A modern fairytale – ‘From Little Tokyo, With Love’ by Sarah Kuhn – aimed at Teen/YA readers. I don’t normally pick up much from this genre, however this book was really something very special, and I’m so glad that I got the opportunity to read it. I wish I’d had this novel when I was a teenager. 「From Little Tokyo, With Love」は、おとぎ話をモチーフとして物語が展開する、ティーン / ヤングアダルト向けの作品。作者のSarah Kuhnは日系3世のアメリカ人です。ヤングアダルト系の本はあまり積極的に手に取らない私ですが、この本は心から出会えてよかった。自分がティーンエイジャーの頃に読みたかったなと思う1冊です。 The protagonist, Rika-chan, is a Japanese-American orphan girl living in LA with her cousins’ family. While her cousins are obsessed with princesses and rom-coms, she is proud of her judo skills, and believes she is not a princess type at all. She feels like she…
‘People From My Neighbourhood’ is a new collection of translated short stories by Hiromi Kawakami , published by Granta Books in the UK! This is a collection of mini stories about the people in an unnamed place.All the stories are about 3 pages long and are interconnected. I really enjoyed how the stories sounded ‘ordinary’ and ‘likely’ while at the same time the events in this book were all unusual and quirky. The book was full of characters with unique personalities, detailed with minimal descriptions, but I felt like I still got to know all of them quite well! Kawakami’s storytelling made me feel like it’s not strange at all…
I’d have to say I’m usually rather more a baking person than a cooking type. Normally I don’t bother to cook nice meals, and instead prefer to pay to get great quality restaurant food. (Though I really enjoy baking special biscuits for myself!) With that in mind, giving this cookbook a try was a bit of a challenge for me! The recipes are all easy to follow, covering fancy meals to daily dishes. I tried the Carbonara (Page 166). It requires only a few basic items, things we’d usually have in our fridge anyway. It turned out to be very quick and easy to make, so I can definitely see…
We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan is such a gripping book about family history, culture and moving between two countries: The UK and Uganda. The protagonist Sameer works for a law firm and is in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, caught up between a busy career and his relationship with his parents. As a business newcomer and working in the City myself (obviously WFH for nearly a year now though), as well as growing up with my parents – who hold quite traditional values – back in Japan, his struggles felt very familiar to me. The author captured these kinds of ‘moment’ very vividly; those times…
As a Japanese national who moved to the UK in mid-2019 to live with my British husband, Naomi Ishiguro’s Common Ground served to remind me of all those moments and things experienced in conversations with my British friends that they might never have even thought or known if they hadn’t talked about them with me. 2019年の中旬にイギリスに渡った日本人である私。ナオミ・イシグロの小説「Common Ground」を読んで思い出したのは、イギリスにおける生活の中で疑問に思ったことや違和感があったことをイギリス人の友人にシェアしたときの気持ち、「そんなことが起きているなんて」と驚くイギリス人の友人たちの反応。 The book – set in the early 2000s – tells the story of two young boys, Stan and Charlie. Stan lives in a suburban English town, and is struggling with his family and friends. Charlie, who is slightly older than him, is from a Traveler family. One day they happen to find each…
I think your job is something everyone struggles with to some extent. The type of work, the hours, relationships etc. I enjoy my job, but even I feel like I want something easier or perhaps ‘more fun’, sometimes. 仕事って、誰しも何らかの不満や悩みを抱えているものだと思います。それは仕事の内容にかもしれないし、労働時間や人間関係かもしれない。仕事を楽しんでいるつもりの私ですが、時々もっと楽な仕事や、もっと面白い仕事があるはずだ…なんて思ってしまう時もあります。 I first read this book in Japanese when I had just started working in London. I was really struggling to get used to a whole new environment and was exhausted with thoughts of how I needed to commit to the job and prove to others that I could do things well. But this book really ended up making me feel better, telling me – as the title says – There’s No…
