The Steady Read

Your home for book reviews, recommendations, and more

Tag: Fiction

  • Review: South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

    Review: South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

    An excellent display of all of Murakami’s talents, bundled nicely into a much shorter package than that of his hit novel Norwegian Wood. South of the Border, West of the Sun follows Hajime, a flawed but very honest portrayal of a man who has had plenty of luck and success across his life, yet is…

  • Review: Behind the Prison by Kafū Nagai

    Review: Behind the Prison by Kafū Nagai

    A short story about a Japanese man, one who descended from a very well-off lineage, finding himself quite at odds once he returns home to his family’s large estate in Tokyo. Unsure of how to deal with his emotions and thoughts about the current state of Japan, he writes a lengthy letter to his Excellency….

  • Review: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

    Review: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

    You may notice my reoccurring fondness for Japanese fiction, and novel like Convenience Store Woman are exactly why this is the case. Despite being a funny, not-too-serious story about an oddball woman who has dedicated herself to working part-time at a convenience store since she was eighteen, Murata is surprisingly talented at tackling a lot…

  • Review: Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto

    Review: Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto

    A short, riveting tale of a mystery that involves what seems to be nothing more than a tragic lover’s suicide quickly becomes quite an entrancing step-by-step deduction to the true motive behind two cyanide-filled corpses – a government worker and a waitress – turning up on a secluded beach in Hakata, Japan. Despite not expecting…

  • Review: Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

    Review: Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

    A tender, strange, and relatively short novella that explores love, age, and weirdness that forms our many life-long relationships. Following the lonesome and somewhat gloomy Tsukiko in her thirties, Strange Weather in Tokyo focuses on her deepening, almost-taboo and socially unacceptable relationship with the elderly Mr Matsumoto — nicknamed ‘Sensei’ — who taught her Japanese…

  • Review: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

    Review: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

    Beautiful, sombre, and touching. Often touted as Ishiguro’s most sincere and top-quality release, The Remains of the Day certainly earns that title. The story itself is unassuming, following Stevens, a long-serving butler at Darlington Hall, as he takes a short summer trip in his employer’s Ford. Despite being set in 1956, much of the story…

  • Review: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

    Review: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

    A return to form, that’s one way to put it. Klara and the Sun, as of writing, is Ishiguro’s latest in a strong library of works — but it seems to have prevailed as one of his more memorable novels. Following Klara, an Artificial Friend (AF), the reader is introduced to a dystopian, near-future vision…

  • Review: King Lear by William Shakespeare

    Review: King Lear by William Shakespeare

    King Lear is one of Shakespeare’s most notable and tolerable works. Despite how it seems, I actually say the latter part with good intent; remaining easy for modern audiences to follow, even after centuries of cultural and lingual change. The story of King Lear is one of corruption, loyalty, and good versus evil. After the…

  • Review: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Review: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    An insight into the terrors of war and how we cope as people. Half of a Yellow Sun stands as a profound and significant work in addressing the Biafran War that divided Nigeria across the late 1960s. The novel follows three characters: Ugwu, a village boy turned servant; Olanna, the wife of Ugwu’s master; Richard,…

  • Review: The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki

    Review: The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki

    Well-written, intriguing, and rather insightful for a century-old work. The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga can now finally be conveniently enjoyed by English readers within the Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories. Told from the perspective of K, a Japanese novelist, the story concerns a strange and lively man, Tomoda Ginza, and a woman who…