nitroglycerin's Reviews (952)

Thoroughly enjoyed listening to Lee narrate this audiobook. 

Each chapter is a separate essay and a wonderful exploration of its topic (a plant such as Soy, Mango, and moss) looking at the history, language, ties to colonialism and Lees personal experience and feelings with them. Lee being a mixed race child of immigrant parents (Welsh father, Philippino mother), born in Canada and living her adult life abroad in the U.K. and Germany, she has a such unique perspective that’s worth sharing. 

Another healing fiction translated from Japanese - another attempt to find one as good as Before the Coffee gets Cold. 
Letters from the Ginza Shihodo Stationary Shop is a fine example of the genre. Fine in that it’s good enough, enjoyable enough but forgettable (reviewing a book a month after you’ve read it really highlights how memorable a book was!). 
As with most of the genre, Letters… is a collection of short stories that all have the same format, person A has a problem and enters the stationary store where the proprietor knows exactly what they need to break through their emotional turmoil. 
It’s cosy, laid back, and low stakes. Pleasant to read but nothing that will blow you away and change your life, despite the wholesome life affirming or changing visits the characters have to the stationary shop. 

Failed Summer Vacation is a collection of short stories that delve into the weird and wonderful. Speculative fiction, for me, works well in short stories as you can let the ideas flow just enough to make the reader think without having to consider the finer details for a more fleshed out tale. These stories are as thought provoking as they are imaginative. The overall focus on isolation and loneliness gives real food for thought. Each story is very open ended, so for those who liked this all wrapped up, this might not be for you, but for those who like to be left wondering what they read, this will be right up your alley. 
I think my personal favourite of the collection was ‘paper cut’, but all of the stories are solid on their own. 

Thanks to Scratch Books for my early review copy. 

Tomihiko Morimi is known for books such as The Tatami Galaxy and The Night is Short, Walk on Girl, which have been adapted into anime, both of which are incredibly surreal and bizarre and I loved them. 

Fox Tales is a short story collection loosely linked around Japanese folk myths around shape shifting and magical objects. 

For me this was a solid collection, “Fox Tales” was probably the best, with the eeriest atmosphere and spookiest antagonist. “The Dragon in the Fruit” was the weakest and most forgettable of the stories, but still had me interested throughout. “Phantom” was great, if a little predictable, but enjoyable nonetheless. “The Water God” was also eerie but in a different way to “Fox Tales”, less dread and more wonder. 

All in all, for me, a solid collection which I looked forward to reading. It has wetted my appetite to actually read the Tatami Galaxy which has been sitting on my shelf unread for 18 months 🙈

I’ve found it hard to write a review for Nesting. 

I both loved it and hated how it made me feel. I was compelled to pick it up so I could follow Ciara, but felt anxious every time. 

Nesting is a harrowing and terrifying exploring the cross section of domestic control and abuse and the housing crisis and poverty. It’s not easy to read, but it’s oh so important. DV victims, mostly women, are often asked “why don’t you just leave”. This book answers that and the results of what happens when you do try. How hard it is. What you lose when you do. 

I loved the writing and the characters. Ciaras decisions sometimes seem odd but that’s because she has had years of having her decisions and freedom controlled and manipulated, she doesn’t always know what she wants or is the best thing to do. 

The ending was satisfying, if a little bland, but again that also reflects real life. You win by having a quiet, safe life. 

I love alternating POVs in books. They’re not for everyone but for me they’re the best. In The Woman in Blue we alternate from the present day where our unnamed MMC visits the Rijksmuseum every day to stare at Vermeers painting of The Woman in Blue Reading a Letter. Unbeknownst to him he is being observed BY The Woman in Blue. We follow their internal dialogues as they both reflect on each other and their pasts. With The Woman we see how the painting came be and with the man he reflects on love. 

The Woman in Blue is the first book I’ve read by Bruton, and his writing is beautiful. This is a slow novella. Not one to be rushed or inhaled in a fever, but read with purpose and your own contemplation. While there were aspects I liked about the book, it isn’t my usual wheelhouse for fiction and it wasn’t my favourite book, but by no means does that mean I wouldn’t recommend it. For the right person or mood it would be perfect.

This is such a beautifully written nature memoir. I listened to the audio narratives by the author himself which was incredibly soothing. Malay arrives in England from Indonesia and stumbles into the life of an English naturalist. With each forgotten species he learns about he falls more in love with the English countryside in and around his base at Bristol. He tows a fine line between the existential crisis animals face in the wake of human caused climate disaster to hope that these remarkable creatures will adapt. 

What happens to humans in the future? 
When AI becomes truly intelligent? 
When we bomb ourselves to oblivion? 
What comes after? 

This was my sixth book by Hiromi Kawakami and probably my second least favourite overall. It was a good and enjoyable collection of short interlinked stories, but it didn’t live up to The Third Love which I read last year and really enjoyed, and lags behind her more well known Strange Weather in Tokyo or The Nakano Thrift Store. My least favourite if you’re wondering is Record of a Night Too Brief which was also short stories.

Kawakami’s strength is in her writing, and that’s what shone though. The world she created in Big Bird was bizarre but one I could picture well as her world building and setting descriptions were top notch.

Spanning hundreds of thousands of years in the future, Kawakami explores humanity and its existence. These interconnected stories can be difficult to get through and there isn't a plot in the classic sense, but the existential dread it invokes makes it worth it. Highly influenced by the falling birth rate of Japan no doubt, many of the stories focus on reproduction (thankfully in less graphic ways than some other recently translated Japanese books). Highly recommended for those who enjoy post apocalyptic, speculative Fiction..

In 25% I didn’t laugh once at this “bitterly comic” book. I like unlikeable narrators but they have to be at least interesting.