I realize it’s a bit early in the year for this, but What You are Looking For is in the Library will most likely be my favorite novel of the year. Of course, it’s not quite a novel, more of a series of interconnected short stories, in which characters who range from young people to the recently retired find their way into a library in search of something — skills for a possible new career, some place to go to and be around adults that also can keep a toddler entertained, an excuse to get out of the house. What they find is a reference librarian who, putting down her felting project, gives them exactly what they needed — even if they didn’t realize it at the time. In addition to giving them books related to their direct query, she will often throw something else in — an unexpected book recommendation that will change their lives. A young women frustrated by progress in her career receives a children’s book that inspires her to take up a new craft and regain her passion: a woman who came for children’s books is also given one on astrology that, while she doesn’t believe in, gives her perspective to reframe her own vocational frustrations. The beauty of it, though, is that this change is not something being imposed on people from a mystical source: the librarian merely provides the catalyst for a change that was waiting to happen, a change that was instigated by the people themselves who are often hovering at a transition point in their lives. The subjects range in age from young to old, at varying points of their lives, and as the book develops the reader will begin to see connections between the stories via shared characters, illustrating how we can impact those around us without knowing directly. This is a book about positive transformation through books and relationships, and it’s one I can see myself returning to or gifting.

Highlights:

“Madam Mizue put down her spoon. ‘Ah, Ms Sakitani, so you’re on the merry-go-round, too,’ she said gently.
‘The merry-go-round?’
With a chuckle she smiled at me. ‘It’s a very common condition,’ she said with apparent relish. ‘Singles are envious of those who are married, and married couples envy those with children, but people with children are envious of singles. It’s an endless merry-go-round. But isn’t that funny? That each person should be chasing the tail of the person in front of them, when no one is coming first or last. In other words, when it comes to happiness nothing is better or worse – there is no definitive state.’

Madam Mizue took a sip of water. ‘Life is one revelation after another. Things don’t always go to plan, no matter what your circumstances. But the flip side is all the unexpected, wonderful things that you could never have imagined happening. Ultimately it’s all for the best that many things don’t turn out the way we hoped. Try not to think of upset plans or schedules as personal failure or bad luck. If you can do that, then you can change, in your own self and in your life overall.’

Then she looked off into the distance and smiled.

While rolling the felted globe in my fingers, I was struck by an idea: Ptolemaic theory and Copernican theory; geocentrism and heliocentrism. Aeons ago, people used to believe that the Earth was stationary and the heavens moved around it. When in fact it was the Earth that rotated. Something clicked. That’s it. I was forced to move from Mila to the information resources department. And I have to do housework and childcare. If I put myself at the centre of everything, does that mean I always see myself as a victim? And why I always end up wondering why can’t people do things that work for me.
I stared at the blue sphere on my palm. The Earth moves. Morning and night don’t stay – they go.

What do I want to do now? Where do I want to go?

~~~
Still looking at the rice ball in her hand, Yoriko continues, ‘I remember
sitting in the passenger seat, looking at you and feeling devastated because
I’d been fired, when in fact I hadn’t lost anything. I myself was no different
from before. I’d simply left the company I worked for. That’s all. I still had
the option to derive joy from my work and happiness from spending time
with my loved ones. It all just depended on me, and what I did from then
on. That’s when I realized that I wanted to work freelance in future.