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I don't know why I'm so interested in this crappy old poem; it's torture to read. I'm more interested in it as a cultural artifact. I need to find a good nonfiction book about it.

I'm reading What We All Long For, by Dionne Brand. It's refreshing after some recent encounters with racism/bigotry, a bit of an upgrade. Plus it's set in Toronto. The first scene took place on a subway, and I just happened to be reading it on the subway. Pretty nifty.

The Hunger Games (book one)

I'm pleasantly surprised by how good it is. I didn't care for other teenage book crazes like Twilight or Harry Potter, and I was expecting this to be no different. But The Hunger Games actually suits my tastes well in terms of both content and writing style. As the saying goes, never judge a book by its cover.

'Altered State' by Andrew Collin

it's about the history of dance music and rave culture, from the disco era to the present day. I love dance music and going to raves, I also love history so this book is right up my street!

Nearly finished with this, and I hate to see it end. Murakami is brilliant.

Good thing Murakami is such a prolific writer. You'll be completely sick of him before you run out of his books . . . then there's plenty of cool authors who are also po-mo, or also Japanese to switch to afterwards.

I want to read IQ84 by him pretty soon, probably this Summer. I liked After Dark, which is the only novel of his I read, and I like what I've read of his short stories. But after reading his books, I often feel cynical or aimless so I switch back to more positive books that lean more towards giving answers than raising questions.

If you accidentally grab a book by Ryu Murakami instead of Haruki Murakami, he's not bad either. He's completely different, but also awesome. Almost Transparent Blue by him is a book that's really aggressive and strange but also super-pretty in a few places.

I'm currently reading The Island of the Colorblind by Oliver Sacks. It's about Pohnpei, an island, whery everybody suffered congenital daltonism (well, not daltonism, but color vision deficiency), and Guam, where some inhabitants had a progressive neurological disease resembling parkinsonism with dementia or multiple sclerosis. It's one of the best books by Oliver Sacks, I think.

Well, I'm a cynic myself, and I've always felt that definite answers are few. So Murakami is my kind of guy. I only discovered him recently, so I have a long way to go before I'm finished with his works. I'm not surprised he's achieved wide success in America: He's easily the least "Japanese" Japanese author I've read. Lots of references to European and American culture in his writing.

Thanks for recommending Ryu Murakami. I'll be sure to give him a try.

Almost Transparent Blue is like an extra intense, Japanese A Clockwork Orange, by this I mean it's sort-of dark and contains alot of drug/sexual content. But it's also really thoughtful, and has an energized and really pretty prose style. Anyways though, I should explicitly warn you that it's a different sort-of book from the other Murakami altogether. (I didn't realize I had the wrong guy at first, and I was like: What the hell.) Ryu Murakami also wrote the scripts to some cult Japanese horror movies.

"A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution, 1891-1924" By Orlando Figes and "There is power in a Union" By Philip Dray

Resurrection by (Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie) It's about a blood feud between witches and warlocks.

"Catching Fire"-Suzanne Collins.

How to draw and Paint Fantasy landscapes

im reading seeking refuge edited by jo coghlan, john minns and somebody else. various authors two of whom are comrades which is why i picked it out. and coghlan is my lecturer. this is good because refugee rights are one of the areas my organisation is involved in the campaigns for and was an interest of mine early highschool/primary.

I'll have to look out for Murakami. I wonder what he says about the Japanese in Nanjing.

I've finished Robert Harrris' two novels about Cicero and now have Pompeii.