The City And Its Uncertain Walls

Tags: Japanese, magical realism 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐out of 5

From Goodreads

We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life.

Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world—a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves.

Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along.

Murakami is at his best in this long-ish novel. All his trademark elements are present: unfulfilled romance, unicorns, alternate worlds, ghosts, jazz music, weird interesting people. Also, shout out to two animated movies - Hayao Miyasaki's Spirited Away and the Beatles' Yellow Submarine. 

The book is divided into 3 parts which came full circle. Very enjoyable read and ending but only for die hard Haruki Murakami fans like myself.

Labyrinth Of Reflections

tags: Russian, sci-fi, thriller, virtual reality

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐out of 5

From Goodreads 

The story is set in the near future, where a chance invention allows people to experience virtual reality without the need for costly hardware — a seconds long movie drives a person into a sort of psychosis, forcing one's subconsciousness to perceive a simple 3D game as real world.

Soon after the invention, Microsoft and IBM build a virtual city on the Internet called "Deeptown" (named so after the street name for VR — the Deep), which anyone is free to log on and enter. The painted world becomes a second home for millions people — but some of them 'sink', i.e. forget to return to the reality and eventually die of dehydration.

Only a small group of people calling themselves divers are capable of leaving the Deep at will. Gods of the virtual world, they help those who sink.

The book has similarities to Mamoru Oshii's Avalon movie although the book came out earlier in 1995 and the movie in 2001. Players in both the book and movie get addicted and don't want to leave the game for different reasons. In the movie, players who reach the top most level become catatonic and they are removed to a hospital facility with fellow players but their "gaming persons" stay in the level.

In the book, the players who don't want to stop playing are anonymous and do not provide their locations so they die from malnutrition until a diver or savior locates, convinces, and guides them out of the game to get some nourishment.

The setting feels outdated specially the technology and lingo. The players only use a computer and a headset, no fancy equipment that are not affordable for everybody. The story is more of a thriller, IMHO, than purely a sci-fi novel.

I like it although I don't know anything about virtual reality games. This Russian writer is becoming one of my favorite fiction book authors.

The Seven Dials Mystery

tags: murder mystery, secret society

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of 5

From Goodreads

When a practical joke involving eight alarm clocks turns into murder, the case is taken up by Bundle Brent and Jimmy Thesiger. With the help of Bill Eversleigh they discover that the Seven Dials Club is not only a nightclub but also the headquarters of a Secret Society.

Agatha Christie's murder mystery is quite different from her regular whodunnits in not following the usual steps/methods. The short novel has young people in their early twenties instead of older folks trying to solve 2 murders with the help of Scotland Yard Superintendent Battle. 

I read the first book in this series with Battle as the investigating officer, The Secret of Chimneys. I have yet to read the rest. Or maybe I have but forgotten. 

Lady Eileen Brent or Bundle to her family and friends, leads the investigation. Her parents own the Chimneys who are renting it to a Mr. Owen Coote and his wife Maria. Bundle wasn't at the party in that house when one of her friends died of overdose but is actually a murder. Another friend died a few days later from a gun shot wound. Bundle thought she ran him over with her car and the dying boy said a few words that made her start her own investigations with the help of her friends. 

I like the unexpected very enjoyable twist and also the humor throughout specially the brief appearances of Bundle's father. The part where an older man (late 20s or early 30s), Lord George Lomax, who works at the Foreign Office, suddenly thinks of Bundle as a wife material. His marriage proposal is so funny and awkward that reminded me of Mr. Collins asking Lizzy Bennet to be his wife. Bundle turned him down because she likes one of her friends. There certainly is some romance going on in this short novel. The theme (secret societies, international intrigues, theft) and young female character as main protagonist  have similarities to a few of Patricia Wentworth's stand alone novels.

I listened to the audio book and loved it. Highly recommended for Agatha Christie fans. 

Hotel Lucky Seven

tags: action, assassins, humor, Japanese, thriller

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐out of 5

From Goodreads

Bullet Train’s hapless underworld operative and his handler are back in this thrilling new novel from internationally bestselling author Kotaro Isaka. In Bullet Train, underworld operative Ladybird was tasked by his handler Maria Beetle with retrieving a suitcase from a high-speed train in Japan. The job did not go according to plan, to the delight of millions of readers and movie fans around the world.

Will the unluckiest assassin in the world find things easier this time around? All he has to do is deliver a painting to a hotel guest, a portrait made by his daughter. Easy enough, except when Ladybird makes the delivery, he realizes that the guest is clearly not the guy in the painting. Then he attacks Ladybird, they fight, and the guest ends up dead. How can such simple jobs always go wrong?

Assassin Nanao AKA Ladybug, is back making his job harder for himself because he is so unlucky. He gets entangled with a group of assassins and "cleaners" inside a Japanese luxury hotel. 

The novel is as good as the previous Bullet Train with all the weird named but somehow funny characters. Cola and Soda work as a team, the Six beautiful but vicious assassins as the second team, and the "cleaners" team Blanket and Pillow are 2 small in stature girls but equally deadly. 

These teams are linked to each other although not working for the same end. I think my favorite character this time is Soda specially when he starts waxing philosophical which has an impact on Ladybug. 

There is a twist at the end that is very satisfying and makes perfect sense. There's a hint of romance too at the very end.

Highly recommended.

The Recruit Season 2

 

tags: action, comedy, espionage, Netflix series 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐out of 5

The second season has a huge hole in the story but I still loved the nonstop action, the dramedy, South Korean culture and specially the actors Noah Centineo and Yoo Teo. 

