I’m not sure what the title refers to—maybe I need to read it again? But this is an exquisite coming of age novel, set in contemporary Tokyo.
The protagonist is a very lost and confused teenage boy who habitually retreats into fantasy. The narration drifts seamlessly into and out of his fantasy world, until he finds it possible to deal with the reality around him.…
David Mitchell is by far my favorite author these days. I’ve read all his books and every one is awesome, but the very best is Cloud Atlas. Mitchell has a very intense way of writing. He can create a character in a particular time and place, seemingly any time and place, from the 18th Century to the 1970s California, to contemporary Japan to science fiction far into the future.…
For any reader who has a soft spot for 18th Century historical fiction, the Aubrey-Maturin series, by Patrick O’Brien, are essential. These are written with vivid detail combined with a curiously modern sense of plot: the plots seem to meander in a realistically random way.…
A novel from my teenage years. Cat Man is a novel of running off to join the circus. The protagonist finds work caring for the cats: lions and tigers. He becomes more obsessed with the great cats with each chapter. But it is not the protagonist’s disastrous fixation that makes the book, it is the sumptuous detail in the operation of a mid 20th century circus.…
This is the sort of novel that transports the reader to an extraordinary time and place. Vivid, passionate, and erudite, it is lovely writing. If the vocabulary of the first chapter doesn’t make you sit up and get out the dictionary (i.e. computer) then you are more literate than I.
The essential subject is that the horror of the second world war intrudes on the paradise of Greece.…
Perhaps Herbert saw himself as Australia’s Dostoyevsky. Capricornia rolls along like a massive, tragic steam powered freight train through northern Australia’s early history. Herbert sees the central issue of Australia being race, and particularly the “half-caste” offspring of aboriginals and white immigrants.
This is a wonderful epic set in a corner of the globe that even Aussies don’t visit that often. And yes, there are steam locomotives in the tale.…
This might be the ultimate read-aloud book to share with a sweetheart or your kids. It is equally interesting and amusing for grown ups and kids, as it mixes cosmology and Italian folk wisdom in ludicrous tales.…
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