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3. Kafka on the Shore<\/em><\/a> by Haruki Murakami<\/p>\n 4. Klara and the Sun<\/em><\/a> by Kazuo Ishiguro<\/p>\n 5. Love Is a Dog From Hell<\/em><\/a> by Charles Bukowski<\/p>\n These were three of the first books my friends delivered when they visited me. I was in Okinawa to make a film, and thankfully my friends took time away from the film to visit me regularly and make sure I felt like a human by bringing me books. I had already read Kafka on the Shore,<\/em> and it was amazing to read a book I loved as a kid and realize that I hated it as an adult. So much about the character\u2019s psychology doesn\u2019t work for me anymore. I read the book for the first time when I was in Miho Matsugu\u2019s Japanese Literature in Translation class in college, and it really opened a portal for me. With maturity, that portal closed, I think, but Ishiguro opened another one with Klara and the Sun,<\/em> which I adored. I can\u2019t speak highly enough of this book. It was a genre I didn\u2019t think would enrapture me the way it did, and I\u2019m so grateful I finally was forced to read it. The same is true of Charles Bukowski, whom I unfairly judged when I was a young, pretentious poetry minor in undergrad. I didn\u2019t like any poet whom the straight white boys idolized because there seemed to be something wrong with any writer whom boys like that loved. I want to formally apologize to Bukowski because I didn\u2019t realize that I too would one day be a desperately horny and depressed writer reading him and saying \u201cYASSSS\u201d to every other poem.<\/p>\n 6. Grasshopper Jungle<\/em><\/a> by Andrew Smith<\/p>\n 7. Oreo<\/em><\/a> by Fran Ross<\/p>\n 8. What Belongs to You<\/em><\/a> by Garth Greenwell<\/p>\n