Hi there

When I first joined the Web some 20 years ago, it was blooming with various small websites with a soul, a strong feel of the author’s presence, and it truly felt like private personal spaces. Over years, I gradually lost the sensation of these websites being still present. It feels like they have been pushed back by bigger platforms with endless engagement. I have really missed these personal websites throughout the years and thought it might be a good idea to create something like that for myself and share things that I care about and which otherwise would be gone.

There are a few posts in my backlog that I haven’t decided how to publish yet: I don’t really like the idea of backdating posts, but maybe it would be the only way. Anyway, this is the beginning, and hopefully it will go well.

This year, I read 12 books.

November

November 8, 2024 Beginners by Raymond Carver (2009)

September

September 27, 2024 A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami (1982)

July

July 27, 2024 Hardboiled / Hard Luck by Banana Yoshimoto (1999)
July 25, 2024 Pinball 1973 by Haruki Murakami (1980)
July 1, 2024 Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami (1979)

June

June 28, 2024 South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami (1992)

April

April 8, 2024 Dead-end Memories: Stories by Banana Yoshimoto (2003)

March

March 24, 2024 Moshi Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto (2010)

February

February 11, 2024 Moonlight Shadow by Banana Yoshimoto (2012)
February 9, 2024 Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (1988)
February 1, 2024 The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto (1988)

January

January 16, 2024 Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami (2013)

This year, I read 11 books and discovered four new authors.

September

September 26, 2023 The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami (1993)
September 7, 2023 Lafcadio Hearn’s Japan: An Anthology of his Writings on the Country and Its People by Lafcadio Hearn (1997)

August

August 31, 2023 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (1985)

July

July 15, 2023 The Place Promised in Our Early Days by Makoto Shinkai, Arata Kanoh (2005)

May

May 8, 2023 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (1994)

March

March 20, 2023 Parade by Hiromi Kawakami (2004)
March 19, 2023 After the Quake by Haruki Murakami (2000)
March 15, 2023 Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami (2019)

January

January 28, 2023 Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto (1989)
January 14, 2023 Birthday Girl by Haruki Murakami (2002)
January 14, 2023 Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami (1999)

This year, I read 25 books and discovered 16 new authors.

December

December 30, 2022 Watersong by Clarissa Goenawan (2022)
December 11, 2022 Walks in the Wild: A Guide Through the Forest by Peter Wohlleben (2017)

October

October 9, 2022 The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (1980)

August

August 13, 2022 The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (2015)
August 1, 2022 Straight Man by Richard Russo (1998)

July

July 22, 2022 Walking in the Woods: Go back to nature with the Japanese way of shinrin-yoku by Yoshifumi Miyazaki (2018)
July 20, 2022 The Fortnight in September by R. C. Sherriff (1931)
July 12, 2022 Anthem by Ayn Rand (1938)
July 10, 2022 Northmen: The Viking Saga, 793-1241 AD by John Haywood (2015)
July 3, 2022 Animal Liberation by Peter Singer (1975)

June

June 27, 2022 The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah (2021)
June 24, 2022 The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace (1987)
June 20, 2022 The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing (2016)
June 18, 2022 Chances Are… by Richard Russo (2019)
June 15, 2022 Поцелуй змеи by Чжан Сюэдун (2017)
June 13, 2022 Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (2017)
June 5, 2022 The Art of Losing by Alice Zeniter (2017)

May

May 23, 2022 Pintaremontti by Miika Nousiainen (2020)
May 18, 2022 The Years by Annie Ernaux (2008)
May 9, 2022 Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo (2016)
May 7, 2022 The Story That Cannot Be Told by J. Kasper Kramer (2019)
May 1, 2022 First Person Singular: Stories by Haruki Murakami (2020)

April

April 27, 2022 Empire Falls by Richard Russo (2001)

January

January 25, 2022 The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020)
January 18, 2022 The Office of Gardens and Ponds by Didier Decoin (2017)

This year, I read 24 books and discovered 18 new authors.

