A moving, thoughtful story of long-lost love and second chances. Growing up in the suburbs in post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to her father's record collection. But when his family moved away, the two lost touch. Now Hajime is in his thirties. After a decade of drifting, he has found happiness with his loving wife and two daughters, and success running a jazz bar. Then Shimamoto reappears. She is beautiful, intense, enveloped in mystery. Hajime is catapulted into the past, putting at risk all he has in the present. 'Casablanca remade Japanese style...It is dream-like writing, laden with scenes which have the radiance of a poem' The Times

Profiles the life and career of the award-winning Japanese author famous for works of both fiction and nonfiction.

Don’t know what to read? Marion Hill comes to the rescue again! Discovering new books is always an adventure. Like with any adventure, there’s always a dilemma. What road should I take? Which book should I read? Popular book reviewer Marion Hill rides to the rescue again with the second volume of his popular book review series. With more than 160 reviews under his belt, Marion has his fingers on the pulse of readers everywhere. As a prolific author himself, Marion is a voracious reader. Between publishing parts of his Kammbia fantasy novel series, Marion shared his reading list with his newsletter subscribers with thought-provoking book reviews. These reviews became so popular that he decided to publish them in book form for everyone to share. Just in time to make out your summer reading list, Marion has responded to growing demands from his grateful readers to publish yet another collection of his insightful, on-point reviews. In this collection, you’ll find a diverse selection of books that will earn a treasured spot on your bookshelf. In the second volume of Marion’s 25, you’ll discover dystopian science fiction works, like Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, classic novels, like Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, as well as works by popular contemporary authors, like The Cuckoo’s Calling, by Robert Galbraith (the alter ego of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling) and Stephen King’s shivery horror novel, Bag of Bones. This collection of reviews even includes non-fiction titles, like Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism, as well as many more gems well worth checking out. With an entire summer’s reading list (and maybe well into fall) in a single collection, you’ll be able to choose the ones you want to read, order them at your local library, bookstore, or online. Curled up with a good book, you can travel through worlds of adventure without leaving your home. The right book can transform your easy chair into a time machine, a spaceship, or a portal into an alternate universe. What better way to spend your spare hours than in your own private quest for adventure? As a former bookstore assistant during his younger days, Marion is an expert guide to the many worlds that books can open. Let him guide you through your reading adventures.

As a spokesman for disaffected youth of the post-1960s, Murakami Haruki has become one of the most important voices in contemporary Japanese literature, and he has gained a following in the United States through translations of his works. In Dances with Sheep, Matthew Strecher examines Murakami's fiction--and, to a lesser extent, his nonfiction--for its most prevalent structures and themes. Strecher also delves into the paradoxes in Murakami's writings that confront critics and casual readers alike. Murakami writes of "serious" themes yet expresses them in a relatively uncomplicated style that appeals to high school students as well as scholars; and his fictional work appears to celebrate the pastiche of postmodern expression, yet he rejects the effects of the postmodern on contemporary culture as dangerous.Strecher's methodology is both historical and cultural as he utilizes four distinct yet interwoven approaches to analyze Murakami's major works: the writer's "formulaic" structure with serious themes; his play with magical realism; the intense psychological underpinnings of his literary landscape; and his critique of language and its capacity to represent realities, past and present. Dances with Sheep links each of these approaches with Murakami's critical focus on the fate of individual identity in contemporary Japan. The result is that the simplicity of the Murakami hero, marked by lethargy and nostalgia, emerges as emblematic of contemporary humankind, bereft of identity, direction, and meaning. Murakami's fiction is reconstructed in Dances with Sheep as a warning against the dehumanizing effects of late-model capitalism, the homogenization of the marketplace, and the elimination of effective counterculture in Japan.

These living poems are my feelings and observations about my world. They were written on my travels in Haiti, Bolivia, Papua New Guinea, Europe and USA over the last two years.

Two hundred poems - a collection from my first four books written on my global travels.

A collection of 151 poems from my travels and a title poem.

Poems written around the world - this edition a birthday present for Stewart Sherriff

Quicklets: Learn More. Read Less. Haruki Murakami is a Japanese post-modern writer and translator who's won numerous international accolades including the Franz Kafka Prize and the Jerusalem Prize. His novels include Dance, Dance, Dance, South of the Border, West of the Sun, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Kafka On the Shore and Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, among others. His work often features mind-bending or surreal elements (though Norwegian Wood does not).He studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo and received honorary doctorates from the University of Liege and Princeton University. Norwegian Wood, titled after the Beatles' song of the same name, is an originally Japanese-language novel dealing with young love, sexuality, grief, loss and nostalgia. It was published in Japan in 1987 and became a best seller. It was published in English in 1989, then again in 2000. It has also been translated into French, German and Italian, among other languages. A film adaptation was released in Japan in 2010. The film debuted at the Venice International Film Festival and was released in the U.K. and the U.S. in 2011. Quicklets: Learn More. Read Less.