I read “The Remains of the Day” by Kazuo Ishiguro.

The story is about a butler who worked for a grand house and the stories that unfolded during his time there, it covers after WWI and into WWII.

The butler, Mr. Stevens narrates the story as he goes along a road trip that takes him to meet an old acquaintance, a woman for whom he had unspoken feelings for.

It also covers his former employer’s brush with Nazi sympathy.

I selected the book because it provides the male perspective on longing and grief, which I never thought much about. It seems a topic that men don’t speak of much, and having experienced a little grief at different times in my life I thought it might be fascinating to explore different titles that intersect with it, perhaps as a bit of personal research as I do write some fiction for myself.

I’m currently working on a western, and I initially approached it as a work of pulp fiction. I like to write stories that are ridiculous, fast paced, exciting, crude, and with guns blazing. However I would like to add some emotional depth to the story, but without removing the rough edges that make it fun to read. The main character has a wife who has passed, a best friend who has been murdered, and a woman he is interested in who has been kidnapped. These circumstances could be ways to explore some of these themes I’ve been reading about.

I am now reading The Bad Girl by Mario Llosa, it’s about a man who experiences unrequited love for a woman over 40 years of his life as she pops in and out of it. It takes place in South America and having read Love in the Time of Cholera previously, and it taking place in South America and also dealing with the same theme of life long unrequited love, and having also enjoyed that novel, I thought I might enjoy this one as well.

After this I plan to read Shōgun. I started to watch the series when it came out a few years ago but it was dark and kind of violent, I think I would prefer it as a novel rather than as a series

My goal is to average at least 1 book a month depending on length. I’ve been putting in about an hour a day of reading, leas during the week and more on weekends.