Have you ever felt like negative memories have trapped you; happy memories overtaken, deep in your thoughts? ネガティブな記憶に追い込まれてしまうような気持ち、幸せな記憶が塗り替えられて、考え込んでしまうような気持ち… This book reminded me of the times I’ve been caught by dispair, feeling trapped within society, within my own mind. この本はそんな社会に閉じ込められるような、自分自身の心の闇に留まっているような、「絶望感」を思い起こします。 The spider illustration used throughout the book – gradually forming a complete web towards the end – made me ponder what the author was trying to say by including these images. 各章のはじめに付いている蜘蛛の絵は、段々と蜘蛛の巣を形作っていく。これには著者のどんな想いが込められているのか。 The story is written in a beautifully poetic style, composed of very small chapters made up of short scenes. I read through the whole book as if I was enjoying a collage of fragmented memories! 詩的な美しい文章で書かれている本作、短い各章の中にさらに小さなパラグラフで印象的なシーンを描いています。まるで記憶の欠片を覗き見ているような感覚です。 This book is…
I just came across a book that I think will be one of my favourite books this year! ‘Clap When You Land’ by Elizabeth Acevedo is aimed at a YA audience but was such a gripping book, even for adults, I just couldn’t put it down. It’s written in a colloquial verse style and beautifully phrased. ‘Clap When You Land’はドミニカ系アメリカ人作家のElizabeth Acevedoによるフィクション。ヤングアダルト向けですが、大人が読んでも惹き込まれます。全編が口語調の詩のように書かれていて、まるで音楽のようなスタイルです。 The story starts off with an airplane crash, inspired by a true incident just a few months after 9/11 happened. Most of the passengers were Dominican. 9/11の直後に起きた実際の飛行機墜落事故をモデルに書かれたフィクション。乗客はほぼ全員がドミニカ共和国の方だったそう。 It’s a story about two sisters losing their father, one in the US, one in the Dominican Republic. They find out about…
I was part of the #HamnetReadAlong and enjoyed this book so much that I had to write a little review about it (which I don’t normally do for the readalongs!!!) This book was about the beautiful love and loss of the family of famous playwright William Shakespeare. Written through the eyes of his wife Anne Hathaway, it perfectly captured the relationship between parents and children, siblings and relatives in fine detail. In this book, Shakespeare’s name is never mentioned. The effect of this is to better spotlight Anne, and brings a completely new perspective to the reader. Also, it’s worth noting that in the book Anne is called Agnes and the title…
This book is about an ordinary woman in a small town in coastal Maine named Olive Kitteridge. What does it mean to live and get older? This book gave me ideas about the beauty and cruelty of aging and made me think a lot about how I want my life to be like. アメリカの小さな港町に住むごく普通の女性、オリーヴ・キタリッジの物語。生きるとか、老いとか、とてもシンプルで美しくて、でも残酷なテーマについて、じっくり考えさせられた一冊です。 All the characters in this book were somewhat unlikable because their personalities were depicted so realistically. No one is perfect, that is the truth of being human. Everyone has their negative aspects and everyone can be very self centred. Thus this very very unlikable main character Olive was so convincing and she turned out to be…
I wonder why this book isn’t as acknowledged as it should be? どうして誰も私に教えてくれなかったんだろう?って思うほど、大好きな1冊と出会いました。 This book felt like a masterpiece of historical literature!! 歴史文学作品の傑作!とでも呼びたくなるほど、素晴らしい一冊。 I spotted this cute polar bear cover at Foyles, not knowing the author is actually an Akutagawa prize winner! (* The Akutagawa prize is the most famous literary award in Japan.) この本、日本の芥川賞作家 多和田葉子さんの作品ですが、ロンドンのFoylesで翻訳版を発見し、初めて知りました。かわいいホッキョクグマの表紙が目立っていました。 Reading this book made me feel very intellectual, with it giving off a great atmosphere of pre-war and wartime Russia and Germany as well as an excellent analysis of humans from the polar bear’s point of view. とても知的な気分になります。戦前・戦中・戦後のソ連やドイツを、ホッキョクグマを主人公に疑似体験できるような作品。ホッキョクグマの視点から見る「人間」の姿がとても興味深い。 All these complex topics were introduced in just the right amount and at the right timing…
I was looking for a good historical fiction after I finished my now the most favourite book ‘All the Light We Cannot See.’ This book ‘Dominion’ is a historical thriller recommended by staff at Daunt Books. Although I hesitated to get this due to the massive volume of the book, I am so glad that I manage to read this fantastic novel. お気に入りの本 ‘All the Light We Cannot See ‘を読み終えた頃、読み応えのある、おもしろい歴史小説を探していました。今回レビューするDominionは、歴史スリラー!Daunt Books の店員さんからオススメしてもらいました。すごく分厚くて重い本だったので買うのは躊躇したほどでしたが、買ってよかった。Daunt Booksのオススメはほんと、いつも間違いがない! The story is written from the viewpoint ‘what if’ Germany won the WWII. It might be a little bit hard for non-British like me to understand difference and contrast of ‘what ifs’ and the reality. I needed…