Snow Country-Yasunari Kawabata

Published: 1948 (Serialized in 1930’s and 1940’s by Bungeishunjuu and Kaizo among others, translated into English by Edward Seidensticker in 1956) Yasunari Kawabata’s novel, Snow Country, is a beautiful and sobering novel that transports the reader to a place near and dear to my heart, Niigata Prefecture. In Part One of the novel, Shimamura, aContinue reading “Snow Country-Yasunari Kawabata”

The Last Tycoon-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Published: 1941 (Charles Scribner’s Sons) F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, transports you back to 1930’s Hollywood where an iconic producer, Monroe Stahr, holds onto his last shred of power and intrigue. The novel starts by introducing our Great Gatsbyian narrator Cecilia Brady, the daughter of Stahr’s co-producer and rival Pat Brady, asContinue reading “The Last Tycoon-F. Scott Fitzgerald”

The Old Man and the Sea-Ernest Hemingway

Published: 1952 (Charles Scribner’s Sons) Ernest Hemingway’s novella is a small story of epic proportions. Santiago, a grizzled and down-on-his-luck fisherman breaks a months long streak of futility by venturing out to the Cuban Gulf Stream to meet his fate, death or otherwise. Hemingway starts and ends his novel with Santiago and his young assistant/friendContinue reading “The Old Man and the Sea-Ernest Hemingway”