Search results for: “mieko kawakami”

  • Review: Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami

    Review: Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami

    Mieko Kawakami is one of my favourite authors, at least regarding works from the twenty-first century. All of her works have scored 4/5 and above here on The Steady Read, which should indicate my fondness for her writing style and handling of stories. However, as this setup may allude to (and the score above), Ms…

  • Review: All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami

    Review: All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami

    The last in Mieko Kawakami’s main trio of works — All the Lovers in the Night evokes much of the same emotions and motifs found within her acclaimed debut Breast and Eggs, whilst also successfully mixing in the emotional messiness of her much shorter work Heaven. The story follows Fuyoko Irie, a freelance proofreader who…

  • Review: Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

    Review: Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

    A quiet commentary buried under a somewhat unhappy tone; Breasts and Eggs, which was Mieko Kawakami’s first significant literary work, stands as an interesting read for this reason. Split into two halves (separated by a decade), we follow Natsu as she becomes a budding author and attempts to wrangle with the pressures of society, work,…

  • Review: Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

    Review: Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

    As touching as it is heart-wrenching, Kawakami’s second novel, Heaven, illustrates the horrors of childhood, bullying, and our fleeting attempts to love ourselves and the families that neglect us. Kawakami toys with many facets in this relatively short novel, especially those that trouble us during our formative years, like bullying and home life. She does…

  • A.I. and Book Translation

    A.I. and Book Translation

    Let me get one thing straight: I essentially hate artificial intelligence. I don’t hate it for what it is, nor am I ignorant to the many positives it can introduce into the engineering, healthcare, IT, and business sectors. I simply fear and resent its advancements and endangerment of the arts — namely illustration, photography, writing,…

  • Book of the Week #4

    Book of the Week #4

    Having read and reviewed her three major works, it is apparent that I am fond of Mieko Kawakami, especially her novella Heaven. So I really should be picking up her shortest translated work, Ms Ice Sandwich. From what I can understand from the blurb, it is a short and funny novella about a young man’s…

  • Everything I Read in 2022

    Everything I Read in 2022

    A little retroactive post never hurt anyone. With July 2nd marking the midpoint of the year, I thought it would be fun to put out a post officially listing what I read in 2022 (even if every book has been reviewed prior to this). I actually read more than I realised in 2022, and more…

  • One Year of The Steady Read!

    One Year of The Steady Read!

    It has been a whole year since I first published my review of Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, which marked the beginning of the website as an actual place for content and reviews to be hosted. However, as I have alluded to in other posts, this website has existed before in differing locations and versions. At…

  • Five Great Japanese Books Under 200 Pages

    Five Great Japanese Books Under 200 Pages

    I love to read books by Japanese authors, particularly those on the shorter side. Something about the way the Japanese write, regardless of whether the work was translated or simply wrote in English to begin with, doesn’t shake the way these authors can so easily convey a scene, an emotion, or their (usually) odd sense…

  • Some of the Best Book Collections

    Some of the Best Book Collections

    Books are renowned for their aesthetic abilities, so here are some of my favourite collections of authors’ works or series. Kazuo Ishiguro — Modern F&F Faber & Faber’s minimalist approach to their modern reprints of Ishiguro’s work are amongst some of my favourite designs for a book cover, ever. Speaking of covers only: A Pale…