I have watched hundreds of hours of mystery TV shows. I've seen every episode of the original 7 seasons of Columbo at least 4 times. Every episode of Murder She Wrote at least twice, every Episode of Poirot, Marple, Rosemary & Thyme, Father Brown, Sherlock Holmes, Hetty Wainthrop, Death in Paradise, most of Midsummer Murders, …
Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
I couldn't go one chapter in this book without at some point putting the book down to think about how beautiful it was. There are so many perfectly captured moments of beauty, describing both nature and humanity alike, that it's difficult to express how impressive reading this was to me. The only compare for beautiful …
Frost, by Thomas Bernhard
The opening paragraph of this novel is one of the best I've read, and is so humorous and sets the tone so well that I had to read the book. The narrator, a young medical intern, is given an unusual assignment to stay with, and observe his superior's brother, a reclusive painter named Strauch, and …
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, by Heinrich Böll
The opening page of this novella comes with a little hint as to what the contents will be like: “The characters and action in this story are purely fictitious. Should the description of certain journalistic practices result in a resemblance to the practices of Bild-Zeitung, such resemblance is neither intentional, nor fortuitous, but unavoidable.” Bild-Zeitung …
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The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, by Yukio Mishima
In this beautiful and dark novel, we read about a young man's obsession with the famous Golden Temple in Kyoto, Japan. Mizoguchi, who is unpopular and ostracized for his stuttering, is introduced to the temple by his father, and eventually becomes an acolyte there. After seeing the temple every day, he becomes more and more …
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Jonas David 