2021 was fairly average in terms of reading. The books were decent, and I read an acceptable number of them. Nothing particularly special.

December

December 31, 2021 The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann (2017)
December 20, 2021 Almond by Won-pyung Sohn (2017)
December 4, 2021 The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida by Clarissa Goenawan (2020)

November

November 27, 2021 Unspeakable Things by Jess Lourey (2020)

October

October 31, 2021 The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim (2020)
October 23, 2021 Былые дни детей и псов by Чжан Сюэдун (2021)
October 13, 2021 The Cat Who Saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa (2017)
October 11, 2021 Cocoon 茧 by Zhang Yueran (2016)

August

August 17, 2021 The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco (1994)

July

July 21, 2021 The Last Book Party by Karen Dukess (2019)
July 6, 2021 I’ll Live By Myself by Chisako Wakatake (2017)
July 2, 2021 Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls (2008)

June

June 22, 2021 Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell (2020)
June 19, 2021 Escape Routes by Naomi Ishiguro (2020)
June 12, 2021 Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (2021)
June 4, 2021 The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (2001)

April

April 20, 2021 The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (2005)
April 8, 2021 The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (2018)

March

March 31, 2021 Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin (2018)
March 20, 2021 Popular Music from Vittula by Mikael Niemi (2000)
March 15, 2021 The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton (2008)

February

February 17, 2021 A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline (2017)
February 9, 2021 Bunny by Mona Awad (2019)

January

January 7, 2021 The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (2006)

This year, I read 27 books and discovered 14 new authors.

I made an effort to discover as many new authors as possible and was pleased with almost all of them. Self-isolation led me to focus primarily on digital books, so I’ve continued using my e-reader. I can hardly remember if I even visited our local bookstore once!

December

December 4, 2020 We the Living by Ayn Rand (1936)

November

November 27, 2020 The Hours by Michael Cunningham (1998)
November 25, 2020 Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance (2016)
November 17, 2020 L’isola del muto by Guido Sgardoli (2018)
November 13, 2020 The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (2018)

September

September 17, 2020 La Vraie Vie by Adeline Dieudonné (2018)
September 16, 2020 The Silver Road (Silvervägen) by Stina Jackson (2018)
September 14, 2020 Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield (2013)
September 7, 2020 A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham (1990)

August

August 27, 2020 Der Waldgang by Ernst Jünger (1951)
August 26, 2020 Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell (2019)
August 4, 2020 Room to Dream by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna (2018)

June

June 30, 2020 The Whole Town’s Talking (Elmwood Springs #4) by Fannie Flagg (2016)
June 25, 2020 The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell (2017)

May

May 27, 2020 Легкие горы by Т. В. Михеева (2012)
May 24, 2020 Суси-нуар 2. Зомби нашего века by Д. В. Коваленин (2020)
May 13, 2020 Суси-нуар 1.Х. by Д. В. Коваленин (2020)

April

April 30, 2020 Tales of Japan. Traditional Stories of Monsters and Magic (2019)
April 16, 2020 Novelist as a Vacation by Haruki Murakami (2015)

March

March 24, 2020 Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001)
March 16, 2020 Will and Testament by Vigdis Hjorth (2016)
March 6, 2020 Так берегись (Сновидения Ехо #8) by Макс Фрай (2019)

February

February 27, 2020 Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley (1976)
February 15, 2020 Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield (2018)

January

January 29, 2020 Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris (1999)
January 23, 2020 The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa (2012)
January 21, 2020 Melmoth by Sarah Perry (2018)

This year, I read 66 books and discovered 19 new authors.

I finally completed nearly all of Yukio Mishima’s works, which I had long wanted to read. Additionally, back in 2019, I set a rule to discover at least one or two new authors each month, and I’ve already found some excellent ones for my collection! The most significant discovery this year, without a doubt, was Jonathan Coe. I’ve wanted to read his books ever since I worked at our local bookstore nearly ten years ago.

