The Book Club Review

Mild Vertigo and Japan lit • Episode 157

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Episode notes

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 Yoko Tsutshima (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)

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