The Guest Cat
The Guest Cat

Author: Takashi Hiraide

Publisher: New Directions Publishing

Published: 2014-01-28

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 0811221512

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A wonderful sui generis novel about a visiting cat who brings joy into a couple’s life in Tokyo A bestseller in France and winner of Japan’s Kiyama Shohei Literary Award, The Guest Cat, by the acclaimed poet Takashi Hiraide, is a subtly moving and exceptionally beautiful novel about the transient nature of life and idiosyncratic but deeply felt ways of living. A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo; they work at home, freelance copy-editing; they no longer have very much to say to one another. But one day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. It leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. Soon they are buying treats for the cat and enjoying talks about the animal and all its little ways. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife — the days have more light and color. The novel brims with new small joys and many moments of staggering poetic beauty, but then something happens…. As Kenzaburo Oe has remarked, Takashi Hiraide’s work "really shines." His poetry, which is remarkably cross-hatched with beauty, has been acclaimed here for "its seemingly endless string of shape-shifting objects and experiences,whose splintering effect is enacted via a unique combination of speed and minutiae."

The Cat Who Saved Books
The Cat Who Saved Books

Author: Sosuke Natsukawa

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2021-12-07

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0063095742

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AN INDIE NEXT PICK! From the #1 bestselling author in Japan comes a celebration of books, cats, and the people who love them, infused with the heartwarming spirit of The Guest Cat and The Travelling Cat Chronicles. Bookish high school student Rintaro Natsuki is about to close the secondhand bookstore he inherited from his beloved bookworm grandfather. Then, a talking cat appears with an unusual request. The feline asks for—or rather, demands—the teenager’s help in saving books with him. The world is full of lonely books left unread and unloved, and the cat and Rintaro must liberate them from their neglectful owners. Their mission sends this odd couple on an amazing journey, where they enter different mazes to set books free. Through their travels, the cat and Rintaro meet a man who leaves his books to perish on a bookshelf, an unwitting book torturer who cuts the pages of books into snippets to help people speed read, and a publishing drone who only wants to create bestsellers. Their adventures culminate in one final, unforgettable challenge—the last maze that awaits leads Rintaro down a realm only the bravest dare enter . . . An enthralling tale of books, first love, fantasy, and an unusual friendship with a talking cat, The Cat Who Saved Books is a story for those for whom books are so much more than words on paper. Translated from the Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai. "Cats, books, young love, and adventure: catnip for a variety of readers!" –Kirkus

The Cat and The City
The Cat and The City

Author: Nick Bradley

Publisher: Atlantic Books

Published: 2020-06-04

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 1786499908

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A BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick 'Ingenious ... touching, surprising and sometimes heartbreaking.' Guardian 'If you're itching to read a new novel by David Mitchell ... try this.' The Times _______________ In Tokyo - one of the world's largest megacities - a stray cat is wending her way through the back alleys. And, with each detour, she brushes up against the seemingly disparate lives of the city-dwellers, connecting them in unexpected ways. But the city is changing. As it does, it pushes her to the margins where she chances upon a series of apparent strangers - from a homeless man squatting in an abandoned hotel, to a shut-in hermit afraid to leave his house, to a convenience store worker searching for love. The cat orbits Tokyo's denizens, drawing them ever closer. 'Masterfully weaves together seemingly disparate threads to conjure up a vivid tapestry of Tokyo; its glory, its shame, its characters, and a calico cat.' David Peace, author of THE TOKYO TRILOGY One of the Independent's best debuts

The Ten Loves of Nishino
The Ten Loves of Nishino

Author: Hiromi Kawakami

Publisher: Europa Editions

Published: 2019-06-04

Total Pages: 143

ISBN-13: 1609455320

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The story of an enigmatic man through the voices of ten remarkable women who have loved him at one point in their lives. Each woman has succumbed, even if only for an hour, to that seductive, imprudent, and furtively feline man who drifted so naturally into their lives. Still clinging to the vivid memory of his warm breath and his indecipherable sentences, ten women tell their stories as they attempt to recreate the image of the unfathomable Nishino. Like a modern Decameron, this humorous, sensual, and touching novel by one of Japan’s best-selling and most beloved writers is a powerful and embracing portrait of the human comedy in ten voices. Driven by desires that are at once unique and common, the women in this book are modern, familiar to us, and still mysterious. A little like Nishino himself . . . Winner 2020 Pen Translation Prize Praise for The Ten Loves of Nishino “If you like Haruki Murakami and Yoko Ogawa, it’s a safe bet that you’ll love The Ten Loves of Nishino.” —DozoDomo (France) “Agile, inventive fiction.” —Booklist “An intriguing portrayal of romantic attachment.” —The New Yorker “The women in this collection are vibrant, lusty, and clearly the agents of their own love lives . . . . Kawakami's novel treats its feminist themes with a light hand but still slyly lands its points.” —Kirkus Reviews

