a lost article of Saki – Diary of a Norwegian in Japan

Reading so far in 2021

A lot of Japanese novels or books in Japanese so far this year. The only non-Japanese novel was a recommendation by a penpal and I loved it.

持たない暮らし　is one of those organizing/decluttering books that I read mostly over the break. Sadly have not been able to organize my life yet, nor throw all my things away. And so the journey continues.

Read the second book of “Before the coffee gets cold” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, and I might have liked this better than the first. Can’t wait for the third one to be translated. I could read it in Japanese of course, but since I started it in English I’d like to continue it in English.

The Great Passage was great as per my post. Circe was amazing, I couldn’t put it down.

お探し物は図書室まで is the newest book by Michiko Aoyama, who wrote 木曜日にはココアを and it was in a similar vein with different stories beng slowly connected together. I loved it. While the former book was set in both Japan and Australia, a very ambitious undertaking, this one was all in Japan, very cozy and near.

I finally finished サキの忘れ物. I love the cover and I love the title story, but the other stories were just…not to my taste. I finished about half of the stories, the other half I left halfway through. I kept putting it down and not picking it back up because I was dreading the stories that didn’t catch my attention, feeling guilty wanting to skip the stories (though I had to in order to get through).

I’m reading (though I keep forgetting that I am) both Sense and Sensibility and Anne Karenina. I also started the second volume of 麦本三歩の好きな物 yesterday.

I don’t have any specific reading plans nor goals, I like browsing the bookstores and have the books come to me. And recommendations from friends and penpals and whoever is around is also good, gets me out of my comfort reading zone.

How is everyone’s reading coming along so far this year? Any plans/goals?

Book buying blunder and can you skip short stories?

Long time no post. I either feel the need to write three times a day or once every three months.

Today a copy of Kawakami’s People From My Neighbourhood arrived in my mailbox, a book I had forgotten I had ordered in September. The delivery date had apparently been by October the 13th, but as I had completely forgotten about it, I bought it as an ebook on the 15th and finished reading it yesterday.

I didn’t love it. I think it was good and an entertaining read, but not on the level of Strange Weather in Tokyo or The Nakano Thriftshop in my opinion.

At first I thought it would be many weird little stories that weren’t particularily connected to each other but as I read on I found out that they were. They were all little snippets of a frankly absurd neighbourhood (absurd in a good way) and the same characters kept popping up here and there. Incredibly short with only 89 pages in the kindle edition (121 in paper edition) and at the same price as a full-length novel, which is a bit… absurd (to me). Then again, I did purchase it twice, thanks to my non-existent memory.

I am still reading サキの忘れ物, another short-story collection but without the connection between the stories as with Kawakami’s. I loved the title story. I wish it would have been a novel by itself. The second story was okay. The third story is where I have a problem. I didn’t enjoy it so I skipped halfway through and went on to the next story.

So my problem is; can you skip some stories in a short-story collection and still say you read the book?

a lost article of “Saki”

I found what I believe is the most “me”-cover I have ever seen and so I consequently had to buy this novel.

Feast your eyes upon this:

It has a book, tea, pancakes, a deer, plants, flowers, sugar… all the things I love. As usual I don’t know what it is about, but with a beautiful cover and an interesting title, you know as well as I do that I am compelled to get it (*hoarding intensifies*)

I love the simplicity of the book underneath the cover, nothing fancy but yet beautiful. Also that they decided to put the title in English!

Maybe I should rename my blog to “Me gushing about beautiful Japanese books that I find”

Upon closer inspection I realize that it is not a full length novel but actually a short story collection. I find myself a bit disappointed but that is life. The cover is still beautiful and I am hopeful that all the stories will delight me, especially the title story 「サキの忘れ物」