So I watched more than 30 movies in August, in my defence some were short films so… but tbh I had a blast so I don’t really need to excuse myself. Cinema is one of my biggest passions and from time to time I’ll get completely consumed by it and thats kind of what happened this past month.
Find out what films and books I read in August:
A little late posting this but I decided to post it anyway…
Judging my the amount of books in this post it would seem that during August I became superhuman with the power to read super fast. Alas, this is not the case, as nearly all the books I read this month were short stories ranging from 21 pages to 50 or just over a 100. The goal was to get back on track with my Goodreads 50 books in a year challenge so that is why I read so many short stories. Clever huh?
I read Hwang’s I’ll Go On earlier in the year and fell in love with her storytelling style so when I found out that like Hang Kang she had written a short story that was part of the 여유 (Yeoyu) collection from Strangers Press I knew I had to get my hands on it too! What follows is the mystery of a girl who disappears and Cat that takes up residency at the narrators place of work.
Another short story from the 여유 (Yeoyu) collection from Strangers Press. Left’s Right, Right’s Left takes place on a staircase as the narrator is trying to flee an assault within the span of a minute. As she flees she recalls memories from years gone by. This little story had an intriguing premise but it felt like something was missing, something I can’t quite put my finger on.
A collection of poems that I received from Netgalley some time ago. She Must be Mad is a self-aware study of womanhood, the transition a modern girl makes to become a modern woman. It’s a tough emotional journey but the poems that are beautifully and wittyly written reflect the bittersweet moment wonderfully.
Witticisms abound in anything that Wilde wrote and Lord Arthur Savile's Crime is no exception. The eponymous story follows Saville as he attends a party and has his palm read by a chiromantist, his fate is to become a murderer. Saville in a farcical twist decides that he must murder in order to carry on with his life and marry his sweetheart. Highly recommend reading this for a little chuckle.
A wonderful insightful and powerful read which had me weeping at its closing sentence. This is a book that you must read and I wrote a longer review on this blog so check that out and get this book in your life.
https://www.catecrafter.com/blog/the-memory-police-book-review
A smart collection of shocking short stories, Diary of a Murderer (the title story) is a masterful stroke of genius and it is of no surprise that the short story was adapted for film in 2017 in Korea. The story follows a old man who gave up being a serial killer but as he has aged so has his mind, he gets diagnosed with Dementia and to try and keep track of his life he writes a diary. I won’t say anymore but it’s well worth a read and I’ll be watching the film asap.
Classic, thematic and very much a story of its time. As many will already know this anthropomorphic tale is an allegory for communism, but more specifically the Soviet Union. Animal Farm is a quick read but it packs a punch and leaves you thinking long after the last page.
Kawakami’s short story March Yarn is a simple and quick read. Like a lot of the Japanese novels or short stories I have read this one also falls into the Slice of Life genre that has a little sprinkling of strangeness. A husband and wife stay at a hotel and the wife has a strange dream. I won’t say much more as it may spoil the atmosphere of the story.
Basically this month was my attempt at clawing back my goodreads challenge of reading 50 books in a year. So August was populated with tiny fiction, and I bloody did it!!
