Recent (or not so) Readings
The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin Classics). Long, excellent, and different than any film or アニメ adaptation I have seen.
Finally clawed through the unabridged Tale of the Heike. Weed-hacking swords have illustrious parentage, the legendary くさなぎのつるぎ “grasscutter sword” named so after one Prince cut a league of field, then burned the Eastern barbarians. Those were the days!
Spook Country. I liked it, though the reviews are all over the map, depending on the reader.
“Are you really so scared of terrorists that you’ll dismantle the structures that made America what it is?” Milgrim heard himself ask this with a sense of deep wonder. He was saying these things without consciously having though them, or at least not in such succinct terms, and they seemed inarguable. (p.137)
Picked up Word Origins. Fun to browse through.