The summer period was full of socialising, laughter, meeting new friends and reconnecting with old ones… and of course a fair amount of good books. The most memorable ones are once again evenly divided between those in translation and those written in English. And, for once, I have two non-fiction books on the list!
I tried to keep up with the Spanish and Portuguese Literature Month in July and with Women in Translation Month in August, and once again I’m biased towards Japanese literature, with another entry from my favourite Tsushima Yuko: Laughing Wolf, a disquieting tale of post-war Japan, and a strange love story reminiscent of Hiroshima Mon Amour, Love at Six Thousand Degrees by Kashimada Maki. I read two books by Claudia Pineiro, an old flame of mine, and Elena Knows, in particular, really touched me.
The two non-fiction books I mentioned reflect my current preoccupations: trying to keep on writing in the midst of uproar with Amina Cain’s beautifully reflective lit crit, writing craft and personal opinions book A Horse at Night, and the sorrows of downsizing one’s library in Alberto Manguel’s Packing My Library.
For my last pick for this period, you’ll probably say I’m biased, because I know Anton Hur personally and greatly admire him as a translator (and an advocate for translation more generally). However, bias aside, his debut novel Toward Eternity was sheer magic – science fiction with real soul and poetry. It really struck a chord with me.
It was also a good summer for films and TV series, once again quite heavily Asia-slanted, with rewatches of Tampopo, Days of Being Wild and two other Wong Kar Wai films (and introducing him to my younger son, who also fell in love with his cinematography and storytelling), as well as seeing my beloved Maggie Cheung in Comrades, Almost a Love Story for the first time. The new French Count of Monte Cristo film was fun but not as good or faithful to the original as we’d hoped (the book being a particular favourite in our house), and with visitors at home we had the opportunity to rewatch Cabaret, Oppenheimer and The Talented Mr Ripley. One of the most sad and infuriating (simultaneously) and memorable things I watched was a documentary (available on YouTube, I believe) about host clubs in Japan, The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief.
My bingeing of J and K dramas also continued unabated, even with sons around for the holidays. Of those, the following are particularly worth mentioning (and I probably did): One Day Off, and Reply 1988, for nostalgia, My Mister for depressing reality and Healer and Mad Dog for action and escapism.
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