Highly recommended

The Trump Effect

THE TRUMP EFFECT 

It's only the third week as the president of USA and already significant progress have been achieved.

Countries that caved to President Trump's demands for the safety of Americans, for international security, and for better trade. 

• Panama promised to end agreement with communist China having authority on Panama Canal use. 
• Colombia agreed to take back their violent criminals and even offered their army planes. 
• Mexico folded and will send 10,000 troops to the border to stem the flow of illegals and drugs 
• Venezuela agreed to accept their violent criminals who were let in by Biden/Harris administration. 
• Canada made commitments to set aside $1.3 billion to appoint a fentanyl czar, list cartels as terrorists, and add reinforcement at the border 
• Denmark is ready to let the US add to its military presence in Greenland 

All of these countries' leaders except Denmark caved within the day or the very next day. Tariff works because they need USA more than the USA needs them. Lessons learned. You are no longer dealing with a weak USA. 

Who's next? China and corrupt EU.

President Trump declared: FAIRNESS FOR ALL! 

The Hot Spot

tags: alien, comedy, Japanese dorama, Netflix

Sundays

From AsianWiki

Kiyomi Endo is a single mother living in a town at the foot of Mt. Fuji in Yamanashi Prefecture. She works at a business hotel. One day, she happens to meet an alien. If she was a pure-hearted girl, she would probably try develop a friendship with the alien and fight against injustice in the world, but she's a little different. As an adult, she has experienced good and bad in the world. She asks the alien to solve minor events at her work or in her personal life without upsetting the alien.

Mathilda

 

tags: classics, gothic, short stories

⭐out of 5

From Goodreads

Mary Shelley’s shocking, tragic, and some say autobiographical tale of incestuous love. Confined to her deathbed, Mathilda narrates the story of her life. It is a tale of sweeping emotion, shameful secrets, and wretched love. Her mother having died in childbirth, Mathilda is raised by her aunt until the age of sixteen, at which point she happily returns home to live with her father. But he turns deeply melancholic when a young suitor begins to visit Mathilda at their London home, and the idyllic life parent and child once shared turns sour. Pushed to confess his all-consuming love for his own daughter, Mathilda’s father bids her farewell before shame drives him to drown himself. Finally, after years of solitude and grief, Mathilda’s hope for happiness is renewed in the form of a gifted young poet named Woodville. But while his genius is transcendent, and he loves Mathilda dearly, the specter of her father still lingers. Though Mary Shelley wrote Mathilda in 1819, directly after the publication of Frankenstein, her father and publisher, William Godwin, refused to print it. Nearly a century and a half later, in 1959, the manuscript was finally published and has become one of Shelley’s best-known works.

OMG! What did I just read? It's horrible, dull, icky, and regardless of the sad story, I never felt it. I know the synopsis says incestuous but the reason I didn't find it worth my time is the narration about the saddest people on earth and their deaths. The short novel is peppered with the word death. Someone counted 59 in all. 

Mathilda's mother died shortly after her birth, the father who was devastated by the loss of his beloved, left her as a baby with an uncaring aunt so Mathilda never experienced love and affection from anyone. Why she grew up with no neighbors of the same age nor cousins is a mystery and could be the time period this story happened. Whatever...

The father came back after 16 years and the aunt died soon after. Father and daughter lived happily together for less than 1 year but he left again for good because he started feeling another kind of love for her. He sees her dead wife in Mathilda and he was not willing to do anything about it so he drowned himself out in the sea.

Mathilda met a young man, a poet (like her own husband Shelley?) who was engaged to be married to a beautiful 20 year old girl. Guess what? The girl Elinor died just before the wedding.

The narrative was told on Mathilda's deathbed. She purposely went to the garden at night, laid down until it rained to catch cold and fever. Of course, she died! At 20 years old. 

I'm not sure what the point of the story is. 

Not recommended.

Have His Carcase

tags: classics, Harriet Vane, Lord Peter Wimsey, murder mystery

⭐⭐⭐⭐out of 5

From Goodreads 

Harriet Vane has gone on vacation to forget her recent murder trial and, more importantly, to forget the man who cleared her name—the dapper, handsome, and maddening Lord Peter Wimsey. She is alone on a beach when she spies a man lying on a rock, surf lapping at his ankles. She tries to wake him, but he doesn’t budge. His throat has been cut, and his blood has drained out onto the sand. As the tide inches forward, Harriet makes what observations she can and photographs the scene. Finally, she goes for the police, but by the time they return the body has gone. Only one person can help her discover how the poor man died at the beach: Lord Peter, the amateur sleuth who won her freedom and her heart in one fell swoop.

This is Dorothy L Sayers's 8th novel featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. Harriet Vane joins him in solving the complicated murder mystery. The novel is long-ish at almost 500 pages, has a head scratching complicated storyline and a slew of characters. A possible Russian aristocracy ancestry of the dead character adds to the twisty tale. 

I enjoyed Lord Peter and Harriet's light banter and Lord Peter's constant marriage proposal which Harriet all rejected. (They eventually marry in a later book.)

Highly recommended.  

Glory Glory Hallelujah!

Biden says “Welcome Home” as President Trump and First Lady Melania arrived at the White House 🤣🤣

Yeah, he voted for Trump.
pic.twitter.com/VngFhf5QQq

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 20, 2025

Daddy's home!