The Lonesome Bodybuilder: Stories | 
This was a fun quirky spec fic Japanese short story collection-- a sub genre I've grown to quite enjoy. The longest story of the collection, "An Exotic Marriage" dragged for me, especially given how much of the collection it took up but other stories made up for it. She touched on disturbing topics like incest and pedophilia a couple brief times and I didn't love this one as much as Where the Wild Women Are or Life Ceremony but overall enjoyable.
Sunday vibes with my favorite girl and a short story colelction
so-soShort story collections usually don‘t work for me as #audiobooks, and this wasn‘t an exception. While the wide cast of narrators helped show off each story, I only liked the title one, Q&A, and The Dogs. It didn‘t help that the novella that was 40% of the book (An Exotic Marriage) wasn‘t a hit for me. Count this one checked off my #audible #MountTBR!
#JapaneseLit #LitInTranslation
pickSoba, miso soup with Napa cabbage and chikuwa (fish cake), pickles, and this collection of strange short stories, the title one about a woman who gets into bodybuilding but her husband never notices the changes in her. Or the even stranger one about a clothes shop worker whose client doesn‘t want to emerge from the changing room. Somehow these seem very Japanese - at least to me - in that whimsical, odd but also somehow maybe not so odd way
You can stop being husband-shaped now. Take whatever form you want to be!
This morning I finally tackled “An Exotic Marriage,” the longest story in THE LONESOME BODYBUILDER. Near the end, the awful husband becomes obsessed with fritters, which put me in mind of the corn fritters from A FEAST OF ICE AND FIRE, which led to me making them for lunch while I started the final story in Motoya‘s excellent, absurdist collection.
Sometime absurd and humorous, sometimes surreal and magical, at times having a touch of horror, the stories in this book made the bus rides to and from work a lot more enjoyable this week. A nice weird collection.
#WanderingJune Thank you Google... I typed in #BigInJapan and these titles appeared...and I‘m curious about all of them. I sense quirkiness in Japanese fiction.
Ozzie and I have a rockin‘ Saturday night planned. I‘m sleepy already so going to pick up this book of short stories in hopes I don‘t lose plot threads in my exhaustion.
pickHuh.... These short stories are engrossing and REALLY different. Many of them center around a woman maintaining her identity at work or in a relationship. They are fantastical and full of symbolism. I liked some stories more than others. I felt like I was soooo close to understanding some of the symbols in the book, but often times wished I was reading this with a group or a class so that I could hear what others thought.
I recently started back at the gym. I grabbed a book from my stack and it wasn‘t until a few minutes into my workout 🏋🏽♀️ I realized how “aligned” my reading choice was 😂...and no, I am not a bodybuilder. 🤣
pickIf you're a fan of Japanese literature or weird, abrupt stories, you'll probably enjoy this collection.
(full review at https://mydearwatsonbooks.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/the-lonesome-bodybuilder-stor...
(picture from #goodreads)
so-soShort story collection translated from the Japanese. Slightly odd and off center which I like but still felt like I was missing something. I'm not feeling to bad about that since Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe, needed to do a reread before blurbing the book.
This book was fun, funny, and strange. I‘d like to read more by this author. The translation, however, seemed a bit...stiff? That could be style of writing, though.
pickThese unique stories filled with magical realism take a tongue-in-cheek look at the relationships between men and women. The stories can seem weird at first, but once you get used to the author‘s sly humor this is a great read. 4⭐️ On #hoopla
