Mid-September Reading

Books
Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore… I can’t decide if I loved it or just liked it a lot. Gah. It’s completely unlike anything else I’ve ever read, which is awesome. And it wasn’t fluffy or mindless; it contained interesting ideas about men and women, what it means to grow up, the ability of art to change a person and some metaphysical stuff. It was definitely engrossing with its bizarre world of talking cats and rains of mackerel. (Johnnie Walker and Colonel Sanders make an appearance.) The characters were perfectly awesome. I almost loved it, but I wish Murakami had tied things together a little better. You might like it if you liked Gaiman’s American Gods.

Mostly, I love that it’s magic realism. That’s my genre, baby! I didn’t even know Murakami was writing such things and I’m very glad for the discovery. I’ll definitely read more of his stuff. After Dark is next.

Brad Kressler’s Birds in Fall was a’ight. Not bad. A plane goes down near an island in Nova Scotia, and an innkeeper there offers the victims’ families a place to stay during the search and rescue. The descriptions of the island and the history were enjoyable to read, and the ornithology metaphor used throughout was cool. There wasn’t a lot of plot, more “here’s how everyone felt about what happened,” but the writing was lovely and the emotions sincere and believable.