[/floatl]Washington Post: Infinite LoopWe don't pay much attention to literary news from Japan unless it's bizarre: businessmen on crowded subways reading pornographic manga, teenage girls buying cellphone romance novels by the millions. But here's an example of Japanese reading habits that's just as odd, if less sexy: Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor has sold more than 2.5 million copies in the small island nation. Oprah would have to recommend a book about Harry Potter's dying Labrador to move that many copies in the United States. What about Ogawa's novel has so excited Japanese readers? That's the most curious part. This is a delicate, unhurried story about the friendship that develops between a brain-injured mathematician and a woman who comes every day to prepare his meals. None of the characters is ever named. Nothing romantic or even dramatic ever happens. And there is a lot of conversation about math. Can you hear the marketing team in New York starting to cry?...more...
