The I-narrator of the opening prologue, presented rather like an author’s note, sets up a revealing frame for the love story to come even as he inserts, then immediately elides himself. “If I were absolutely faithful to the truth, I myself would have to make...
This is the first of a two-part series. Part II will publish on Friday, August 30, 2019. Before I can name even a single author or title, I must express my constantly regenerating, overflowing gratitude to translators who enable readers anywhere and everywhere to literally experience the...
My two unfinished almost-ABD-PhDs still makes my mother cringe. I know, I know: even in middle age, my tiger mother looms, not to mention I still have occasional nightmares about missing seminar with my beloved, last advisor. His passing remains my excuse for academic desertion,...
What sweet agony to have so many fantabulous, freakin’ spectacular books from which to cull. I’ve got my 2017 favorite adult titles down to a baker’s dozen, chosen under great duress. They’re presented in alphabetical order – opposed to actually ranked, a feat which just might...
Once upon a time, I was wary of audiobooks; I didn't think they were "real" reading. How wrong I was! Two sparked an obsession: Feed by M.T. Anderson, read by David Aaron Baker, with a full production complete with brain-fed ads and instant messages before I even knew...
*STARRED REVIEW At 27, Majime – whose very name means “serious, diligent” – is recruited from sales by the Dictionary Editorial Department of Gembu Books to help compile The Great Passage, an überdictionary destined to guide users across the vast sea of words. Socially awkward Majime embarks...
Mysteries and thrillers make up a sizable portion of the Japanese literary market. Thanks to the international success of Keigo Higashino, Natsuo Kirino, and Miyuki Miyabe – and, just as importantly, their translators – contemporary Japanese crime fiction proliferates on Western shelves. Below is a list...
Death brings “excitement ...
A "cheapskate" who longs for a wife who will work hard but never eat, a greedy young man who attempts to steal his brother's good fortune, a magic "hood" that allows the wearer to understand animals, a boy whose nap lasts three years, a wily fox who...
A Japanese writer, also named Minae Mizumura, recalls her privileged expatriate New York childhood, then witnesses her family devolve in adulthood. A Tokyo-based editor takes a countryside vacation and meets an older woman who shares fantastical memories of some of the inhabitants. A village girl...
The discovery of an illicit link between the murder of a middle-aged salaryman and a college student is just the beginning. What the police find is a fantasy family the murdered man formed online,...
