1. What you are looking for is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama
2. May the Tigris grieve for you by Emilienne Malfatto
3. The Cake tree in The Ruins by Akiyuki Nosaka 
4. The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada
5. Masks by Fumiko Enchi
6. Not a River by Selva Almada
7. Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop
8. Love at Six Thousand Degrees by Maki Kashimada
9. A childhood by Jona Oberski

I managed 9 reviews this month. I added 5 books to January in Japan. I start with a book about a magic librarian that helps people find the exact book when needed. Then I saw a girl in Iraq who is facing her own death after losing her fiance, meaning she will be a single mother. Harrowing story. Then we have a collection of short stories on the last day of world war to in Japan I loved the tale of the lonesome whale falling for a submarine. A factory worker questions his job and what they are all doing in a mysterious factory a nod to the mega factories that the writer had worked in. Then, in a Japanese classic, a woman has two suitors and a manipulative stepmother. Next, we head to Argentina and a story of three fishermen on an earlier trip and a death on that earlier trip; then a plant collector finds plants but also an enigmatic chief daughter he falls in love with so much that his last words are her name Miram. Then a woman goes on a road trip to Nagasaki and has an affair with a younger man with Scars. Then lastly, a man recalls being a child in the middle of the Holocaust in Amsterdam and in the prison camps a book that captures a child in all the horror.

Book of the month

Such a hard month. I like every book I read this month. In fact, since finishing this book, which was my book of the month, I have taken a few days to find a new read. I loved how he captured the voice of child amongst all these horrors and kept it feeling real. I was pleased to have reviewed nine books this month. I had that post-new-year slump happen in the last two weeks of January. But I think it is passing. Does anyone else has that feeling of doing great those first few weeks of the new year, and then you hit a wall? Well, I have it most years. It is usually this time or early in February.

Non-book events

I held back on buying too many records. A couple is coming up. I would like a couple of Robert Forester reissues for the next two albums to be rereleased, which I have my eye on. then there is the vast Waterboys box set 1985 around the album This is the Sea expanded out to 6 cd worth of material from the time this is just as they found what Mike Scott called the big music sound. I love their early stuff, so pleased I’m will get to hear all these songs and the different versions of them. I may have to leave that as it is a little out of my reach at the moment, but I will hope to get it at some point. Amanda and I have nearly finished The Crown. We have 5 episodes left to watch. Then, I think we will move on to Master of the Air. We enjoyed a couple of films, particularly Edie, starring Shelia Hancock as a pensioner determined to conquer a mountain in the highlands. She makes friends with a young man as she attempts to reach the summit. I also found a great book vlogger, Shreds Tube, worth checking out. He is a very well-spoken vlogger and has some interesting books and some great scenery in his videos. I

Next month

Mookse is hosting a read-along of Savage Detectives starting on Feb 10th. I had read this just before I started blogging so I am ready for a reread. I am reading and listening to it at the same time. There is a schedule on their substack. I have a number of books awaiting review. I had promised myself to keep on top of reading and reviewing simultaneously, but over the years, I ran off reading and not reviewing everything I had read. Other than that the usual mix of old and new. I have to try to get my century of translation slowly moving.I’m in the middle of the first book for it and will order the second book in due course.  I hope get over this slight slump of not getting down to anything I been pick this and that book up for more than a week b ut not getting overly gripped by any of them I hope to find that one book to kick start me again. It is hard after a run of such great books this month.

 

What are your plans for February?