The Time for Change: Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa is the debut novel from Yagisawa, but the translation by Eric Ozawa was just released this year.

Look at this cover! Cats! Books! A bicycle!

No cats or bicycles actually appear in the book, but let's not be picky.

Takako is a twenty-something and when her love life and job explode, she takes some time to regroup in her uncle's bookshop. Along the way, she encounters new ideas, friends, and a totally new perspective on life.

It's a weird little book, but much like how I can't stop thinking about Convenience Store Woman, I can't stop thinking about this book. The idea of an entire neighborhood of secondhand bookstores, each with its own specialization, just really makes me want to visit Japan. 4/5 stars

Lines note:

And yet for all I read, I found book after book that I still wanted to read. (page 35)

Oh, the life of a reader. My TBR list grows longer every day.

At some point in the past, someone reading this book had felt moved to take a pen and draw a line under these words. It made me happy to think that because I had been moved by that same passage too, I was now connected to that stranger.
Another time, I happened to find a pressed flower someone had left as a bookmark. As I inhaled the scent of the long-ago-faded flower, I wondered about the person who had put it there. Who in the world was she? When did she live? What was she feeling?
It's only in secondhand books that you can savor encounters like this, connections that transcend time. (page 36)

I think you get this same shared reading experience with library books!

And yet with her perfect posture, her expressive face, and her brisk way of talking, she still seemed young. Rather than getting older, she looked more like she'd shed anything that was unnecessary. (page 72)

What a lovely way to describe someone.

Thing I looked up:

Noh mask (page 81) - Noh is a major form of classical drama - dance in Japan that has been performed since the 14 century. It is the oldest theater art that is still performed today. Noh masks are carved from Japanese cypress and painted with natural pigments. They signify the characters' gender, age, and social ranking, and by wearing masks, the actors may portray youngsters, old men, female, or nonhuman characters.