2013 Year of Manga - January

Comic books intended: Not Simple by Natsume Ono

Comic books read: Not Simple by Natsume Ono

Comic books finished: Not Simple by Natsume Ono

'Proper' books read: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
1973 Nen no Pinball by Haruki Murakami

'Proper' books finished: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

The New Year started with almost no reading time, what with children waking at hours even unnatural to me and also my poor attempts at learning to cook this year.

However, I did manage to get through Not Simple by Natsume Ono with nary a pause. The story flowed well and was full of intrigue.

Unusually for a Japanese comic, the story is set mainly in Australia and America and follows the life of Ian, a boy with a troubled past. You know the outcome of the story from the prologue and the book reels you in with the progress of how Ian came to be so ill-fated. If you can find it, and can read it, you should.

The Name of the Rose has been an obsession for me this past week and I feel a bit daft because I had avoided it due to its pretentious reputation. It is a historical whodunnit with semiological references and tons of Latin incantations in the dialogue. That said, it is gripping and is less psychological than it is philosophical. I only read it because it was a bestseller in the 1980s and I needed it as background research into a novel I am working on.

The Kant is something I decided to read due to its influence on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It's going well but it is both dry and long.

Next month I think I'll be writing about Rock by Kyoko Okazaki but I am prone to changing my mind.