Kitchen -- where the family meets

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I needed a book to enjoy. A friend gave me this, with a hopeful, half-hearted rating. I did read it to the end, so it kept me tagging along on the winding ways of a Minnesota family. Sometimes I got the people confused, and it's definitely not about the warm-hearted deliciousness of family. But at the end of the novel I read the author's acknowledgements; the last paragraph thanking his mom made me a dedicated fan, and now I look forward to J. Ryan Stradal's next book!


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Murakami's latest dispassionate novel rides on plot and fast trains

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

C was glad I finished this book, because I kept talking about it, telling him little things I was learning about life in Japan today: The crowds rushing for trains. The trains themselves --so fast!  And did you know that steering wheels are on the right side of cars in Japan ?  Last Wednesday I even ordered a tuna salad sandwich for lunch (I rarely get food out that I can easily make at home.) because Tsukuru Tazaki had eaten the same thing in the chapter I just finished. But don't get the idea I identified with Tsukuru. No, he's too emotionally distant for that kind of reader relationship.  The plot kept me reading. Why did his dear friends cut him off?  And what happened to them all, now in the thick of adulthood?  And what will happen to Tsukuru? Whatever he does, I suspect it will be less interesting than this book about him.. Murakami is one of my favorite contemporary writers, but this is not one of my favorite books.


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