Hi all. I’m going to try to post regularly on Fridays now. Ha, as soon as I say that I’m doomed, but I will try to make Fridays my post day. We’ll see if it lasts. I hope so. Even I don’t have a book to discuss, I’ll try to have something to feature and chat about. I’ve always admired other blogs that stick to a schedule, so I’ll give it a go.
I hope everyone’s fall has been nice. This past Monday we had our first snowfall, and it stuck around for two days before melting away. The forecast looks clear now till Halloween when trick-or-treaters might see snowflakes again. It’ll be fun if the spooky night sees snow, though the pumpkins don’t like freezing temps.
My reading lately has been scattered. Part of that is that I’ve got three novels going on and I don’t seem to be making much headway in them, and partly it’s due to the election bearing down on us. We might have turned off the news, but still it’s permeated our brains by now. For many of us, the next 10 days will be a knotted ball of anxiety. The uncertainty is palpable. I have voted early from abroad and I urge you to wherever you are. Will chaos ensue? I really hope not. I’m eager to move forward and not go back. 🙂
Lately in book news, I see that Percival Everett won the Kirkus Prize for Fiction for his novel James and received $50K. Wow and he’s still up for two more big awards with the Booker and the National Book Award. Will he win either of those? I have read and liked James and I still want to read The Safekeep and other nominees. Speaking of which The New York Times had an interesting story this week about the Dutch author of The Safekeep, which you can see here.
And unfortunately due to snow and not feeling well, I missed seeing Rachel Kushner talk about her nominated novel Creation Lake at the book festival here. But I saw the book talk with Anne Enright and Roddy Doyle and the other event with Holly Gramazio whose time-bending novel The Husbands sounds a bit like a hoot, with different husbands coming out of the attic … like a revolving door. I haven’t read it yet, but I think she must have had one heck of a wacky dream. It was fun attending the book festival and it’s given me more for the TBR. Though lately one weird thing is: the city’s whole library system has been derailed by a cyber-security problem and has been mostly shutdown for over a week. You can’t check out books and there’s no indication when it will return. Nuts.
And now I’ll leave you with the novel I finished lately.
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa /Harper /160 pgs/ 2023
3.7 stars. I enjoyed this one on audio, which takes place in an artsy neighborhood of Tokyo where there are a lot of bookstores. Takako, 25, is in free fall when she gets a call from her uncle Satoru offering for her to come live at his old used bookshop. She’s had a skank of a boyfriend who she’s found out has taken advantage of her and has had to quit her job to avoid him. Now she’s sleeping the days away in a small room above the bookshop and depression has taken over.
But in time her uncle and the cozy bookshop and its customers weasel their way into her life and give her meaning and reason to keep going. She learns to fight back against the skank and begins to read and enjoy Japanese lit. A number of Japanese authors and novels, which I’d like to read, are mentioned throughout the story. I always seem to like translated Japanese lit.
The novel’s second half involves Satoru’s long-lost wife (Momoko) who returns after five years away. She and Takako bond on a girls’ hiking trip, and Momoko confides in her why she left and why she’s returned. It’s a heartwarming tale and though it might have familiar themes of other bookshop kinds of novels about healing and spreading one’s wings, this novel is well told, engaging, and has worthy nuggets of wisdom in it. It might be a bit slight, but I liked the characters and how they evolved and grew closer. Sometime I will pick up the sequel novel that came out this year: More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop!
That’s all for now. What about you have you read this book or bookshop novels like it, and if so, what did you think? Happy Halloween!
I still have “James” and “Creation Lake” on my to-be-read list. I hope to get to them soon. There are so many books I want to read before the end of the year!
Snow already? I hope we don’t have much of that this winter. I think James is going to sweep the awards this year. I have made progress with Creation Lake but life keeps interfering… still, I’m liking it. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop sounds quirky; hope you enjoy the sequel when/if you get to read it.