Extra English Book Club
My top 5 books.
Kafka On The Shore
Comprising two distinct but interrelated plots, the narrative runs back and forth between both plots, taking up each plotline in alternating chapters.
The odd-numbered chapters tell the 15-year-old Kafka's story as he runs away from his father's house to escape an Oedipal curse and to embark upon a quest to find his mother and sister.[1] After a series of adventures, he finds shelter in a quiet, private library in Takamatsu, run by the distant and aloof Miss Saeki and the intelligent and more welcoming Oshima. There he spends his days reading the unabridged Richard Francis Burton translation of One Thousand and One Nights and the collected works of Natsume Sōseki until the police begin inquiring after him in connection with a brutal murder.
By Sean Gunning
Debut Poetry Collection.
48 poems about loss, longing, remembrance, letting go, love, gratitude, homelessness, war (not anti-war, not pro-war), the creative process, the struggle to be true, and humour and laughter. I suppose in one way or another they're all love poems--in all it's glory and brokenness.
My all-time favourite book of poems. I highly recommend that you give this up and coming writer a try.
The Joke48 poems about loss, longing, remembrance, letting go, love, gratitude, homelessness, war (not anti-war, not pro-war), the creative process, the struggle to be true, and humour and laughter. I suppose in one way or another they're all love poems--in all it's glory and brokenness.
My all-time favourite book of poems. I highly recommend that you give this up and coming writer a try.
Milan Kundra
The novel is composed of many jokes, which have strong effects on the characters. The story is told from the four viewpoints of Ludvik Jahn, Helena Zemánková, Kostka, and Jaroslav. Jaroslav's joke is the transition away from his coveted Moravian folk lifestyle and appreciation. Kostka, who has separated himself from the Communist Party due to his Christianity, serves as a counterpoint to Ludvik. Helena serves as Ludvik's victim and is satirical of the seriousness of party supporters. Ludvik demonstrates the shortcomings of the party and propels the plot in his search for revenge and redemption.
The Book Of Laughter and Forgetting
Milan Kundra
This book was published in France in 1979. It is composed of seven separate narratives united by some common themes. The book considers the nature of forgetting as it occurs in history, politics and life in general. The stories also contain elements found in the genre of magic realism.
I didn`t really find the book that funny as such, but I would say It is a book I often like to recommend as it gets you thinking about life
I didn`t really find the book that funny as such, but I would say It is a book I often like to recommend as it gets you thinking about life
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak
After the death of Liesel's younger brother on a train to Molching, Liesel arrives at the home of her new foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann, distraught and withdrawn. During her time there, she is exposed to the horrors of the Nazi regime, caught between the innocence of childhood and the maturity demanded by her destructive surroundings. As the political situation in Germany deteriorates, her foster parents conceal a Jewish fist-fighter named Max Vandenburg. Hans, who has developed a close relationship with Liesel, teaches her to read, first in her bedroom, then in the basement. Recognizing the power of writing and sharing the written word, Liesel not only begins to steal books that the Nazi party is looking to destroy, but also writes her own story, and shares the power of language with Max.
First edition
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (ZAMM), by Robert M. Pirsig, is a book that was first published in 1974. It is a work of fictionalized autobiography and is the first of Pirsig's texts in which he explores his Metaphysics of Quality.
The title is an apparent play on the title of the book Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel. In its introduction, Pirsig explains that, despite its title, "it should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles, either."
