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Any Sunday that starts off with a hot cup of coffee and a stack of gluten-free pancakes can’t be bad, right?

It was long week, made longer by a conference I had to attend for work. Plus we had all of our dental appointments this week which is never fun and joy of joys…I get to go back with The Girl TWICE at the end of the month because the work that she needs can’t be done in one sitting.

On the reading front, I finished four books one of which was really, really good (The Fault in Our Stars). I was blabbing about it on Facebook and seriously, if you are wandering around looking for a special book to read, pick it up.

Next up for me, review writing and coming up with a summer reading list. A lot of you have been sharing your lists so far and I am so jealous! I love a good list! My lists are never light for summer but they are fun to make anyway.

Today I plan to just hang around and read. I am reading The Starboard Sea which I am liking very much. I also may try to watch Contagion as I have had it from Netflix for far too long. Other than that, maybe a trip to the mall. Maybe.

What are you doing today?

The Elephant Vanishes (stories)
By Haruki Murakami
(Vintage, Paperback, 9780679750536, June 1994, 336pp.)

The Short of It:

Endlessly amusing.

The Rest of It:

I think this is the third short story collection that I’ve read by Murakami and it might be one of his tamest. These stories are a bit longer than the ones I’ve read in the past. Some of them almost had a novella feel to them, but what they all share is that these are normal folks doing or experiencing very strange things.

In one story, a women goes about her life without sleeping and she is perfectly fine with it. In another, TV People come and go delivering large TV screens to a man’s home and office, without anyone noticing them except him. My favorite one had to do with a man who has decided to mow his last lawn. I should also mention that one of the stories in this collection was the basis for The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, one of his more popular novels.

This is a great collection to read if you want to escape from the day-to-day. I read it very slowly, right before bed over the course of several months and it never failed to lull me into a deep sense of relaxation. Something about Murakami’s writing leaves me utterly calm and at peace with the world. He has a way of taking “normal” and twisting it just enough to make it interesting. Some of his stuff can be overly sexual in nature but this collection was not. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Source: Borrowed
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