"Murakami has been publishing for almost half a century, yet the release of a new novel—not even a public appearance—can still pack a bookstore in central Ohio on a Monday night. That almost seems as far-fetched as anything from one of his novels." #ModernLit 📚
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a62962446/haruki-murakami-profile-2024/
Latest read, After Rain (1996) by William Trevor, from Selected Stories; after a break-up, a 30 year old English woman stays in an out-of-the-way Italian hotel her parents used to take her as a child and reflects on why her relationships have failed.
Precise, introspective, real.
Latest read, The Midnight Zone (2016) and Eyewall (2012) by Lauren Groff, from Florida. Relationships with sons, husbands, fathers, & old loves are remembered with poignance and fanciful imagining. What it is to love deeply and yet have a part of ourselves that is alone.
Latest read, Willing (1990) by Lorrie Moore, from Birds of America; Sidra, a burned out Hollywood actress returns to Chicago and has an affair with an auto mechanic.
In a moment when she's ashamed of herself, "She felt shorter and squatter and badly coiffed"
Perceptive, sardonic.
Latest read, Dragged Fighting from His Tomb (1978) by Barry Hannah, from Airships. A Confederate soldier who loves horses more than men, or his own cause, slaughters a troop of soldiers.
Violent, angry, anguished.
The book I'd most cite to prove Lit isn't boring.
Amazing.
Latest read, Your Duck is My Duck (2018) by Deborah Eisenberg from the same-titled collection. Nick Carraway in Wonderland as a painter accepts an invitation from a glamorous couple to stay on their island. Eccentrics & eccentricities abound.
The title is a counterpoint to a Zen riddle about a duck trapped in a bottle. "It's not my duck, it's not my bottle, it's not my problem".
But it is.
Comic, modern, true-hearted.
Latest read, Nirvana (2013) by Adam Johnson, from Fortune Smiles; in the near future, a Silicon Valley technician's wife is quadriplegic. He uses all his knowledge to encourage her will to live.
About our sense of self, our relationship to reality & technology.
Excellent.
Kevin J. Rogers
Patch Zircher