CoffeeStudyTalk

Back to Coffee Weekends and a good book.  Enjoying a cappuccino and Sakhalin Island by Anton Chekhov.  I bought the book a while ago and been casually reading a few pages at a time and so far am maybe 1/4 into it. He is already on the island and visiting the various settlements.  His descriptions of the inhabitants and their conditions is quite stark and consistent as if you were reading a business report, but with a novelist flair using his social commentary. I could speed read through the book and have done that in the past with other books to just ‘say’ I read it and felt amassing a great quantity of books ‘read’ is equivalent to a more deliberate read of a few books, or just one book. I’ll try make it halfway or wherever there is a meaningful part by this summer.

The 4th and last book of Yukio Mishima's - Sea of Fertility - Tetralogy.  It was meant to be his masterpiece and while I was only able to read the 3rd & 4th book, I can honestly say they are quite good, but not on the same level of Tolstoy's War & Peace. I'm not going to attempt to be a Critic and will immediately say I loved this book and was a welcome read.  It posed very interesting questions on how to live life and preparing for one's inevitable death.  Another reader made a good comment...The Sea of Fertility can be summed in Mr. Honda's realization that we have just 'one shot at life'. Sadly, I need to go find Book 1 & 2 to complete the Tetralogy, but in comparison to the 3rd book I would say the 3rd is better as it includes glimpses into Yukio's interpretation & analysis of how life was like in Japan during & after WW2.  Very insightful and interesting notes. This was a far quicker read clocking in at barely 140 or so pages.  B

Took a break from Mishima and purchased 'Snow Country' by Yasunari Kawabata.  I've been wanting to read some of his works and while I couldn't find anything at the Used Bookstore, they had a new copy @ Barnes and Nobles.  Granted it's cheaper online, but I feel its better to just purchase items at the physical store, otherwise what's the point of having Brick n' Mortar Stores anymore? The book is surprisingly a short read of just 177 pages.  I should be able to finish this over the weekend and see what next I'd like to read. Update 5/28/17 Took a bit longer than I anticipated and finished the novel while in Japan.  Figured that would be a more suitable venue to read this book.  Overall, it was okay and I got the general context of the story between Shimamura, Komako and Yoko.  Very simple list of characters, yet it does provide a good story of their interactions. However, the English translation from Japanese probably lost some meaning as I didn't qu

I wanted to spend more time at that Used Bookstore I found last week and was fun exploring their selection of books.  I picked up a few more works by Yukio Mishima.  The prices are very reasonable and barely $5/each (Amazon wants double for a Used Copy or several times that for Brand New).  I'm not able to find them at my local library so this seems to be the next best thing. I could only snag Book# 4 of his Tetralogy and will need to stay on the hunt for Book #1 & #2, which kinda makes it fun like a mini-treasure hunt.  I'll be in LA and Vegas in a few months so I'll try find those books there (already scoping out where the major Used Bookstores are in those Cities...) For Coffee, took the SideCar as I was undecided whether I wanted an Espresso or a Cappuccino.  I love whoever invented this thing as I get the best of both Worlds and somehow the Cappuccino tends to taste sweeter when you can readily compare/contrast it with a bitter Espresso, although this particular on

It was surprisingly difficult to find some books by famous novelists at several local bookstores and by chance I stumbled across a small used bookstore that had the mother lode in terms of many great works I've been wanting to read from Mishima, Chekhov, Hemingway and more...all for a low price!  For now I restricted myself to just three (3) books and one of them is by Yukio Mishima 'The Temple of Dawn'. This is the 3rd book in his 4-part epic 'The Sea of Fertility' that was to be some of his last published works before his abrupt death.  While I would have liked to start from the beginning, they only had this one available and it proved an excellent choice. For starters, it's a mere 330 pages (much shorter than a Tolstoy colossus) and surprisingly the first few chapters read more like a Traveler's Guide as the main character Mr. Honda travels from Thailand to India and back to Japan with very detailed descriptions of the life & culture of each of these