Murakami has been on my TBR pile for quite some time, but I bumped his work up the list after having several guests on our podcast (Re-Creative) recommend his work.
Kafka on the Shore (2002) follows a young lad, Kafka Tamura, a strangely bookish 15-year-old boy who runs away from his Oedipal curse as he unearths his life while he works at a private library. It also follows, Satoru Nakata, an old, disabled man with the uncanny ability to talk to cats. The translation came out in 2005; it was on the New York Times best books of the year list, as well as winning a 2006 World Fantasy award.
The novel was weirdly reminiscent of Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler -- not for the way the story was told or even the characterizations -- but for the high-wire act the author is on. I kept thinking: "Now how is he going to write himself out of this mess?" And he kept doing it!
"A stunning work of art that bears no comparisons" the New York Observer wrote of Haruki Murakami's masterpiece, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. In its playful stretching of the limits of the real world, his magnificent new novel, Kafka on the Shore is every bit as bewitching and ambitious. The narrative follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his highly simplified life suddenly overturned. Their parallel odysseys - as…
I was introduced to Buddhist thinking (and meditation) when I was only eighteen years old. This was a life-changing event; one that guided my course for many years.
Sometime in my mid-thirties, I lost sight of what I'd learned of the value of meditation. Later, I rediscovered it, and began another meditation practice. Not Buddhist, but similar. And then I lost that. Ironically, this is an example of the impermanence that Buddha taught us about.
Wright is a evolutionary biologist, and he brings this perspective to a frank and scientific (as possible) discussion of how meditation can help us in this crazy modern world. By the middle of it, I was asking myself: "Why the hell did I stop mediating on the regular?"
So if nothing else, this book brought me back to meditation, and it may do the same for you!
New York Times Bestseller From one of America's greatest minds, a journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness.
Robert Wright famously explained in The Moral Animal how evolution shaped the human brain. The mind is designed to often delude us, he argued, about ourselves and about the world. And it is designed to make happiness hard to sustain.
But if we know our minds are rigged for anxiety, depression, anger, and greed, what do we do? Wright locates the answer in Buddhism, which figured out thousands…
Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.
This novel also reminds me of an Italo Calvino book, Invisible Cities. In that story, Kublai Khan has captured Marco Polo, who must regale the Khan with stories about his empire's cities, or face death. In this novel, Xerxes has captured Xeo, the last surviving warrior from the Spartans. He must tell the Persian emperor how 300 Spartans and their allies managed to keep the mighty Persian army at bay for a week.
Rich with history and detail, the novel uses a series of flashbacks to tell Xeo's story -- both intensely personal and descriptive of the strange and horrific Spartan culture.
If you have any interest in ancient history and fiction, this one is a must read!
In the Sunday Times bestseller Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield tells the breathtaking story of the legendary Spartans: the men and women who helped shaped our history and have themselves become as immortal as their gods.
'Breathtakingly brilliant . . . this is a work of rare genius. Savour it!' DAVID GEMMELL
'A tale worthy of Homer, a timeless epic of man and war, exquisitely researched and boldy written. Pressfield has created a new classic' STEPHEN COONTS
'A really impressive book - imaginatively framed, historically detailed and a really gripping narrative' ***** Reader review
When a physical duplicate of him appears in his living room, wearing a tight-fitting silver lamé unitard and speaking with an English accent, Max knows something bad is about to happen. Bad doesn’t cover it. Max discovers he’s the only human being who can prevent the end of the world, and not just on his planet! In the multiverse, infinite Earths will be destroyed.
Personally, Max thinks the multiverse is in big trouble, because he can’t even keep his toenails clipped on the regular, let alone stop the apocalypse. His only “allies” are a race of manic pixie aliens and dozens of other versions of himself; and let’s face it, both groups are annoying as heck!
From award-winning author Mark A. Rayner, Alpha Max is a silly and serious spoof of the science fiction and superhero movie trope of multiple realities. Fans of the humorous science fiction of Douglas Adams and the black humor and satire of Kurt Vonnegut will love this dark comedy that will make you think as well as laugh.
