The Edi Book Festival, the Murakamis, Patrick Steward’s memoir
🍇 The Grapevine #111
Hello and happy Sunday!
The Edinburgh International Book Festival have just announced that they will announce their 2023 programme on June 14th. Talk about building tension! Rest assured that I will report back with names and dates, and the events I am attending.
This week I had a positive life changing personal event that kept me away from my usual reading routine. But I still managed to finish one book: a non fiction business book related to Vendor Management the Localization industry, which is what I do for a living.
At the same time, I’ve had time to think about a deadline and a date for our Alias Grace book discussion. It’s a chunky book and it seems to unfold in layers for me, so I’ve set May 15th as the deadline for it and as a date for our book discussion. Only ~400 pages to go!
Haruki Murakami’s unique magnetism
Haruki Murakami has a new book out and it has drawn quite a bit of attention before it was even released. This week, the BBC have written about the author’s inexplicable and irresistible magnetism.
Murakami is a Japanese novelist, short-story writer, and translator whose deeply imaginative and often ambiguous books became international best sellers. He was born on January 12, 1949, in Kyoto, Japan and has written novels such as Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, 1Q84, etc.
Haruki’s works often contain elements of surrealism and magical realism, with themes such as loneliness, alienation, and loss of identity. His writing style is often described as simple yet profound. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and the Franz Kafka Prize.
I first became aware of him as “the other Murakami”, because I was a lot more exposed to Ryu’s work than his. Ryu has potentially had a stronger advocate in Romania because his work was translated and published quicker and more prolifically than Haruki’s in the early days.
Their styles are nothing alike, though.
Ryu Murakami is also a Japanese author and filmmaker who was born on February 19, 1952. He is known for his dark and often violent novels that explore the underbelly of Japanese society. Some of his most famous works include In the Miso Soup, Piercing, and Audition, which was later adapted into a film by Takashi Miike. Ryu’s writing style is often compared to that of Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk. His works are known for their graphic violence and sexual content, which has led to controversy in Japan.
Ryu has won several awards for his work, including the Akutagawa Prize for Almost Transparent Blue in 1976. He has also been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Bram Stoker Award - if you know anything about these two authors you’ll understand that the awards that bear their names are for a specific genre which is closer to horror and gore than magic realism. In addition to his writing career, Murakami has also directed several films, including Tokyo Decadence and It’s Me Here, Bellett.
The BBC have reported this week on Haruki’s new novel which has drawn people to come queue in the streets hours before it was released. The novel, titled The City And Its Uncertain Walls follows the protagonist’s journey into a city surrounded by high walls. The 661-page read is divided into three parts, in which the protagonist moves from his teenage years into middle age. The plot points are merely jumping-off points for explorations of loss, isolation, identity and increasingly, social and political events. The new novel was written during the pandemic and it took Murakami almost three years to finish. Many readers dived straight in upon getting their copy. Pictures online showed readers curled up in all-night cafes, with cups of coffee by their side.
Patrick Steward’s Autobiography announced
The first thing I read this morning was news on the reveal of Patrick Steward’s autobiography cover and title.
I can’t imagine any trekkie or adjacent watcher of the series not smiling at this!
I’m particularly happy about this announcement also because I feel that this is someone who has a lot to say after 80+ years on God’s green earth, as Samuel Jackson would put it.
I am going to refer back to my previous posts about memoirs versus autobiographies.
Weird books found on Amazon
The world of books is not all about bestsellers and ‘good reads.’ Here is an interesting post about what some people and maybe publishing houses deemed worthy of publishing.