December

December 19, 2019 Good Trouble: Stories by Joseph O’Neill (2018)
December 8, 2019 Братья Карамазовы by Ф. М. Достоевский (1880)

November

November 20, 2019 Bad Blood by E. O. Chirovici (2018)
November 15, 2019 Преступление и наказание by Ф. М. Достоевский (1866)
November 5, 2019 Кому на Руси жить хорошо by Н. А. Некрасов (1866)
November 1, 2019 The Whispering Land by Gerald Durrell (1961)

October

October 28, 2019 The Long Valley by John Steinbeck (1938)
October 25, 2019 The Autumn of the Middle Ages by Johan Huizinga (1919)
October 24, 2019 Heliopolis by Ernst Jünger (1949)
October 21, 2019 A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck (1948)
October 8, 2019 The Book of Mirrors by E. O. Chirovici (2017)
October 7, 2019 The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (2018)

September

September 30, 2019 Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection by Jia Jiang (2015)
September 28, 2019 The Glass Bees by Ernst Jünger (1957)
September 25, 2019 The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting (2014)
September 19, 2019 Rainbirds by Clarissa Goenawan (2018)
September 17, 2019 Do Tmy by Anna Bolavá (2015)
September 16, 2019 La bustina di Minerva by Umberto Eco (1999)
September 10, 2019 Maia (Beklan Empire #2) by Richard Adams (1984)

August

August 20, 2019 Love from Paddington by Michael Bond (2014)
August 19, 2019 Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman (2017)
August 14, 2019 Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami (2017)

July

July 29, 2019 Number 11 by Jonathan Coe (2015)
July 24, 2019 The Dwarves of Death by Jonathan Coe (1990)
July 23, 2019 Middle England (The Rotters’ Club #3) by Jonathan Coe (2018)
July 10, 2019 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927)
July 5, 2019 The Wisdom of Trees by Max Adams (2014)

June

June 26, 2019 The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2013)
June 4, 2019 Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa by Haruki Murakami (2011)

May

May 20, 2019 Forbidden Colors by Yukio Mishima (1951)
May 15, 2019 The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima (1956)
May 6, 2019 Thirst for Love by Yukio Mishima (1950)

April

April 29, 2019 Sun and Steel by Yukio Mishima (1968)
April 27, 2019 My Friend Hitler by Yukio Mishima (1968)
April 26, 2019 Madame de Sade by Yukio Mishima (1965)
April 25, 2019 What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe (1994)
April 16, 2019 The Little Friend by Donna Tartt (2002)
April 1, 2019 A Touch of Love by Jonathan Coe (1989)

March

March 28, 2019 The Accidental Woman by Jonathan Coe (1987)
March 28, 2019 Way of the Samurai by Yukio Mishima (1967)
March 26, 2019 Death in Midsummer by Yukio Mishima (1953)
March 26, 2019 The Magic Pillow by Yukio Mishima (1950)
March 26, 2019 Patriotism by Yukio Mishima (1961)
March 26, 2019 The Damask Drum by Yukio Mishima (1951)
March 26, 2019 The Ladi Aoi by Yukio Mishima (1954)
March 26, 2019 Komachi at the Gravepost by Yukio Mishima (1952)
March 25, 2019 Page by Yukio Mishima (1949)
March 25, 2019 Philosophical Diary of a Serial Killer from Middle Ages by Yukio Mishima (1944)
March 23, 2019 Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima (1949)
March 19, 2019 The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima (1963)
March 18, 2019 Sorrel Flowers — Akihiko’s Memory of the Early Childhood by Yukio Mishima (1938)
March 18, 2019 The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima (1954)
March 17, 2019 The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992)
March 6, 2019 The Closed Circle (The Rotters’ Club #2) by Jonathan Coe (2004)
March 1, 2019 The Rotters’ Club (The Rotters’ Club #1) by Jonathan Coe (2001)

