Before the Coffee gets cold. I enjoyed this book and all four stories. Sweet, warm and moving. Norwegian Wood, the most famous of Harumi Murakami‘s work. Set in 60s Tokyo following a student coming to terms with the death of his best friend and the girlfriend he forms a bond with. I enjoyed the writing style but struggled with the plot of the book.
@Lugwho I see you have two Japanese based books, you might like this one, I listened to it as an audiobook a few years ago and found it very good as a serious character study.
The English-language debut of one of Japan’s most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies there, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction—many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual—and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action…
