Still playing catch-up, so there might be a sudden burst of posts to get us back in sync. Or I may just forget about this place again – feel free to take bets on what’s going to happen. Faites vos jeux, mes amis… (and I do love the way that the WordPress editor tries to substitute ‘cos’ for ‘vos’, as if I’m writing about lettuces). Only two books this time, either way, because the second half of the month was taken up with the book that will dominate proceedings for June, July and August.
You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming. In which our author goes full-on romantic. There is remarkably little action here, considering that this is supposed to be a spy novel. Roughly three-quarters of the book is essentially the paperback equivalent of a training montage, intercut with two burgeoning love stories: the one between Bond and – God help me, this really is the same she’s been given – Kissy Suzuki, and the more interesting one between Ian Fleming and Japan. The action bit comes right at the end and is almost perfunctory in its execution, although Bond does come off slightly the worse for wear as a result, suffering the memory loss that will lead to the chaotic opening of the next and final book in the series, The Man With the Golden Gun.
Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata. So, then. We all loved Convenience Store Woman for its difficult, neurodivergent heroine, and then we went out and bought Earthlings and none of us has been quite the same since. Life Ceremony is a collection of short stories that verge more into Earthlings territory than Convenience Store Woman, and I wonder if the level of weirdness gets just a tad wearing after a while. I’ll certainly keep reading her books, though, because she’s such an unusual voice.