Yesterday I was so busy getting my buddy review of Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman online with Elsje that I missed out on the Sunday Salon. Same thing happened last week, so today I decided to join in Sheila’s weekly meme on Book Journey: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? to bring you up-to-date.
I finshed reading Shusaku Endo’s book Silence for the Japanese Literature Book Group and Japanese Literature Challenge #4 on June 10th. I hope I’ll manage to review the book before the discussion starts on June 28th! Because it is set in Japan just after the country has been closed to foreigners (except Dutch), it was quite appropriate to read after The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (which I hope to review soon too) and it also brought to mind The Bridge of San Luis Rey and one of my all-time favourite movies The Mission.
After Silence I picked up some Dutch nonfiction about Japan: Geketende democratie, Japan achter de schermen by Hans van der Lugt. It hasn’t been translated into English (yet) but literally the title means ‘Democracy in Chains: Behind the Scenes in Japan’. Hans van der Lugt has been a correspondent in Japan for one our national newspapers (NRC Handelsblad) from 1995-2006. It’s an interesting book but I feel like reading a novel as well so I’ll be starting The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch in the next few days. We’re going on a short trip to one of the Wadden Islands in the North Sea so a book with such a title seems appropriate. It is also part of my personal challenge and the What’s in a Name challenge — I’ll be happy to finally cross it off my wishlist!
I’m still keeping up with the Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book read-along. I’ve read all my entries for this week (#110 in the Morris edition) but I just don’t have anymore time to tell you all about it. That’ll have to wait to another Sunday Salon — or It’s Monday! What Are You reading? :)
My BX bookshelf
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maandag 21 juni 2010 bij 22:25
leeswammes
You’re keeping busy with reviewing and reading!
The Silence book sounds interesting. I don’t need any more books on my TBR though! So I’ll wait for your review before making a decision. :-)
dinsdag 22 juni 2010 bij 01:32
Bookjourney
You are reading some amazing books! Thanks for joining in this Monday! :)
dinsdag 22 juni 2010 bij 19:14
Aths
Silence looks interesting! I have to look it up. Have a good week!
dinsdag 22 juni 2010 bij 22:42
chasing bawa
I’m reading Endo’s The Samurai at the moment and it’s proving to be very interesting. I thought it would be rather dry, but it isn’t at all. I’m definitely going to read Silence at some point (but probably not this year).
woensdag 23 juni 2010 bij 21:38
elsje
Ik lees naast Jay Rubins boek over Murakami en John Irving’s Last night in twisted river de vertaling van A spot of bother van Mark Haddon dan ik ooit aan een van de spruiten cadeau deed.