This January, join us for our cosiest JanuaryInJapan Book Club yet!
Join us as we gather together online to chat about the heart-warming short novel by Satoshi Yagisawa called Days at the Morisaki Bookshop.
This gentle story will provoke interesting discussions amongst our seasoned book club readers I'm sure!
We have had exciting changes here at Zusetsu recently, as Yukki and Cally have begun a new exciting adventure living in Tokyo! I will be enjoying my first stay with them this January, and so it is the perfect time for us to consider a Tokyo-focussed novel.
Jimbocho is the location of Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, with its niche bookstores and cafes. Supported by our wonderful collaborator this year, the publisher Manilla Press at Bonnier Books, Yukki and I will introduce you to this fascinating area of Tokyo to help set the scene for this wonderful story.
And we are delighted that our dear friend Akira san (Research Fellow of JSPS - Japan Society for the Promotion of Science - Keio University) will be joining us live from Japan too! He will offer us his own very special insights into this fascinating modern story, and of Jimbocho, which is one of his very favourite parts of Tokyo!
What You Need to Do!
Save the date! Our JanuaryInJapan Book Club will be on Saturday January 18th
at 12pm midday UK time.
Our book club will run for just over one hour.
Read Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, (Manilla Press, Bonnier Books).
Sign up for a free ticket on our Eventbrite page here. We will send you our Google Meet link nearer to the date so that you can join us!
Have a think about our initial intriguing questions (please see below).
Our friend the publisher, Manilla Press at Bonnier Books, describes this enchanting short novel:
The Japanese bestseller: a tale of love, new beginnings, and the comfort that can be found between the pages of a good book.
When twenty-five-year-old Takako’s boyfriend reveals he’s marrying someone else, she reluctantly accepts her eccentric uncle Satoru’s offer to live rent-free in the tiny room above his shop.
Hidden in Jimbocho, Tokyo, the Morisaki Bookshop is a booklover’s paradise. On a quiet corner in an old wooden building, the shop is filled with hundreds of second-hand books. It is Satoru’s pride and joy, and he has devoted his life to the bookshop since his wife left him five years earlier.
Hoping to nurse her broken heart in peace, Takako is surprised to encounter new worlds within the stacks of books lining the shop.
And as summer fades to autumn, Satoru and Takako discover they have more in common than they first thought.
The Morisaki Bookshop has something to teach them both about life, love, and the healing power of books.
Our thoughts:
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop is an enchanting story, that is gentle and reflective about life and the many choices that we make.
The story begins with our protagonist Takako being treated terribly by her boyfriend, which leads her to lose everything in her life.
But a call from her intriguing uncle Satoru inviting her to stay on the second floor of his family bookshop, changes her life.
The bookstore becomes a haven of stillness and quiet for Takako, where she can rebuild her sense of self.
Surrounded by books, they work their way into her life. Takako discovers a joy of reading, which in turn leads her to develop deeper friendships, and a more authentic way of being.
This joy of reading is an often-unspoken feeling that many of us share.
Reading and books are such a big part of our inner lives, they open up vast worlds and give us a sense of our place in the world - in history, and all of the stories which have come to us down the ages.
What are the books that have moved you? What are the books that have made the biggest impression on you, and that you return to, thinking about, over and over again?
What does a book store mean to you? And which books engaged you from the very first page and sent you on an extraordinary adventure?
These are the questions I would like to ask you in our JanuaryInJapan Book Club.
Let's discuss the questions set by our friends at Manilla Press, below, too.
“… maybe it takes a long time to figure out what you’re truly searching for. Maybe you spend your whole life just to figure out a small part of it.”
We hope you love the book and can join us for our online Book Club, live from Tokyo,
on Saturday January 18th at 12pm midday UK time (GMT)!
Sign up here on our Eventbrite page for your free ticket
and we'll see you soon!
Cathy and Yukki
xx
Thank you to Tamara and Flora at Manilla Press for the artwork and book club starter questions!
Further Reading
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