incognitoexisting 's review for:

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

5.0

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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It's a very gentle and cosy book, I enjoyed every bit of it, from the atmosphere to characters to descriptions of nature and pleasure of reading, to wisdom it teaches the reader. I can definitely say that Days at the Morisaki Bookshop is a discovery of the year, I never thought I would be interested in Japanese literature, but here I am loving this book! I enjoyed the writing, and I found the translator's note in the end very sentimental. Absolutely loved it!

Some quotes:

"But, I don’t know, 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."

“So, when you were traveling around and reading all those books, you must have learned a lot, right?”
“It’s funny. No matter where you go, or how many books you read, you still know nothing, you haven’t seen anything. And that’s life. We live our lives trying to find our way."

"I had Until the Death of the Girl in my hand. “This book was good,” I told him.

How did he react? All of a sudden, my uncle’s face lit up—just like a kid who had gotten a wonderful birthday present."

"It’s only in secondhand books that you can savor encounters like this, connections that transcend time. And that’s how I learned to love the secondhand bookstore that handled these books, our Morisaki Bookshop. I realized how precious a chance I’d been given, to be a part of that little place, where you can feel the quiet flow of time."