I picked this up a few years back, I always trust these little Penguin Moderns to introduce me to authors I haven’t read yet. 

The Watery Realm is the first short story and is so lucid for its length. The protagonist’s is drifting between her mother’s thoughts and feelings and her own, triggered by her son’s fascination with a water tank toy. Water is a key theme, floating through grief, fears and memory. Both stories in the book seem to be a daughter trying to make sense of her mother’s life, her father’s suicide and of her disabled brother’s perspective. I googled the author to see where the inspiration was from as it seemed so personal! It did turn out to be auto fiction based, her father is the Japanese novelist Osamu Dazai. Both stories translated from Japanese to English by Geraldine Harcourt

The more I reflect on the 2 stories in Of Dogs And Walls, the more I like them although they are very sombre. I think I will look for more by the author, her novel Territory Of Light sounds good 

I picked up Earthlings from a charity shop a while ago and have had it by my bed to read . I was reading it on the train this week and it’s exactly what I need right now, some imagination to run away with . I really liked The Convenience Store Woman so I’m curious to see where this goes, I Murata writes such interesting protagonists