Welcome to Litsy!

I had read and loved both The Housekeeper and the Professor and The Memory Police. This one is quite different from those. It‘s more easygoing. Tomoka is sent to her cousin‘s family for a year when she is 12. The book covers her relationship with her cousin, Mina, and their lives together for that year. Mina has a hippo that she rides to school. I wanted more of the hippo. 😊 Continued with Wake Up and Open Your Eyes on my #audiowalk.

These are my current long reads, and I‘m enjoying each of them in their own way.

I got a lot from my previous read of #Genji, so I thought I would reread for the #Reading1001 yearlong read this year by listening to the Washburn translation. It‘s interesting how I‘ve forgotten so many details, but then hear sections that immediately seem so familiar.

#CurrentlyReading #NaturaLitsy #WhatTheDickens #NoPlaceLikeHolmes #1001books #audiobook

My return trip to Kyoto and the Kamogawa Diner was a delight! I‘m a vegetarian but all of the dishes are described so mouthwateringly. Cosy in all the right ways! I love how Nagare & Koishi work together as food detectives - they have a beautiful father-daughter dynamic.

You know I love Japan and Japanese fiction but these short stories often didn‘t work for me.
It took me a long time to read them all and although some stories and authors are super good mostly I am glad I finally finished it.

IRL bookclub pick. One member bailed and “hated” it, the rest of us agreed Oyamda effectively achieved her purpose in describing the inane dehumanizing impact of the corporate world.

Don‘t expect high action or deep character development. That is not the point. 😉

Maybe it‘s just my current mood, but I didn‘t love this one. I think I would have liked it more if Part 1 had been the entire book.

“How I longed to go into the town. Longed to meet the real you. “The town is surrounded by a high wall so it‘s very hard to enter,” you said. “And going out is even harder.”

.

“You were the one who told me about the town. On that summer evening we were heading up the river, the sweet fragrance of grass wafting over us. We passed over several little weirs that held back the flowing sand, stopping from time to time to gaze at the delicate silvery fish wriggling in the pools. We had both been barefoot for a while. The cold water washed over our ankles, while the fine sand at the bottom of the river enveloped our feet like

Yoshie‘s father dies along with his mistress and Yoshie and her mother have come to terms with both having a death and the circumstances.
And they do, after moving to an old neighborhood in Tokyo, where they live and work and eat. Again, food plays in important role in a Japanese story!
It‘s a very Japanese novel, quiet and melancholic. A light pick.

#ReadTheWorld2025 Book 3 #Japan 🇯🇵#ATY25 #IntriguingTitle