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Showing posts from October, 2015

'You could never get away from yourself'

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This had to be the seventh Murakami book I've read since I was seventeen. Back then, there are only two authors whose works I faithfully consumed. One was Murakami-sensei, the other was Chuck Palahnuik. Both have exceptional writing styles that stay with you and often haunt your days and nights if you allow them. I remember reading a Murakami anthology ( The Elephant Vanishes ) but since it was only a borrowed copy from the library, I never got to finish (I plan on re-reading that next year). This is the second anthology I was graced with and it was composed of six measly short fictions that are, in the truest Murakami sense, irresistibly consuming. The theme for this collection deals with the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake and the lives of his characters who have to cope in its wake.  Each of the stories had protagonists who are already so immersed in wanton longing and abandonment, and it was only after a disaster took that place that they became even more uncomfortably a

Three Important Words In Any Language

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I bought this book first, but the very first Charles Yu work I've read was my next purchase which was  How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe.  I could never begin to tell you just how madly in love I was with it from start to finish. You can read my review about it in case you're curious . Now, if I sit still for a moment and think about it again for a whole minute, I might get lost inside my own head and never recover. The only reason I bought this other book was because of one of the quoted reviews in the back page cited that if I'm a fan of the cult NBC show Community , then this one is definitely my cup of tea. And I can agree with that person...to some extent. The truth is, if it wasn't for that reference to my all-time favorite sitcom, I never would have even bothered looking for Yu's novel in the first place. Also, if I happened to read this first before How To Live , I'm afraid I might just put this author aside which would be a damn shame bec