Mar 13, 2024
What did our podcast book club make of Mild Vertigo, Japanese author Mieko Kanai's 1997 novel, recently translated into English by Polly Barton. A 'modernist masterpiece' written in sentences that go on for pages with hardly any paragraph breaks might not seem like an obvious book club winner; listen in to find out if we were won over.
To discuss it Kate is joined by Yuki Tejima, also known as @booknerdtokyo, and Shawn Mooney, aka Shawn the Book Maniac. Listen in for their thoughts on Mild Vertigo, their current reads and our book recommendations for anyone wanting the inside track on great Japanese fiction.
Book list
A Woman of Pleasure by Kiyoko Murata (trans. Juliet Winters Carpenter)
Home Reading Service by Fabio Morábito (trans. Curtis Bauer)
Woman Running in the Mountains by Yūko Tsushima (trans. Geraldine Harcourt)
Also Territory of Light and Child of Fortune by Yoko Tsutshima
Grass for my Pillow by Sayiichi Maruya (trans. Dennis Keene)
The Little House by Kyoto Nakajima (trans. Ginny Tapley Takamori)
There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuo Tsumura (trans. Polly Barton)
Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton
Porn: An Oral History by Polly Barton
Butter by Asako Yuzuki (trans. Polly Barton)
Follow us on Instagram and threads @bookclubreviewpodcast
Support the show and get Kate's weekly book-recommendations email, access to our book spreadsheets, connect with fellow readers and join our book club: find all the details on our Patreon page.
If you enjoyed the episode, please share it, rate and review us on your podcast app, which helps other listeners find us.
Find full shownotes and our episode archive at our website thebookclubreview.co.uk