First of all, I want to wish everyone a happy new year!

The first day of the year also happens to fall on a Wednesday, so happy Wednesday everyone! Wednesdays also mean WWW Wednesday updates. WWW Wednesday is a bookish meme hosted originally by SAM@TAKING ON A WORLD OF WORDS. 

The mechanics for WWW Wednesday are quite simple, you just have to answer three questions:

  1. What are you currently reading?
  2. What have you finished reading?
  3. What will you read next?
www-wednesdays
What are you currently reading?

So today is the start of 12 new chapters. We are provided with 365 blank pages to fill up with memories. How was your first day of the year? It is said that the things that you are doing during the first day of the year will be the things you will be doing for the rest of the year. It is for this reason that I go home only during the New Year. Nevertheless, I hope everyone will have a bountiful year brimming with blessings. The start of the year also means that it is time to craft the goals for the year. Reading-wise, I have several I want to achieve this year. For one, I already set my Goodreads goal to 100 books, the first time I am doing so from the onset. I usually set a reasonable target of about 70 to 80 books and eventually adjust it as the year moves along. For this year, I am shaking things up I guess. I sure hope I get to hit my target.

Anyway, I am kicking off my 2025 reading journey with a 2024 book I was looking forward to but time did not allow me to get to it. Ironically, I didn’t know about Richard Powers’ latest release until Playground was announced as part of the 2024 Booker Prize; the book was released in September. This made me look forward to the book because I was in awe of the first two Powers books I read. Further, Playground promises a new experience as it is grappling with the ocean, a new territory for Powers, at least from the books I read so far. The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer’s latest novel introduces four characters whose individual threads Powers was carefully laying out. They are from diverse backgrounds and have contrasting personalities. From what I surmise, the story is building up until their paths cross somewhere in the Pacific. Should I not be able to finish the book by Friday, I will be sharing more of my impressions of the book in this week’s First Impression Friday update.

What have you finished reading?

To wrap up my 2024 reading year, I completed two books I have been looking forward to during the year. For the first time in a while, I was not able to host a Japanese Literature Month last 2024. I did plan to have one but I kept delaying my venture into Japanese literature because I was still waiting for the release of the English translation of Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls. It was released in November but I was looking forward to what the long-awaited Murakami novel has in store; when its Japanese copy was released, I was in Japan, my first visit to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Typical of Murakami, the story is narrated by an anonymous male character. When he was seventeen, he fell in love with a girl a year younger than him after they both won an essay writing contest. The girl – who was also anonymous – could not reciprocate his feelings because, as she explained to him, her “real” self was residing in a city beyond a wall. Despite this, his yearning and desire for her kept growing. From the fragments of their imagination, they created a vision and a map of the city, the details of which were written down by the boy. The city where her real self lives was surrounded by a wall, hence, the title. There were restrictions to entering the city, such as the shadow separated from the physical body. In alternating chapters, the boy conveys his experiences in both the real and the mystical world. His life unraveled when the girl she fell in love with suddenly disappeared, with not much of a goodbye. Into adulthood, he tried to move on but her memories haunt him. After working for a publisher, he decided to resign and move to the countryside where he worked for a local library; he dreamed of working for a library. The question lingers of if he will ever be able to get to the bottom of the city with the walls. The premise immediately reminded me of an earlier Murakami novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, even without reading the author’s Afterword. The City and Its Uncertain Walls is easily one of my favorite Murakami novels, a paean to writing, books, and libraries. Like his earlier works, it was not always easy deciphering the story but Murakami did what he does best, stringing you along for the ride.

I concluded my 2024 reading year with a book that is part of my 2024 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List, Derek Miller’s The Curse of Pietro Houdini. At the start of the year, while searching for the most anticipated books for the year, it was one of the titles that was repeatedly mentioned, hence, its inclusion to my own list. I barely had any iota about who Miller was nor have I encountered any of his works before. Nevertheless, the curious cat in me made me include the book to my own list; it is the ninth book from the list I read, making 2024 yet again a futile attempt. It took some time but I was able to obtain a copy of the book.

The Curse of Pietro Houdini transports the readers to the twilight year of the Second World War. The Allies were making advances in Italy to liberate it from the Germans and Mussolini. During the bombing of Rome by Americans, a fourteen-year-old girl lost her parents while narrowly escaping from the barrage, making her way to the south where she ended up in the small village of Cassino. There, she was rescued by Pietro Houdini after she was attacked by a group of boys. Pietro took her to the Benedictine monastery of Montecassino where she assumed a male identity as Massimo; Houdini presented themselves as an art restorer and his assistant. Soon, the monastery’s extensive art collection earned the interest of the Nazi Germans who want to have the art collection themselves. Pietro crafted a plan to restore and save some of the paintings; they were also vulnerable to the threat of the Allies who wanted to bomb the monastery believing that the Nazis were using it as part of their strategy to thwart the Allies. Stealing, rather, saving some art pieces and Greek coins propelled the action. However, what made the story flourish was the developing relationship between Pietro – named after Harry Houdini – and Massimo. An interesting facet of the story is the shift in gender expression through the narrator. From a first-person point-of-view, the narrator assumed the persona of Massimo before shifting into the third person and Massimo transforming to Eva. Overall, The Curse of Pietro Houdini is a wonderful way to conclude my reading year.

What will you read next?