Adjective; of, relating to, or suitable to a letter; contained in or carried on by letters; written in the form of a series of letters
As an avid letter writer myself, I was drawn to this novel, adorned with stamps, and seeming to be a collection of letters between two people. A mutual on twitter taught me it is called an epistolary novel and it is my new favorite term. Finally a term to describe that which I love to read.
I am 39 pages in (out of 517) and I have already ordered the hardcover version for my bookshelf.
I know The Great Passage by Shion Miura has been translated so I hope this one will be too.
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?
This book has been on my shelf for a while, but before we go further I want to put in a disclaimer; I haven’t read it in Japanese yet. I chickened out and read it in English (it has been translated!!)
I was at the bookstore here the other day looking at, well, books. I found two books that I liked:
I ended up buying the お探し物は図書室まで as it is by Michiko Aoyama who wrote 木曜日にはココアを which I loved.
I felt like I had seen Shion Miura somewhere but it didn’t register yet. As I was googling her I came over ‘The Great Passage’ and then it came to me; she wrote 舟を編む!
I watched the anime back when I was in university and loved it, but knowing how much technical terms would be in the book was what initially held me off, so finding that it has been translated was a godsend.
I stayed up till 1am yesterday finishing it, it’s that good. I couldn’t put it down. I love it. I also feel like I need to buy more dictionaries.
It’s about dictionaries and words and life and love and friendship and everything you could possibly want, and it is definitely a recommendation from me.
Maybe I’ll tackle it in Japanese one day now that I have it in English as well. We’ll see.
Diary of a Norwegian in Japan 