Postcards to Donald Evans
Postcards to Donald Evans

Author: Takashi Hiraide

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13:

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Art/Poetry Taksahi Hiriade is one of the leading poets of Japan's post-war generation, travelling extensively, including three months as a poet-in-residence at the University of Iowa International Writing Program. POSTCARDS TO DONALD EVANS chronicles Hiriade's travels through places as varied as Iowa, , to Seattle, Tokyo, and Amsterdam. He currently lives in Tokyo.

Liveblog
Liveblog

Author: Megan Boyle

Publisher:

Published: 2018-09

Total Pages: 707

ISBN-13: 9780999218624

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"In 2013, Megan Boyle was unhappy with the life she was living and wanted to document it on the internet for an audience. Her hope was that if she documented each thought and action on the internet, then she would begin to behave in a manner more appropriate to the life she wanted to live. She needed a judge and a jury to see her crimes and non-crimes, her actions and thoughts, and her life. The results are an illuminating text of great length with poetic insight on every page. It is a reading experience that leaves a little bit of Megan Boyle inside of you long after you have finished reading it. This is akin to Karl Ove Knausgard's My Struggle and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, yet totally different and new--and it is a book of daring length. Drugs, love, home, parents, friends, life, death, work, and the internet. LIVEBLOG is an historical text, extremely unique and shockingly human." -- Page 4 of cover.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles
The Travelling Cat Chronicles

Author: Hiro Arikawa

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-10-23

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0735235244

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We take journeys to explore exotic new places and to return to the comforts of home, to visit old acquaintances and to make new friends. But the most important journey is the one that shows us how to follow our hearts... An instant and international bestseller, The Travelling Cat Chronicles has charmed readers around the world. With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe... With his crooked tail--a sign of good fortune--and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. As they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love.

Is Your Cat Crazy?
Is Your Cat Crazy?

Author: John C. Wright

Publisher: Turner Publishing Company

Published: 1996-03-27

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 1620458551

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Irresistible stories of how a leading animal behaviorist diagnoses and treats cat behavior problems Considered one of the country's leading animal behaviorists, Dr. John Wright has spent the last decade making house calls on problem pets. He diagnoses the cause of the problem behavior and then works with owners to find an appropriate treatment. This book, an engaging account of his work with misbehaving felines, is at once funny, charming, and highly informative. Readers will learn why cats refuse to use their litter boxes, scratch and bite, go through sudden personality changes, react in different ways to different people and other animals, and behave the way they do; and they'll find out what works and what doesn't work when it comes to kitty "discipline". The result is a book no cat lover will want to miss.

The Best Little Cat House In Maryland
The Best Little Cat House In Maryland

Author: Bob And Kathy Rude

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1449008844

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Kathy Leigh never knew her mother. Raised by her reserved father and loving aunt in 1950s' Blackpool, she has had a happy childhood. It is a time of glamour and excitement as families and individuals struggle to mend the bonds broken by the recent war. But then Kathy uncovers the shocking secret which threatens to blow the family apart and could take her far away from Blackpool and from everything she has ever known, all the way to America - if she is willing to take the chance.

The Late-Career Novelist
The Late-Career Novelist

Author: Hywel Dix

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-08-10

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1350030082

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The first scholarly study of the phenomenon of the 'late-career novel', this book explores the ways in which bestselling contemporary novelists look back and respond to their earlier successes in their subsequent writings. Exploring the work of major novelists such as Angela Carter, V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, A.S. Byatt and Graham Swift, The Late-Career Novelist draws for the first time on social psychology and career construction theory to examine how the dynamics of a literary career play out in the fictional worlds of our best-known novelists. From here, Hywel Dix develops and argues for a new mode of reading contemporary writing on the contexts of current literary culture.