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For about a year, Satoshi Yagisawa’s Days at the Morisake Bookshop (trans. Eric Ozawa) sat on my Amazon wishlist, just waiting to be purchased. It was an impulse add, thanks to its charming cover design. Great work, Ilya Milstein and Milan Bozic! It captures perfectly the cozy, book-loving atmosphere the story creates. So when I unwrapped it on Christmas morning (thanks, Todd!), I knew it was the first book I’d read for fun this year.
The story is about Takako, a young woman living in Tokyo who leaves the life she’s known to go live in the upstairs bedroom of her eccentric uncle’s bookshop in Jimbocho, a district in the city known for its many, many bookstores. She’ll run the shop in exchange for room and board. Sounds dreamy, right? (An editor friend of mine once said that she only signs deals for books set in a world she wants to live in, and this definitely qualifies.)
If this was a typical rom-com, she’d fall in love with the bookshop and eventually take over for her uncle (I mean, who wouldn’t?). And of course, she’d fall in love with a bookish guy who would help her with all of that. But this story is deeper than that—she falls in love with literature, and in an unexpected turn, much of the story focuses on her relationship with an estranged aunt. Their friendship is key to Takako’s (and the aunt’s) healing.
At just under 150 pages, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop is a quick read with fun, memorable characters, a setting I’d pack up and move to in a heartbeat, and lovely insight into the human condition that transcends culture.
Note: there’s a book 2! More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, which I’ve added to my wishlist now.
Rating: Would read again!
Rating Scale:
Would read again!
Loved it!
Liked it.
Didn’t love it.
Didn’t finish it.
Spilled Milk 