February

February 26, 2019 The Rain Before it Falls by Jonathan Coe (2007)
February 24, 2019 The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe (1997)
February 20, 2019 The Decay of the Angel (The Sea of Fertility #4) by Yukio Mishima (1971)
February 19, 2019 The Temple of Dawn (The Sea of Fertility #3) by Yukio Mishima (1970)
February 15, 2019 Runaway Horses (The Sea of Fertility #2) by Yukio Mishima (1969)
February 12, 2019 Spring Snow (The Sea of Fertility #1) by Yukio Mishima (1969)
February 7, 2019 The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (1943)

January

January 29, 2019 The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (1984)
January 25, 2019 Shardik (Beklan Empire #1) by Richard Adams (1974)
January 18, 2019 Soul Music by Terry Pratchett (1994)
January 3, 2019 Tales from Watership Down by Richard Adams (1996)

This year, I read 33 books and discovered 17 new authors.

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was undeniably the book of the year for me. I divided it into three parts and read it over three months. I still find myself thinking about it because it changed something in me. Although I’m not a fan of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, I found her work somewhat aligned with my way of thinking.

I also realized that audiobooks are not suitable for me because I struggle to concentrate while listening.

December

December 25, 2018 Unknown Soldier by Väinö Linna (1954)

October

October 15, 2018 Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley (1958)
October 5, 2018 The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry (2016)

September

September 6, 2018 Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh (1942)

August

August 31, 2018 Verde Brillante by Stefano Mancuso, Alessandra Viola (2013)
August 27, 2018 Мёртвый ноль (Сновидения Ехо #7) by Макс Фрай (2018)
August 21, 2018 When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka (2002)
August 18, 2018 The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka (2011)
August 15, 2018 The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (1948)
August 13, 2018 The Forbidden Garden by Ellen Herrick (2017)

July

July 31, 2018 Afterdark by Haruki Murakami (2007)
July 24, 2018 Atlas Shrugged: Book 3 by Ayn Rand (1957)

June

June 20, 2018 Atlas Shrugged: Book 2 by Ayn Rand (1957)
June 10, 2018 Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder by Evelyn Waugh (1945)

May

May 31, 2018 Finding Sisu: In Search of Courage, Strength, and Happiness the Finnish Way by Katja Pantzar (2018)
May 24, 2018 Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (1874)
May 16, 2018 The Golem by Gustav Meyrink (1915)
May 11, 2018 The High Places by Fiona McFarlane (2016)
May 1, 2018 My Estonia. Passport Forgery, Meat Jelly Eaters, And Other Stories by Justin Petrone (2009)

April

April 24, 2018 The Early Stories of Truman Capote (2015)
April 20, 2018 Atlas Shrugged: Book 1 by Ayn Rand (1957)
April 14, 2018 The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (2010)
April 9, 2018 From Death to Morning by Thomas Wolfe (1935)
April 8, 2018 The Web and the Rock by Thomas Wolfe (1939)

March

March 25, 2018 South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami (1992)
March 9, 2018 Wołoka by Mariusz Wilk (2005)
March 8, 2018 Wilczy Notes by Mariusz Wilk (2005)
March 6, 2018 Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (1847)
March 1, 2018 Geek Love by Katherine Dunn (1989)

February

February 4, 2018 Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes (1984)

January

January 25, 2018 Lagom: The Swedish Secret of Living Well by Lola A. Åkerström (2017)
January 10, 2018 Les Misérables: Part 3 by Victor Hugo (1862)
January 9, 2018 Les Misérables: Part 2 by Victor Hugo (1862)

This year, I read 34 books and discovered nine new authors.

Throughout the year, I did a lot of rereading. I took advantage of reading books in English and discovered several new authors and out-of-print works by some of my favorite writers from the past, thanks to my e-reader! I chose Watership Down by Richard Adams because I’ve never encountered such a heartwarming, feels-like-home book with a richly developed world and solid background. Plus, I love rabbits!

