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[Tiger Beer]

[gaijin4life]

Read 'Dirt Music' recently and OMG what a great read. I ended up taking it into work even, to read on my breaks, cos I didn't want to stop reading it! Tim Winton is such a talented writer, or 'depicter of scenes/moments and people' & I love his poetic style of writing. Although when I read 'Cloud St' a few years ago, I didnt really like it at all ..

Thought 'Lost Japan' was pretty good when read it a few years ago also ..

[SeasonedVet]

Thanks Tiger beer

[Sweetsee]

Ian McEwan's 'Saturday' was a good read.

[anne_o]

Junichiro Tanizaki 'The Makioka Sisters'....a wonderful story; perfect for reading after I finished 6 volumes of Proust.

Tanizaki "The Key"....oh man.......sexy and twisted....makes me want to.......

Osamu Dazai "No Longer Human"......dark.

Kenzaburo Oe "A Personal Matter".....you can see why he won the Nobel prize. A perfect story.

Yukio Mishima "Forbidden Colors"....reading this now.

Let's hear it for all the Left writers and thinkers in this country....past and present!
I've read a lot of literature from all over the world and I'm really enjoying reading Japanese fiction.
Before coming here, I knew of no Japanese writers with the exception of Murakami, who is not a great writer in my opinion....literary fast food.

Happy Reading!!

[AndyH]

[AndyH]

I recently finished Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". Excellent.

[AndyH]

I'm currently reading "The Last Valley", by Martin Windrow
It's about the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
Very well researched, with a lot of background information.

Bernard Fall's "Hell in a Very Small Place" and "Street Without Joy", have always been considered to be the classics on the French-Indochina War, but this book may very well replace them as the definitive work on the conflict.

Strongly recommended!

[Mapleblondie]

Right now I am reading a book from a few years back..."Ai ni yukimasu" (Going to meet you). It's kind of a sappy book, but I love sap. Hehe. I think there are lots of translated versions of it too into English, and it was made into a J-dorama a few years ago (that you can get with subs).

As for English books, I always like to read the classics and titles I've heard of but never got around to tackling when I was in high school. For example, I am just finishing up George Orwell's "1984," and am impressed, as always, by his creative genius and writing skill. The dark tones throughout it really resonate in a lot of more recent novels, like Margaret Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale" (from about a decade or so ago), and even movies like "V for Vendetta". Apocalyptic stories and stories about darker futures are always interesting to me. And hey, in Japan, there is no shortage of that in fiction and the media. So great!

I'm a serious book lover, though...I think one of my faves in the last few years was definitely Neil Gaiman's 'Neverwhere"...Kind of a dark version of Alice in Wonderland, set in the underworld of modern London, England. Neil Gaiman is really great....so inventive. I think I am going to have to bring a stockpile of books I want to read with me, since English books are quite pricey in Japan. I'll also be asking my bf to tote some along with him when he comes to visit. Hehe. HAPPY READING, EVERYONE!

[AndyH]

One of the few things I really missed in Japan was the ability to go to a good bookstore and walk out with a bunch of great reading material. When I lived in the Tokyo area, Tower Records, Maruzan, and Good Day kept me supplied with reading material, but it wasn't the same.

As for Japanese history-related books, I really liked Eiji Yohikawa's Taiko, Inoue's The Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan (which detail the lives of Toyotomi Hideoshi and a retainer of Takeda Shingen, respectively). The authors weaved fiction and true historical accounts together to give the reader an entertaining insite to the struggles between different Samurai before the reign of the Tokugawas.

One of my favorite works of contemporary fiction was Audrey Hepburn's Neck. I don't recall the name of the author. I also read nearly every one of Haruki Murakami's books, most of which I liked.

[AndyH]

I almost forgot-One other writer who's fiction is pretty good is Rebecca Joh Rowland. She is New Orleans-based, and is Chinese/Korean-American. She writes detective novels centered in the Edo Period, with the main character being a Samurai who has risen from a somewhat-low status through genious, determination, and often, the help of his wife. Rowland conducts a lot of research when writing her books, and not only are they entertaining, but give the reader a glimpse into Edo-period Japanese society and the intrigues of the Tokugawa Court.

Another author is Sujata Massey, who has written a bunch of detective-like books centered in present-day Japan. The main character is a Japanese-American woman, living in Tokyo. Her books are entertaining, but not nearly as good, in my opinion, as Rowland's. Also, some of her stories had a politcally-correct, preachy undertone, which I found to be a bit annoying.

[Sweetsee]

I started reading 'The Road' and gave up on it. I flipped through the pages ahead and found it to be on about the same thing over and over. Maybe I didn't give it enough time.

Presently reading Michael Moore's 'Dude, Where's My Country?' and Ian Rankin's 'Resurrection Men'. The former has become a bit tedious, but enjoying the latter quite well.

[Tiger Beer]

[AndyH]

For me, it was the most redeeming thing about Shibuya!

[Tim Trowbridge]

I just finished What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=what+i+talk+about+when+i+talk+about+running&x=18&y=17