Tag Archives: Japanese literature

Before we Forget Kindness

Posted on January 11, 2025 by smellincoffee

One of the more charming reads from last year was Before the Coffee Gets Cold, a short novel that falls into a mysterious genre called ‘magical realism’, as I’ve since learned. The setting and premise were simple yet inexplicable: in … Continue reading →

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Strange Weather in Tokyo

Posted on January 3, 2025 by smellincoffee

There’s no resisting that cover! Tsukiko is a young woman on the cusp of middle age, not far from sailing into her forties. One night at her local sake bar, she puts in a order for snacks and hears an … Continue reading →

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We Will Prescribe You a Kitteh

Posted on July 3, 2024 by smellincoffee

Exploring Japanese literature has been a thing for me this year, and We Will Prescribe You a Cat is the latest in my explorations. It’s easily the strangest of the Japanese literature I’ve read this year, with an increasing level … Continue reading →

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Convenience Store Woman

Posted on February 10, 2024 by smellincoffee

Keiko has known since she was a little girl that she wasn’t quite normal. Her reactions were not like those of her peers, and they were different enough to cause her family alarm. Upon discovering a dead bird, her first thought was that … Continue reading →

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Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Posted on January 18, 2024 by smellincoffee

There is a little underground cafe in Tokyo where, if you sit at a certain chair under the right conditions, you can find yourself in that chair in that cafe at some other time, where you can meet someone who … Continue reading →

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What You Are Looking for is in the Library

Posted on January 17, 2024 by smellincoffee

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 … Continue reading →

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Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

Posted on January 15, 2024 by smellincoffee

Takako’s boyfriend has just unceremoniously dumped her after announcing he’s engaged to his other girlfriend, the real one — the one she’d never heard about, but one whose existence now seems obvious in retrospect. Why was it they never had … Continue reading →

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Kokoro

Posted on October 7, 2009 by smellincoffee

Kokoro© 1957 Natsume Soseki248 pages A favorite history professor of mine typically assigns novels as part of his required reading, and for his Modern Japanese History course, I read a novel set in the last years of the Meiji period. … Continue reading →

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