Good afternoon, fellow book lovers!

Happy spring to all of us! Finally!!!

Monzaemon Tikamatsu “On the Island of Heavenly Nets.”

“Tikamatsu Monzaemon Tikamatsu (1653-1724) is considered Japan’s greatest playwright and has been called the “Japanese Shakespeare”. During his long and busy career, Tikamatsu wrote about 20 plays for the kabuki theater and more than a hundred for the bunraku puppet theater. The playwright’s favorite subjects were historical dramas and domestic tragedies.

“Madmen who know no restraint in love always come to a sad end…” The young paper merchant Jihei has a wife and two children, but when he meets the beautiful hetera Koharu, Jihei forgets about his family and business. All of Koharu’s thoughts are also devoted to Jihei, and the girl becomes cold and indifferent to other men. Realizing that they will never be together, the lovers see only one way out of the situation….

Ihara Saikaku “Stories from all provinces”

“Ihara Saikaku – a recognized classic of Japanese literature, honed the mastery of everyday stories – wrote a lively and concise syllable with intricate ingenuity, with flashes of humor and wordplay.

The genre range of Saikaku’s work is unusually wide. In this book, the reader will find different in character works – love, domestic, magical-fantasy, judicial and others. Irony, sarcasm, parody grotesque – favorite techniques of the author, but in his laughter can be heard sadness about the vicissitudes of life and human fate.”

Samantha Harvey “In Orbit”

“This novel recounts a day of two astronauts (Roman and Anton) and four astronauts (Italian Pietro, Japanese Tie, British Nell, and American Sean) on the International Space Station. We don’t know too much about the characters, but throughout the narrative we will be looking at Earth through their eyes. They observe amazing sight beyond our reach; they notice familiar places; they imagine what loved ones are doing; they are sad that they can’t be there for them; they grieve over losses that can no longer be repaid. In 24 hours, they encounter 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets and enjoy the beauty of our planet.

A poetic yet thought-provoking existential reflection. Reading this miniature book filled with philosophical meaning and profound experiences, we cannot help but feel the value of the whole world and the uniqueness of each life. Who are we in the universe? What is our place in it? We don’t know for sure, but Samantha Harvey invites us to think about it.”

Kent Haruf “Choral”

“When loved ones betray, strangers can become family.

Tom Guthrie’s schoolteacher wife left him, and now he’s raising two young sons alone. Victoria Rubido is 17 years old, pregnant, and her mother has kicked her out of the house. The McPheron brothers are lonely old farmers. Odd, ignorant, accustomed to their ways. They are sure that nothing good will ever happen in their lives.

They all live in a small town, where time seems to have frozen, and do not expect miracles from life, but one day their fates will cross and where before there was only darkness, grief and loneliness, suddenly hope will shine.

“Chorale” is a novel about everyday miracles, the kindness of strangers and invisible ties that between people form life itself, and often these ties are stronger than blood ties.”

Benjamin Labatut “The Stone of Madness”

“In the essays that make up the book “The Stone of Madness”, Chilean writer Benjamin Labatut continues the theme he began in his bestseller “When We No Longer Understand the World”: despite the human desire for rationality, the development of science and progress, the contours of reality are blurring before our eyes, the world unfolds as an incomprehensible chaos, whose logic is accessible only to a madman.

Responding to the events of recent years – pandemics, the use of artificial intelligence, protests in Chile and elsewhere – Labatute reflects on the causes of the current crisis of narratives that have collapsed under the unstoppable arrival of the new. As the world gets weirder, the scientific approach cannot remain the only key to understanding; perhaps to avoid waking up one day in a nightmare, we need to listen more often to our wildest dreams.”

That concludes this selection. No doubt there will be many more interesting mid-spring new releases awaiting us in mid-spring.