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#BookReport 51/23

I bailed on The Rise and Fall but the other three were really good and all completely different. Oh the joy of reading 😂

Murakami writes so beautifully and there‘s always this touch of magic. The young teacher K tells about his friend Sumire (who he‘s secretly in love with), who suddenly disappears while traveling on a Greek island. Her disappearance leaves everyone involved with nothing but “feelings of immeasurable emptiness”. Nothing much happens but finishing the book leaves me with that feeling of emptiness. Which I think is exactly what Murakami wants.

#MayMontage @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs
1: yellow color

First one that came to mind
#May #colors #spring #faveauthors #photochallenges #HarukiMurakami

Gah.

Certain passages in this book were beyond beautiful: meditations on loneliness, connection, loss & emptiness, written in gorgeously austere prose.

Then there were whole sections that seemed a waste of words! Overall, I found this book a frustrating experience.

My favourite part was the Ferris Wheel story. That was a dynamite piece of storytelling. Other sections jarred.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 stars, not my favourite Murakami, but some memorable moments.

Meet Sputnik, one of our first guinea pig squad of four - one neutered boy and three girls.
Yes, she was named after the tagged book. After all, that's what she was - Sputnik, a sweetheart... 😊
Don't get me wrong, I have loved all our pets - love animals in general - but with some you have a connection that's even more special. She was my sweetie - the calmest, friendliest, cutest one and the haven of tranquility of the troop🧡

I'm in the mood for some Murakami 😊

Slow day at work. Continuing my Murakami kick with my foster kitty, who is hoping to meet someone who will adopt her.
#catsoflitsy

Wow. I love the narration of this book.
The man narrates his feelings and tells the story of her best friend being in love with some other girl.
Seriously a beautiful story and tragedy that leaves you in awe. The experience was so extreme and made me slow down sometimes.
As ever his dystopian world and unusually beautiful description bind us in every moment.
It's a different experience.

I would like to get to know this author #HarukiMurakami.

#FellowLittens, do you have a recommendation which book by him I should start reading first?

#newauthor #needhelp #question

#ChristmasQuotes Day 26: Giving myself one extra day in advance so tomorrow, I can relax 💕 #Ice - Merry Christmas , @EadieB our lovely host this month, and to all beautiful Litsy people!!!

Sputnik Sweetheart is a fast paced quick read and has a comparatively simpler narrative as compared to other Murakami books. Even though his books leave the reader wondering and confused, reading Murakami always has a meditative effect on me and Sputnik Sweetheart was no different. It‘s a great read but definitely not his best work

A simple young man who loves reading and listening to music falls in love with a girl. The girl loves another elder woman and is somehow trapped in a dark place. The boy tries to redeem the girl but fails. Now insert sexual desire, random boners and cats to this. Sounds familiar? I thought so too. The story of Sputnik Sweetheart is quite similar to Norwegian Wood but unlike the latter, the theme of SS is loneliness, longing and unrequited love.

#QuotsyMar20 Island

This novel is dreamlike. I don‘t want to go in the direction of any spoilers so I won‘t. In each of his stories is a character who personifies or mirrors the essence of Murakami himself. Female MC: “..in a realm I can not even give a name to, I conceive a dream, a sightless fetus called understanding, floating in the universal, overwhelming amniotic fluid of incomprehension. Which must be why my novels are absurdly long and never reach ⬇️

I never imagined I'd finish his book so fast, neither was this ever in my list! But I know this is v popular story. Lets see
✔️ pining male MC
✔️ unavailable female
✔️ journey
✔️ Fantasy (with cats!)
✔️ Sexual bits (oh well)
Found this less strange, thus more enjoyable than others.
I believe his prose can still be effective, without excessive similes & platitudes. I haven't read enough of his books but I now find HM overrated 🙄 #AuthorAMonth

The answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of dreams, and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of time.

- #currentlyReading #santhiReads2020

So, I am whizzing through this #ebook. Starting the 10th chapter, Dr Mardy's tweet, quoting Kerouac, pops up in my notification. #santhiReads2020

The very writer, whom one of the MCs in the tagged book, is obsessed with! Strange coincidence, hai 🙄😏
#AuthorAMonth
(dare I reckon I'll finish this before I sleep??
😲gasp😉

And just like that, I find myself reading one of his popular novels... 🤔🤔 Smooth ordinary start. Let's see how long it takes before I get lost in his inexplicable realms of fantasy 😉
#AuthorAMonth

Boy loves girl but girl loves an older woman. Not a typical love triangle though. With Murakami, expect to be confused between the realms of fantasy and reality. A story where two parallel worlds overlap. A story of longings, of love/desire & unreciprocated love/desire. There‘s a mystery, themes of isolation & loneliness are apparent. It‘s also rich in metaphors. ⬇️

#AuthorAMonth #AuthorAMonth2020
#jennyis30 #lgbtqromance
#ReadingEurope2020

The pressing loneliness of the lives of the characters in this novel is comparable to a satellite in space..

#currentread

The final so...weird and Murakami's style

#QuotsyJan20 Day 15: #Satellite

I liked this classic Murakami, although the more of his books I read, the harder it is to ignore the terrible way he writes women. Plus the storylines all start to blend together... even still, I keep visiting his backlist.

Haven‘t done one of these in forever! Here goes...

1. Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami and Maid, Stephanie Land (liking both)
2. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe (so good)
3. Independent People, Halldór Laxness (feels like a January read)

#weekendreads

"Every time I read [the letters], I felt like Sumire and I were together again, our hearts one. This warmed my heart more than anything else could. Like you‘re riding a train at night across some vast plain, and you catch a glimpse of a tiny light in a window of a farmhouse. In an instant it‘s sucked back into the darkness behind and vanishes. But if you close your eyes, that point of light stays with you, just barely, for a few moments."

