New reads

I just bought a couple of new books to add to my stack. I’ll be going on a week long trip again and I’ve always make it a point to bring a book with me to read during long waits and especially this one during long flights.

First book in the list is Curious Incident of the dog in the Night-timeby Mark Haddon. The red packaging design and the upside down poodle on the cover grabbed my attention first time I saw this book a year ago. Looking at the inside pages, I was surprised to see an odd numbering of chapters and some puzzles and diagram within its pages. Curious, I read the synopsis at the back and found out about Christopher Boone, the autistic 15-year-old narrator of this novel who has gone about investigating a neighbor’s dead dog that lead to a series interesting of events ala Sherlock Holme’s murder mysteries. It was really interesting, grabbing you by the brain.

Second book I bought is Haruki Murakami’s latest novel “Kafka on the Shore.” I must confess though that ever since reading “Norweigian Wood” and “Sputnik Sweetheart,” I’ve been a fan (or better yet – an addicted fan!) of Haruki Murakami’s works. He’s one of those contemporary writers who defy the styles of writing and imbue a dreamy and emotional narrative that just really absorbs you into his own world. He is one of those Japanese writers along with Banana Yoshimoto that I really enjoy reading.

“Kafka on the Shore” incidentally is about another 15 year old boy who ran away from his dad due to an Oedipal Prophecy. It’s a departure from Murakami’s usual formula of having a 30-something passive solitary male as a protagonist, but I’m excited to see how he executed his narrative this time. I originally wanted to buy “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” but it wasn’t available. But I’m sure I won’t be disappointed by Haruki Murakami.