then introduced in 17th Century to the western world. It comes in a variety of colors and represents longevity and happiness.  

There are a number of directions to go with this challenge. You may choose to spell out the word, reading one book per letter using either the title and/or the first or last name of the author.  Yes, you can mix it up.  You may read a book with the name of the flower, color of the flower in the title or on the cover.  Another possibility is a book which takes place in the time period or flower's country of origin or has some cultural significance and/or symbolism of the flower.  The choices are unlimited.  Have fun following rabbit trails and see where it takes you. 

Cheers to a wonderful, flower filled, adventurous new reading year! 

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For the first week, link to your I'm participating post, reading plans or to your most current review. Please link to your specific  post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment telling us what you have been reading.   Every week I will put up  Mr. Linky which will close at the end of each book week.  No matter what book you are reading or reviewing at the time, whether it be # 1 or # 5 or so on, link to the current week's post.

BW2: Happy 68th Birthday Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami January 12, 1949 

Jubilant January wouldn't be the same without Haruki Murakami.  He's a fan favorite with 52 Books and has become our traditional first readalong of the year.   I was introduced to his writing with 1Q84 and as Murakami said, it is a mind bending ode to George Orwell's 1984.  

Synopsis: Japan's most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II.    In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat.  Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo.  As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Murakami's imaginative writing sucks you into his stories and won't let you go until the end.    After delving in The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, then Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, I admit his stories can be a bit strange. However he gives readers plenty to think about regarding the the conscious and the unconscious mind. 

This year we'll be diving into Norwegian Wood, the book that propelled Murakami into the international spotlight. 

Synopsis:  Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.  A poignant story of one college student’s romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man’s first, hopeless, and heroic love.

And should you decide Norwegian Wood isn't right for you, dive into another one of his fiction novels, explore his short stories or his non fiction essays.  A new book is being released in February in Japan, however the title and story synopsis hasn't been released yet. 

Want to find out more about Murakami -  Check out his website, follow him on facebook, peak into his interviews in Japan Times on music, jazz and the brain, and danish award. 


Happy Birthday, Haruki Murakami!!!!

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Please link to your specific  post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment telling us what you have been reading.   Every week I will put up Mr. Linky which will close at the end of each book week.  No matter what book you are reading or reviewing at the time, whether it be # 1 or # 5 or so on, link to the current week's post.

Week 1 - A Merry New Reading Year

Courtesy of Adelightsomelife

Happy New Year and welcome to a merry new reading year at Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.  Welcome back to all who are joining me for another round and to those joining in for the first time.  

The rules are very simple. Read 52 Books. That's it. How you get there is up to you.  We have several optional challenges listed in the link bar above to stimulate your imagination and help you on your reading journeys.  In addition to the perpetual A to Z, Well Educated Mind challenge, Dusty/Chunky books, and another journey Around the World,  we will be having some readalongs, an Author Flavor of the Month as well as monthly themes to tickle your reading taste buds.  I'll be throwing in mini challenges here and there such as pick a book with a color or number or season in the title, or pick a book written in your birth year.

To start off our mind voyage for the year, this month's theme is January Journeys - rambling jaunts and walks, translated and transformed.    We'll be packing up our backpacks, replacing those old thread worn walking shoes for a new pair, and sailing (or flying if you prefer)  out across the Pacific toward the far eastern shores of the continent of Asia.  Where you go from there is up to you.  We'll be rambling and roving around reading translated books, exploring and examining different cultures and delving into the present as well as the past. 

We'll be starting out with a year long read of Susan Wise Bauer's History of the Medieval World. The goal is to finish by the end of the year so we will aim for one to two chapters a week.

Our author flavor of the month is Haruki Murakami (born 1/12/49) and I'll be diving into Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World while a few other gals on Well Trained Mind forums are choosing to delve into Kafka on the Shore.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading 1Q84  and still contemplating the strangeness of A Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Check out one of his books this month if you choose. 

I have found several resources for translated books and if you know of any I haven't mentioned, please let me know and we'll add it to the list. 

3% - A resource for international books by the University of Rochester.  I ended up exploring many rabbit trails through this site. 

