This week, I’ve picked two novels that my wife enjoyed. One is a quiet, reflective, character-driven, generation-spanning novel set in Japan. The other is about a nice man surrounded by parasitic people, intent on exploiting his good nature and taking what they can from the estate he has inherited. They have nothing much in common except that my wife has recommended them as books that she enjoyed and which stayed with her. She prefers the one set in Japan but thinks both are worth reading.
I’m looking forward to both books and to having the opportunity to discuss them with my wife afterwards.
‘Four Seasons In Japan’ by Nick Bradley (2023)
I bought Nick Bradley’s first novel, ‘The Cat And The City‘ when it came out in 2020 but it’s still sitting in my TBR pile undisturbed. It was one of those, *That sounds interesting* buys that hasn’t yet become an “I must read that this week” book.
My wife bought the hardback of ‘Four Seasons In Japan‘ last year, attracted both by the cover and the unrushed storytelling style. She recommended it to me because it’s a book that takes the time to show life as it’s lived. It’s not that the plot is character-driven but rather that the characters and how they understand and misunderstand themselves and each other are the plot.
I’m looking forward to watching the grandson and grandmother come to terms with each other and themselves.
Nick Bradley was born in Germany in 1982 and grew up in Bath. After graduating with a master’s degree in English literature, he moved to Japan and lived and worked there for a long time before returning to the UK to attend the Creative Writing MA at UEA.
He is the author of two novels ‘The Cat In The City‘ (2020) and ‘Four Seasons In Japan’ (2023).
He has worked as a Japanese teacher, English teacher, video game translator, travel writer, and photographer. He speaks Japanese fluently and holds a PhD focussing on the figure of the cat in Japanese literature.
He currently teaches on the Creative Writing master’s programme at the University of Cambridge, and the MA in Creative Writing at UEA.
‘The Legacy Of Hartlepool Hall’ by Paul Torday (2011)
I’m not quite sure what to expect of ‘The Legacy Of Hartlepool Hall’. If the humour works well and the social observation is acute and the main character is someone I can at least feel sorry for, then this will be a fun read.
At the very least, I’m sure I’ll have fun seeing how someone who has always had money is unable to imagine the lengths those who had to earn it will go to to get more money.
I’m hoping for something that will make me smile in recognition of how the world works and make me wish that things worked differently.
Paul Torday (1946 – 2013) was a businessman and author of nine books. His first novel, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, was an immediate international bestseller, later made into a film starring Ewan MacGregor and Emily Blunt.
His fiction has been translated into twenty-eight languages and won several awards, including the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.
Paul Torday was 61 when his first novel was published. In 2019 his family set up the Paul Torday Memorial Prize for. debut novelist over 60. In 2023, it was won by Bonnie Garmus for ‘Lessons In Chemistry’.
Mike Finn's Fiction 