December

December 12, 2017 Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry D. Thoreau (1854)

November

November 30, 2017 Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold (1999)
November 6, 2017 Отдай моё сердце (Сновидения Ехо #6) by Макс Фрай (2017)

October

October 27, 2017 The Lemon Table by Julian Barnes (2004)
October 17, 2017 Les Misérables: Part 1 by Victor Hugo (1862)

September

September 4, 2017 A History of the World in 10½ Chapters by Julian Barnes (1989)

August

August 18, 2017 Watership Down by Richard Adams (1972)

July

July 24, 2017 Vandal Love by Deni Y. Béchard (2006)
July 17, 2017 Modern Chinese Literature (2017)

June

June 15, 2017 Pulse by Julian Barnes (2011)
June 4, 2017 Shōgun by James Clavell (1975)

May

May 1, 2017 The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (2011)

April

April 30, 2017 War Begins Beyond the Sea by Ryū Murakami (1977)
April 29, 2017 On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (2007)
April 21, 2017 Nothing to Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes (2008)
April 17, 2017 Сундук мертвеца (Сновидения Ехо #5) by Макс Фрай (2017)

March

March 31, 2017 Lines by Ryū Murakami (1998)
March 25, 2017 A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (2015)

February

February 17, 2017 The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami (2005)
February 15, 2017 A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (2013)
February 3, 2017 Summer Morning, Summer Night by Ray Bradbury (2007)
February 1, 2017 Farewell Summer by Ray Bradbury (2006)

January

January 31, 2017 Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury (1957)
January 29, 2017 Beyond Seventy: 1971—80 by Ernst Jünger (1981)
January 27, 2017 The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro (1995)
January 19, 2017 A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro (1982)
January 18, 2017 Attentat by Amélie Nothomb (1997)
January 17, 2017 Mercure by Amélie Nothomb (1998)
January 17, 2017 Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck (1935)
January 13, 2017 Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto (1989)
January 12, 2017 Amrita by Banana Yoshimoto (1994)
January 10, 2017 Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck (1954)
January 8, 2017 Hell by Yasutaka Tsutsui (2003)
January 2, 2017 Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (2015)

This year, I read 21 books and discovered seven new authors.

I finally managed to read The Past is a Foreign Country by David Lowenthal, a book I had wanted to read for at least five years. Lying in bed, reading, and reflecting on various memories and emotions from my past, I felt like something clicked in my mind, making it easier to think about certain parts of my life. I’m also completely happy with the new series by Макс Фрай, which is unfolding before my eyes.

November

November 25, 2016 East of Eden by John Steinbeck (1952)
November 8, 2016 Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami (2014)
November 1, 2016 L by Erlend Loe (1999)

September

September 28, 2016 Soft Cheeks by Natsuo Kirino (1999)
September 25, 2016 The Past is a Foreign Country by David Lowenthal (1985)

August

August 16, 2016 City of Anatol by Bernhard Kellermann (1932)

July

July 26, 2016 Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg (1992)
July 13, 2016 Another Man’s City by Choi In-ho (1971)
July 11, 2016 The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (2015)
July 2, 2016 The Short Stories of Kōbō Abe: Part 2 (2015)

June

June 20, 2016 The Short Stories of Kōbō Abe: Part 1 (2015)
June 12, 2016 Я иду искать (Сновидения Ехо #4) by Макс Фрай (2016)

May

May 26, 2016 Airships of Businessman Liljeroos by Arto Paasilinna (2003)
May 7, 2016 Opening Skinner’s Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century by Lauren Slater (2004)

April

April 28, 2016 The Tunnel by Bernhard Kellermann (1913)
April 10, 2016 The Ark Sakura by Kōbō Abe (1977)
April 10, 2016 Secret Rendezvous by Kōbō Abe (1977)
April 1, 2016 Anna Svärd by Selma Lagerlöf (1928)

March

March 25, 2016 Charlotte Löwensköld by Selma Lagerlöf (1925)
March 19, 2016 The Ring of the Löwenskölds by Selma Lagerlöf (1925)
March 15, 2016 Gösta Berling’s Saga by Selma Lagerlöf (1891)