“Days at the Morisaki Bookshop” by Satoshi Yagisawa, translated by Eric Ozawa

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Rating: 3/5 Stars

One of the few non-SFF stories I’ve read, mainly due to the premise that it revolves around a bookshop. It is an interesting book, told from the first-person perspective of the young niece of the bookshop’s owner, and mainly involves the relationship between the niece and her uncle, but with a few books thrown in.

At the start of the book, the niece breaks off her relationship with a co-worker, and moves to live at the bookshop at the invitation of her uncle to recover emotionally. At first, all she does is take care of the shop and sleep. But she gradually opens up after reading books from the shop, and starts to go out into the surroundings, which is famous in Japan as a second-hand bookshop area. She meets and interacts with various residents, getting to know them.

But she has not fully recovered from the break-up, and needs a push from her uncle to do so. She also discovers that her uncle also has secrets from his past, especially over the uncle’s wife (the niece’s aunt), which disappeared years ago, but suddenly reappears into the uncle’s life. It would need a trip with the aunt to discover what happened in the past and the estrangement that occurred between the uncle and aunt. And now, it would be her turn to return to favour and push the uncle and aunt to reconcile.

In short, an enjoyable read about people who bond over books, with some interesting characters and relationships that revolve around books and the people who write and read them.

Book read from 2024/06/27 to 2024/06/29