Writers to read (1):

• Banana Yoshimoto
• Junichiro Tanizaki
• Anaïs Nin
• Haruki Murakami

The Gourmet Club / Tanizaki Junichiro

Over my hollidays in Frnace I got to read 'The Gourmet Club : a sextet' by Tanizaki Junichiro. Six short stories representative of his broad career.
If you're a fan of Tanizaki you will find his brilliant familiar writing in every line, story. If haven't heard of him this compilation gives yu a real good impression of he's about.

I loved 'The Childern' because of the cruel child's play worded so finely that you can actually feel it. 'Mr. Bluemond' because of it's weird twist in storyline. 'The Gourmet Club' because I wanted to get up and eat all Azian food I could find; which I adore anyway.
Everytime I read Tanizaki I am struck by his passion for life, people and his attention to everything around him and picking out that you yourself would bruch off as common, and make into something extraordinary.

booklist

In no particular order.

• The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, Patrick D. Gaffney, Andrew Harvey
• The Unexpurgated Diaries of Anais Nin by Anaïs Nin
• Sula by Toni Morrison
• The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories by Yasunari Kawabata
• In Praise of Shadows and The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki
• Kitchen, Amrita and Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto
• The Sound of Waves and Spring Snow (1e part of the tetralogy 'Sea of Furtility', which are all great) by Yukio Mishima
• Norwegian wood, Hardboiled Wonderland, and Kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami
• A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong

Magazine 3: World of Interiors

Beautiful layout, well written interesting informative articles, on top of trends, clear focus, always inspiring: The World of Interiors.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

What to say here? Everyone agrees this is one amazing piece of movie. Stunning performances by Juliette Binoch (beauty incarnated), Daniel Day-Lewis and Lena Olin (if only to be that stunning throughout any age).
I go back to this movie again, and agian, and agian, and again. Read the book as well: Milan Kundera.

The world of great bookstores

I was once in Montreal where I visited a bookstore. Not like the ones we know in Holland. No, there were chairs and tables, you could stay for hours reading, eating, drinking. I could spend my life there.
Another time when staying in Connecticut (America) I mentioned that I loved spending time at bookstores. I was driven to a huge one, only to be picked up hours later.

I am sure there are others, but in Holland I stumbled upon a really good one about 6 years ago: de Drvkkery. Massive amounts of magazines, good café, lots of tentilising stagionary, and books. It also has a fabluous entrance and has been named bookstore of the year 2009-2010 (Holland and Belgium). Thumbs up!

dedrukkerij.mijnboekhandelaar.com

Tetralogy The Sea of Fertillity - Mishima Yukio

My first love of Japanese literature.

Spring Snow (1966)
Runaway Horses (1969)
The Temple of Dawn (1970)
The Decay of the Angel (1971)

The Unexpurgated Diaries of Anaïs Nin

A friend introduced me to Anaïs Nin, opening my world up to a womanhood that is complex, irrisistable, cunning, insightful and erotic. It opened my eyes: female complexity is of all time, and not something feminism discovered in the 70's. Why this should surprise me?!

The Unexpurgated Diaries were published by Nin's last husband Rupert Pole, after Hugh Parker Guiler (her first husband) died, as she didn't want to hurt him.

Henry and June

Incest

Fire
Nearer the Moon

Openbare Bibliotheek Den Haag

In the early days (like I am from 1902) the public library of Den Haag was in this beautiful building at the Bilderdijkstraat. Then they built a new city hall in the middle of the center, attached to it was going to be a bigger public library.

This new completely white building wasn't to everyone's liking, to say the least. The move of the library wasn't without comotion. But I have to say, once you walked in you could feel the potential. Everywhere was space, enough tables and chairs to study and read, computers. Often I would pack up something I needed to do that day, get myself over to the library and spend hours at a table next to the banester, second floor above the cafeteria.
Over the years it's gotten even better. Hurrah for libraries!

http://www.dobdenhaag.nl/

Genji

I will read The Tales fo Genji one day. A beautiful bind addition has been on my bookshelves for years.

I did start, but you are reading two books at once with all the notes next to it. And that takes a lot. The story (stories) is so gorgeous though. I am in love with 11th centry Japanse literature.

Did you know that it were only female writers at that time? The reason is that women were not aloud to use the official language of the high court: Chinese. Thus they wrote in Japanese, their day to day language. These pillow books, as they were called, were very popular. That was the birth of Japanese literature, because before that nobody had used Japanse for literature.