Alexis Burling April 14, 2021
It’s a simple sentiment, but true. The great writer George Saunders once said, “When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you.”
While short fiction doesn’t give you that same all-encompassing immersion into a time, mood or imaginary world that a novel does, the best stories still have the power to ignite the way we observe, feel and think.
In that spirit, here are four solid collections coming out this month.
‘First Person Singular’
(Knopf; 256 pages; $28)
“First Person Singular” by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel. Photo: Knopf
Corporate Taxes Are Wealth Taxes
And their decline has led to a steep drop in tax rates for the affluent.
Frederick Smith, the chief executive of FedEx, in 2016. FedEx paid no federal corporate income taxes last year.Credit.Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Agence France-Presse Getty Images
April 8, 2021, 6:43 a.m. ET
The main cause of the radical decline in tax rates for very wealthy Americans over the past 75 years isn’t the one that many people would guess. It’s not about lower income taxes (though they certainly play a role), and it’s not about lower estate taxes (though they matter too).
“First Person Singular,” by Haruki Murakami (Alfred A. Knopf)
Haruki Murakami has a new collection of stories told in the first person by an unnamed older man obsessed with baseball, music, and the porous borders between memory, reality and dreams.
He may describe himself as a “bland, run-of-the-mill guy,” as in the story “Cream” about a young man’s encounter with an aging mystic but Murakami Man is more like a walking encyclopedia who has a problem with women mainly, that he can’t seem to get past their physical appearance.
Thus, in “On a Stone Pillow,” we have his memories of a melancholy poet and her “shapely round breasts”; in “With the Beatles,” a first girlfriend with “small yet full lips” and a wire bra. (Both, by the way, are suicidal.) In “Carnaval,” the one story where a woman has agency, we are told over and over how ugly she is.
Haruki Murakami has a new collection of stories -
First Person Singular -told in the first person by an unnamed older man obsessed with baseball, music, and the porous borders between memory, reality and dreams.
He may describe himself as a bland, run-of-the-mill guy, ” as in the story
Cream – about a young man’s encounter with an ageing mystic – but Murakami Man is more like a walking encyclopaedia who has a problem with women – mainly, that he can’t seem to get past their physical appearance.
Thus, in
On A Stone Pillow, we have his memories of a melancholy poet and her shapely round breasts”; in
A new collection of stories by Haruki Murakami bring back author s dreamy vibe and magical realism
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A new collection of stories by Haruki Murakami bring back author s dreamy vibe and magical realismAP
Last Updated: Apr 06, 2021, 04:26 PM IST
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Synopsis
The best story in the collection, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel, is Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova .
Agencies
If you re not a fan of Murakami s dreamy vibe and magical realism, if you think that life is confounding and interesting enough without needing to add fairy dust, then this probably isn t the book for you.
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Haruki Murakami has a new collection of stories told in the first person by an unnamed older man obsessed with baseball, music, and the porous borders between memory, reality and dreams.