haruki murakami Archive
Stories Without Women
Men Without Women is a familiar, easily identifiable, and oddly comforting book for the Murakami reader, privileging the emotional landscape of lonely Japanese men through scaffolding characterization, personal idiosyncrasy, and monkey-wrench narratives.
An Aquarium in Paris
Sinking down the basement steps of the Palais Porte Dorée in Paris is to find it much as it was in its inaugural year. The hulking Art Deco palace was a centerpiece of the 1931 Colonial Exposition—a World’s Fair-type undertaking meant to reinvest French citizens of the interwar period
Beyond Haruki Murakami: Where to Find Japanese Lit
Forget Haruki Murakami. Welcome to the world of Mariko Nagai and Asa Nonami. This month’s Asian lit coverage includes two Japanese short stories by Nagai and Nonami (which center on gender and death), some lit mags featuring a wealth of Asian lit—and a Japanese movie that’ll make you laugh
Reading as Intoxicant, Part II: Ten Books That Are Basically Drugs
Don’t do drugs, kids; read books instead. More often than not, they inspire the same chemical rush with less brain trauma. Herein is a list of ten books with intoxicating, stimulatory, or hallucinatory qualities for the literarily psychotropically-inclined. Though no doubt many deserving books would be right at home