I was looking for a different Endo book in the library when I chanced upon this one and was hooked by the line “a newly discovered novella”. Apparently in 2020, a curator at the Endo Shusaku museum in Nagasaki discovered the novella that is translated and collected with five short stories (three of which are… Read More Book Review: Portraits of a Mother by Endo Shusaku
Hello friends! This post should have been posted earlier this week but life and work got in the way. I’m a bit more refreshed after my staycation (short post about what I wore there – including my thoughts on a convertible yukata) and so I finally have the energy to post this! I’ve probably told… Read More Taking My Time: A Charming Day Trip to Sawara
Since I’m exploring Japanese culture, I thought a good follow up to the Ukiyo-E book would be The Demon at Agi Bridge and Other Japanese Tales, which is a collection of Setsuwa stories from various compilations. Setsuwa stories refer to “stories that were first orally narrated and then written down. These recorded stories were often… Read More Book Review: The Demon at Agi Bridge and Other Japanese Tales by Haruo Shirane
Now that we’re in 2026, I’m slowly opening up some of the more unusual teas that I bought in 2025 (ignoring the even rarer teas that I bought in 2022 in SF!). Today’s tea is a white tea, which is a type of tea that I rarely see in Japan. The dry leaves of the… Read More Tea Review: Hokumei White Tea by Hiraoka-En
I was browsing Libby one day when I chanced upon Murder at the Black Cat Cafe. The title caught my eye and so I decided to borrow it – realising only later that the author, Seishi Yokomizo, was someone that I had intended to read back when I read The Decagon House Murders. Murder at… Read More Book Review: Murder at the Black Cat Cafe by Seishi Yokomizo
Hello friends! It’s been a long time, and I’ve actually been slowly writing book reviews here but not publishing them as life got more and more hectic. But I think I’ll be back for about one or two weeks with a few posts before disappearing again. The impetus for this slight return to the blog… Read More I’m Finally Making Progress on my Reading Goal!
I don’t think I reviewed the first Andy Crouch book I read, which was part of my reading binge on culture making, but I recently read his new book and thought it would be a good one to share. Subtitled: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World, Andy Crouch makes the case for how to be… Read More Book Review: The Life We’re Looking For by Andy Crouch
It has been far too long since I wrote a tea review, but I decided to start this year by opening one of the teas that I’ve been saving since my trip to Japan last year. This is an interesting tea because it’s an oolong – not very common in Japan – and I had… Read More Tea Review: Sayama Oolong by Shimizu-En
I borrowed this book quite impulsively from the library, but then put it to one side for a bit while I reread Endo’s Silence and Foreign Studies. After that, I picked this up thinking that I should read the book before the loan expires and was shocked to find that the first chapter featured discussion… Read More Book Review: The Meiji Guillotine Murders by Futaro Yamada
I’ve seen Strange Pictures around on Instagram from quite a while back, but I’ve always procrastinated on reading it because I couldn’t decide if I wanted to read the translation or the original Japanese version. However, when a friend texted me to ask me to read it because she got too scared to continue, I… Read More Book Review: Strange Pictures by Uketsu
