The HAJET book club met on Sunday September 4th to discuss our first book of the year, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris. This book is actually a group of essays,mostly from the point of view from the author and inspired by his own life. It was interesting that a few…
When I was flying back from England this month, I got to rewatch a film that I’d forgotten that I really, really like: Philomena. It made me sentimental, so I dug up a review of it that I wrote for a very different website, many moons ago. I was slightly trepidacious about…
I just love The Jungle Book. I love the book; I love the 1960’s Disney film; I love the 1980’s Warner Brothers cartoon; I love the 1990s version with Jason Lee; I just love The Jungle Book. In a school production, I even played Bagheera, to hilariously awful effect- on opening night, in my first…
Reading Japanese literature in Japan is a wonderful experience. If you’re a massive nerd like me, you can take literary pilgrimages to the places you visit in the novels. I have traveled to some incredibly beautiful places because Mishima sent his melancoly protagonist there to describe the beauty of the landscape while pondering…
I always find it curious how relatable Bojack Horseman (the show) is, considering how alien to the experiences of most people Bojack Horseman (the character) is: he’s half-man, half-horse; he doesn’t need to work yet maintains an absolutely palatial lifestyle; he operates on a level of fame akin to David Schwimmer or the guy who…
Now that Deadpool has finally arrived in a blaze of obscene glory, I can finally review it! I first saw it in February at an English-only theater in Vienna with two friends who are former JETs. I then got to dangle this fact over my current JET friends’ heads as they salivated in…
 The All Souls Trilogy A Discovery of Witches #1, Shadow of Night #2, The Tree of Life #3 by Deborah Harkness  “It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with a discovery of witches.†For those interested in: universities, libraries, witches, vampires, daemons, foreign countries,…
For perhaps the first time since I moved to Japan, a movie I was interested in seeing was released here before America! To celebrate such a momentous occasion, a visiting friend and I saw Civil War in IMAX 3D. On its own, it was enjoyable, but I was pleased with our decision from…
On April the 17th, of 2016, the book club met at Rough Rare (its second time hosting) to discuss Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites. It is a fictional imagining of the final months of Iceland’s last citizen to face the death penalty. Agnes Magnusdottir begins the book nearly inhuman and covered in her own…