Archipelago Books - Thanks to this company, I currently have Blinding and The Great Weaver of Kashmir in my backpack.

Glagoslav Publications - Translations from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus for English and Dutch readers.  

Europa Editions has now created World Noir specializing in international crime fiction. 

Our first week is going to run from today through Saturday, January 10th so enjoy, relax and have fun exploring.  I look forward to hearing all about your finds. 

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Link to your reviews: Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post. 

BW2: Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami -  January 12, 1949

In honor of Haruki Murakami turning 65 this month, I am reading Wind Up Bird Chronicle.  

Synopsis: Japan's most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II.    In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat.  Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo.  As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Last year, one of the gals over at Well Trained Mind introduced me to Murakami through his book 1Q84 and I was hooked.  And since we are armchair traveling through Japan this month, it is a perfect time to read more of his stories. 

Haruki was born January 12, 1949 in Tokyo, Japan.  He began writing at the age of 29, inspired by all things, a baseball game. Hear the Wind Sing, his first book in Trilogy of the Rat, was published in 1979 and he won the Gunzou Shinjin Sho, the Gunzo New Writer Award for new writers, established by Gunzo Magazine.

He soon followed up with two more books in his Trilogy of the Rat:  Pinball 1973 in 1979  and A Wild Sheep Chase in 1982.  He won the Noma Bungei Shinjin Sho (Noma Literary Award for New Writers) for A Wild Sheep Chase in 1982.  During this period of time he sold his bar, Jazz Cats, which he had opened in 1974, and began writing full time.

In 1985 he wrote Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the Year  for which he won the  Junichi Tanizaki Award.  In 1991 he moved to the United States where he taught at Princeton and also wrote The Wind Up Bird Chronicle which was published in 1994. He won the prestigious Yomiuri Literary Award.

He moved back to Japan in 1995, where he's gone on to have published numerous books including Kafka on the Shore, a short story collection - Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, and his latest in 2011, 1Q84.   

Check out his facebook page maintained by his publishers Alfred Knopf  for articles and interviews.  

Join me in reading Wind Up Bird Chronicle or one of his many other fascinating stories.

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Link to your reviews or year end wrap up posts:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.  


 

Week 1 - Cheers to a new reading year

Happy New Year and welcome to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.  Welcome back to all those who are joining me for another round and to those joining in for the first time.  

The rules are very simple. Read 52 Books. That's it. How you get there is up to you.  We have several optional challenges which are listed in the link bar above to stimulate your imagination and help you on your reading journeys.   Beside the perpetual A to Z, Well Educated Mind challenge, Dusty/Chunky books, and another journey Around the World,  new this year are the Literary Nobel Prize Winners and 52 BaWer's recommendations from 2013.   I've also come up with some fun Monthly Themes and Readalongs.   

Mrs. Santa was quite nice to me this past Christmas and gave me Nancy Pearl's Book Lust to Go, Tom Nissley's A Reader's Book of Days and Peter Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.  I was completely blown away by 1001 books because I had seen the lists on line, but never the book itself.  It is huge and besides the book descriptions, it is chalk full of pictures, artwork and posters for the majority of books.  Absolutely beautiful and I'll try to share some pictures soon.  I can already tell these books will be beneficial to all of us because they are already helped spark my imagination to help with weekly posts, plus making my already really long wish list even longer. Not to mention my teetering TBR stacks. 


To start off our journey, we are going to begin our Around the World tour in Japan. Join in on a readalong of Haruki Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicles or choose one of his other books if you've already read it.  To make life interesting, I'm also starting a personal Centuries Challenge beginning with the 12th century (1101-1200).  So - to make life fun for the month of January, go find some books written by Japanese authors, set in Japan and/or set in the 12th century.  Although I went a little nuts and found books from several different centuries.  *grin* 

Currently in my backpack besides Murakami's Wind Up is his A Wild Sheep Chase, the first volume of The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki  (Waley Translation), Shinju (1st book in her Sano Ichiro series) by Laura Joh Rowland, Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn and the novella The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa.  

We are going with a short week one in order to avoid a short week 52 and no one having time to do wrapup's.  It all works out in the end so don't panic over finishing a book this week.  

