Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Boathouse | 2021 | Douglas Murray | Buy |
The Boathouse is Douglas Murray’s only work of fiction, published in 2021 with the subtitle “A Japanese Odyssey.” It is a very different kind of book from his political non-fiction. The novel is set on the west coast of Hokkaido and follows three characters who each spend time in an old boathouse: a wandering beggar, a young fisherwoman, and an old poet.
The story is told in three parts, with each character narrating their own experience. The book explores the Japanese concept of ikigai, the idea that people need a reason for living and a way to show that their life had meaning. Writing and storytelling provide that purpose for each of the three narrators. It is a quiet, meditative book that sits apart from the polemical non-fiction that makes up the rest of Murray’s catalog.