"In the sky above the summit, the coarse-looking moon loomed awfully near. A hard ball of stone, its skin eaten away by the merciless passage of time. Ominous shadows on its surface were blind cancer cells stretching out feelers toward the warmth of life."

"I woke in an unpleasant sweat, my shirt plastered to my chest. My body was listless, my legs swollen. I felt as if I‘d swallowed an overcast sky whole."

"Imagine _The Greatest Hits of Bobby Darin_
minus "Mack the Knife." That‘s what my life would be like without you."

"When I got home I was as exhausted as an old railroad tie."

"When this pitiful moon is hanging there in a corner of the eastern sky like a used-up kidney."
Today in odd similes.

"Staying there any longer, she concluded, was a waste of time. I think it was the right move, but if I can be allowed a mediocre generalization, don‘t pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it‘d lose even its imperfection."

Another great Murakami ❤️ With most authors that wander into the supernatural, I have a real problem with suspension of disbelief (which is why I don‘t enjoy Fantasy or Sci-Fi). But with Murakami, he blends all aspects of his novels so masterfully, it‘s difficult to place the story into just one genre. Recommended. #murakami

(Part of the novel is set in Greece. I have nothing from Greece, so here‘s a painting from a street artist in Peru.) 🤪

#7days7covers #covercrush Day 6

Tagging @hes7 if you‘ll like to share your 7 favourites. 🙂

One of my fave Murakamis. Often his relationships between men and women feel hollow but this had some lovely quite universal exploration of longing and emotion and wasn‘t just horny men focusing on their erections instead of the dreamy magic realism I want from murakami. Better than I expected, but unfortunately still murakami so it gets a soso not a pick for having so many strange awkward sex scenes and descriptions of penises I had to skip.

This book offers so much to think about and so many little bits that touched me so... I see it as less of a novel, though. Quite literally, as the book itself states, the author seems to have used fiction here as a means of transmission for an understanding of the human condition as he perceives it.

Just passable for a Murakami .
This book deals with realities and mirages ... Two sides of a coin , mirror images .. and everything double natured.
Plus it looks upon various hues of attraction - between friends , employer -employees , man -woman, woman-woman.
There are 3 lead characters -
Sumire, the mysterious 22 year old, the narrator , Sumire's friend and secret admirer , and Miu, the older lady whom Sumire is enamored of.

#QuotsyJuly19 Day 3: #Destiny
This quote is depressing.

“..But falling in love is always a pretty crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you. Who knows — maybe even tomorrow.”

#MayMovieMagic #tomorrowneverknows if love will come knocking on its door.

#AnglophileApril Day 29: Iphigene‘s review: “I used to think this book was about a girl‘s unrequited love for a woman 17 yrs her senior, & a man‘s unrequited love for the said girl. [hence, #OwnerOfALonelyHeart] However, that is me being superficial, that‘s me missing the point. Sputnik Sweetheart is in reference to Sumire‘s nickname for Miu, the woman she loved. But that‘s not the heart of this book.” Review: https://wp.me/pDlzr-2CA

I brought a bunch of books on our vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and I only opened this one right before we left. Great time but exhausting! 😂 Hopefully I‘ll get some downtime this weekend. ☕️📚

#LMPBC #GroupT
Here are a few options I am considering. Two Murakami books I haven‘t yet read (*gasp*). But I know Murakami isn‘t for everyone... Also, Europa and NYRB are favorites. Any thoughts? (Tagging other three books in comments so you can easily read descriptions.)

Outside of #LMPBC, have any Littens read these and have input?

#sweetheart #literarylove @vkois88 @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
This looks good.

#LiteraryLove Day 12: Iphigene‘s review: “Sputnik #Sweetheart is Sumire‘s story, but our narrator allows us to look into his own journey as well as that of Miu. Their lives are like echoes to Sumire‘s. Should they cross the door? Should they slit throats? Or should they remain as empty shells? No matter the decision, we continue to live in this world waiting like half-opened gates with or without blood from the dogs.” https://wp.me/pDlzr-2CA

"This is where it all began, and where it all ended. Almost."

So I managed to find the love story, it is beautiful, but it's also quite sad.
I love Murakamis storytelling in this book, his characters came to life so vividly, it felt as if I could touch them. The story definitely touched me.

I read this more than15 years ago and I loved it. Then I gave it to one of my friends for her birthday, telling her that I thought it was one of the most beautiful love stories I've ever read. She recently finished it and asked me where the beautiful love story that I promised her was and I couldn't tell her, because I just couldn't remember the plot. We'll see if I can find the love story again 15 years later.

"Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”

Happy Wednesday!🙌 Well, Thursday here in Australia so Happy Thursday to my fellow #AussieReaders 💛💛 It's such a beautiful day here, Summer Time approaching!!!
Here's my #HumpDayPost @MinDea 😊
1. I was out running errand so this is the closest thing that's blue...Our beautiful Blue Sky
2. Roughly 4- 5 hours sleep
3. Dark chocolate with nuts, hazel nuts or almonds
4. About once or twice a year
5. Totally recommend 👍
#booknerd #readinglife

"Sometimes I feel so- I don‘t know - lonely. The kind of helpless feeling when everything you‘re used to has been ripped away. Like there‘s no more gravity, and I‘m left to drift in outer space with no idea where I‘m going‘
Like a little lost Sputnik?‘
I guess so."
By Haruki Murakami,Sputnik Sweetheart #currentread

Loving this book so far. Genius writing! #bookquote #quote #booknerd #bookaddict #lovebook #aussiereaders