Cheers to a happy, fun, entertaining and educational reading new year! 

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Link to your reviews or year end wrap up posts:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.  

BW14: New book releases and readalong

Happy Sunday and Happy Easter to those who celebrate. We've had a restful and relaxing Spring Break and I've been curled up in an easy chair for most of the week with my nose in a book or meandering about the internet.  All those things on my to do list...are still there.  But do I feel guilty about it.  Not in the least.  *grin*  In my meanderings about the interwebz I came across some new releases that intrigued me. 

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Synopsis:  When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the “ungettable” Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn’t wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner’s, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and take the rest as it comes.

What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined attention and success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Everyone wants to meet the dashing young author of the scandalous novel—and his witty, perhaps even more scandalous wife. Zelda bobs her hair, adopts daring new fashions, and revels in this wild new world. Each place they go becomes a playground: New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera—where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein.

Everything seems new and possible. Troubles, at first, seem to fade like morning mist. But not even Jay Gatsby’s parties go on forever. Who is Zelda, other than the wife of a famous—sometimes infamous—husband? How can she forge her own identity while fighting her demons and Scott’s, too? With brilliant insight and imagination, Therese Anne Fowler brings us Zelda’s irresistible story as she herself might have told it. 

For those who have read F. Scott Fitzgerald's  Tender is the Night , it was written during one of the darkest periods in his life when Zelda was hospitalized for Schizophrenia.  She also wrote a semi autographical book Save me the Waltz while in the clinic which infuriated Fitzgerald because it contained autobiographical material he intended to use  for Tender is the Night.  He forced her to revise it although she did, there are parallels between the two stories regarding their marriage.  It would be interesting to compare the two stories.


Another book that jumped out at me weirdly enough was The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that create the World's Great Drinks by Amy Stewart which lead me to Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln's Mother.  My son and I have had many a conversation about Lincoln's mother and how she died from milk sickness so of course I had to buy it.

Also being released this week,  from Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist is his newest book Manuscript Found in Accra  which I'll be reviewing this week on My Two Blessings on April 5th.

Synopsis:  July 14, 1099. Jerusalem awaits the invasion of the crusaders who have surrounded the city’s gates. There, inside the ancient city’s walls, men and women of every age and every faith have gathered to hear the wise words of a mysterious man known only as the Copt. He has summoned the townspeople to address their fears with truth: 

“Tomorrow, harmony will become discord. Joy will be replaced by grief. Peace will give way to war. . . . None of us can know what tomorrow will hold, because each day has its good and its bad moments. So, when you ask your questions, forget about the troops outside and the fear inside. Our task is not to leave a record of what happened on this date for those who will inherit the Earth; history will take care of that. Therefore, we will speak about our daily lives, about the difficulties we have had to face.” 

The people begin with questions about defeat, struggle, and the nature of their enemies; they contemplate the will to change and the virtues of loyalty and solitude; and they ultimately turn to questions of beauty, love, wisdom, sex, elegance, and what the future holds. “What is success?” poses the Copt. “It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.” 

Now, these many centuries later, the wise man’s answers are a record of the human values that have endured throughout time. And, in Paulo Coelho’s hands, The Manuscript Found in Accra reveals that who we are, what we fear, and what we hope for the future come from the knowledge and belief that can be found within us, and not from the adversity that surrounds us.  

What new books have you discovered lately? 

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1Q84 Readalong 

Those who were interested in reading Hopscotch, finished just in time for our April Readalong - 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.  It is a chunkster at around 1000 pages depending on whether you are reading the Hardback or paperback.  1Q84 originally was published in three volumes in Japan in 2009-2010 and released as one book in North American in 2011.  As with Hopscotch (thank you Stacia), I became interested in reading the book after hearing several  people talk about it and since quite a few already had the book in their stacks proposed a readalong. Our readalong will begin April 7th which should give more folks time to obtain the book if they haven't already or clear the decks to dive into the story.  It is according to Murakami,  a mind bending ode to George Orwell's 1984.  

The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.

As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.

A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s—1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.

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Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.