enbao

haruki murakami

sputnik sweetheart, kafka on the shore, a wild sheep chase, hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world, 1Q84, colorless tsukuru tazaki and his years of pilgrimage, south of the border, west of the sun (these are roughly ranked).

after reading extensively through his works, i don't believe that murakami embeds his books with any specific message. rather, his approach to magical realism allows ideas and themes to emerge and weave together naturally. this makes them more experiential compared to other books i've read.

recurring themes i enjoy include isolation stemming from the digital age, popular culture (particularly jazz), and the distinct personalities of his characters. but ultimately, the whole is much, much greater than the sum of its parts, and the books should be experienced without excessive analysis.

the stories of vladimir nabokov

particularly: gods, sounds, time and ebb, wingstroke, signs and symbols, wood-sprite, spring in fialta, la veneziana, tyrants destroyed, that in aleppo once..., nursery tale (roughly ranked again).

i read these for the prose. absolute gold.

crime and punishment + cannery row

both these works have such great humanization of the characters, combined with great writing (dostoyevsky's prose doesn't lose its potency after translation, and i absolutely love steinbeck's short sentences)

other recs

(nonfiction)