Finished reading Kafka on the Shore (海辺のカフカ) by Haruki Murakami. I’m not quite certain what I’ve read, and it’ll take me a bit to digest. There were parts I really loved and parts which let’s say I found problematic; I don’t know if the problematic parts are a Murakami theme or unique to this book.
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Finished reading “The Walking Man” by Jiro Taniguchi (歩くひと by 谷口 ジロー). This manga is mostly vignettes of a man walking in a small city, maybe eight to ten pages each, often with a final page as he gets home. It’s very peaceful, essentially no story, just a mellow vibe as he encounters interesting people or things and returns to his life.
Finished reading Menewood by Nicola Griffith, which picks up where Hild left off. This was another great book, with through-lines of trauma, grief, and becoming true to oneself, and perhaps a secondary theme of disability. Like Hild, I will reread this at some point; I hope she’s able to write the next one in less than ten years.
The annual reading report.
Finished reading These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs. I almost put the book down early, when it repeatedly poked at a stylistic peeve of mine, but Jacobs’s writing stepped up just in time, and I enjoyed the rest of the book to the end.