Days at the Morisaki Bookshop: The perfect book to curl up with - for lovers of Japanese translated fiction everywhere
Tucked away in Jimbocho, one of Tokyo's most bookish neighbourhoods, the Morisaki Bookshop is a creaking, second-hand treasure of a place, three generations old and run with quiet devotion by the eccentric Uncle Satoru. His niece Takako, twenty-five and freshly heartbroken after her boyfriend announces he's marrying somebody else, has never much cared for reading. Yet when Satoru offers her the tiny room above the shop, she accepts, if only to lick her wounds somewhere nobody will bother her. It's a small, unassuming premise, and that's precisely its charm. Satoshi Yagisawa doesn't rush anything. As the Tokyo summer gradually softens into autumn, Takako finds herself drawn into the stacks of paperbacks surrounding her, and slowly, almost without noticing, she begins to see her uncle differently too. He has his own quiet grief, tied to a wife who left years ago, and the two of them circle each other with a tenderness that feels genuinely earned. This is the kind of novel that rewards patience. Short chapters, gentle prose, and a real affection for the written word give it a warmth you'll want to sit inside for a while. Readers who enjoy Japanese fiction in translation, particularly anything with a slow, contemplative rhythm, will find it a deeply satisfying way to spend an afternoon.
- Author: Satoshi Yagisawa
- Publisher: Manilla Press
- Genre: Action & Adventure
- ISBN: 978-1786583239
- Pages: 160 pages