Wide reading on Wednesday, in Tokyo

Edited BY

G P Kennedy

Ian and Minako - Tokyo, Japan

Ian’s Pandemic reading

x

Have my reading habits changed much since the coronavirus pandemic started? Not much.  As I'm retired and settled comfortably in Tokyo my day-to-day life has not been greatly affected. Travel and socializing have been curtailed so I'm probably spending more time reading than I would otherwise. I spend most evenings reading, we don't have a TV, it's even worse here than in the UK but we do watch a couple of programs online on catch-up.

I have had a kindle e-book for quite a few years now. Although I’d love to have a house full of physical books (indeed I used to) it's not practical. I had to donate several boxes of books to the charity shops before moving to Japan even though I had cleared out a lot before my previous move. Tokyo apartments are small, bookcases can make the room seem cluttered and you're always nervous that they'll fall over or at least empty their contents during an earthquake! Bookshops are still very popular in Tokyo but they don't have many English books on offer. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to download more books from the Amazon UK account to the kindle from Japan but thankfully it's working fine.

Online, I still follow the UK news though I often wish I could stop completely, I know I said I enjoy reading fantasy but events in the UK and USA are too ridiculous and scary. I get most of my news from the Guardian and BBC websites. The BBC is nowhere near as good as it used to be and now I'm in Japan it insists I want to see mostly USA news first followed by Australia and Wales! 

There are a few Japanese news websites that give limited coverage of events in Japan in English. These have been useful for information and advice about the pandemic and the various restrictions and statistics. There are obviously a great many short articles online that I can find for entertainment or knowledge such as vegan nutrition, recipes, and environmental matters. 

I've always enjoyed reading; I love the English language and clever use of words and phrases.

When I was young I read mostly science fiction books from the local library: Aldiss, Clarke, Bradbury, Heinlein, etc. Then moved on to fantasy including Tolkien, of course, I re-read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings every few years. Over the years I think I've read almost all the ‘classics’: Dickens, Trollope, Austen, Bronte, Hemingway, Kafka, Tolstoy, and so on. Loving language as I do, I read a bit of poetry occasionally, one of the few books I had to bring with me is The Mersey Sound one of the bestselling poetry anthologies of all time, featuring the three Liverpool poets: Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, and Brian Patten. I saw them perform at events several times in Liverpool in the 1960s – early 70s.

I occasionally read contemporary fiction but it tends to be too real and current for my liking and often far too dramatic. I prefer to escape into another world, I love children's books, or rather books targeted to children or young adults, I've read quite a few children's fantasy adventure series this year. I have read a few books by Japanese authors translated into English; a recent one I enjoyed is The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa.

I don't know what my current favorite genre is called but I'm sure you're all familiar with P.G.Wodehouse and his Jeeves and Wooster novels, I've read most of them before but I'm going through all of the 35 stories now and mixing in his Blandings Castle stories along the way. He published more than 90 books but there are several authors (E.M.Dellafield, E.F.Benson, A.Thirkell, D.E.Stevenson) who wrote in a similar vein around that time the 1910s to 1950s. Predominantly humorous accounts of the English aristocracy, upper, upper-middle classes in their big houses with butlers, cooks, maids, etc. As a Socialist, I’d prefer those upper-class twits had never existed but they did make great comedy material!

On my iPad, I have an app, which updates me on the micro seasons. Japan has 72 micro seasons, each just 5, or 6 days long. It fascinates me, they have titles such as “the first cherry blossoms”, “the earth worm's rise”, “and the elk sheds its horns”. Currently, we're in “the paddy water is first drained” as the farmers drain the water from the rice fields to prepare for harvesting. Everyone looks forward to tasting the new rice around this time of the year.

The app also tells me what fruit, veg, fish, and flowers are in season. It mentions that the sweet fragrance of Osmanthus is everywhere at the moment and as we walk around the park we can certainly say that's true, it's almost too much at times. Of course, with climate change, some of these things are happening either earlier or later than they were a few hundred years ago but it's a reminder that despite everything nature carries on.