“More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop” by Satoshi Yagisawa
This is the sequel to the international bestseller “Days at the Morisaki Bookshop”, which I read just less than a month ago, one week before I travelled to Tokyo.
And naturally when I was there, I just had to visit the Jimbocho area. Among others, I first visited the most iconic Yaguchi Shoten book store, with the female shopkeeper I swear have an aura like Takako (or maybe not). And then I visited Kitazawa bookstore with the 2nd floor filled with vintage English books (I bought 3 rare books there, naturally). But the most memorable for me was Anegawa Nyankodo, the store selling everything imaginable related to cats, from books, to magazines, to merchandises.
But of course I didn’t find the Morisaki bookstore nor Saveur coffee shop, the main fictitious venues in the book, although I wish the places really do exist. Nevertheless, the first book captured the feel of the real-life area so brilliantly that I strangely felt already at home when I was there.
This second book begins with a description of the Jimbocho as I experienced it, and as the first book described it. And the narrator didn’t take long to reveal herself after only few pages: It’s Takako! Yes, the second book is still about her, her uncle Satoru, Momoko, Tomo, Takano, Sabu, Wada, and other endearing characters. It perfectly filled-in the gaps left in the first book where it explains things a little bit more, as well as offering more elaborate stories from the characters that we’ve become familiarized with.
Alongside the narration for the character’s stories, this second book also elaborates on the nature of bookshops and the different kinds of customers: from casual buyers, to brokers, to rare book collectors. It is also a beautiful portrayal of what reading means for many different people: Some resort to reading as a way to open up to the world, other sees literature as a consolation and a retreat from the world, while some just mysteriously collect them with no time to read them like the old guy with a weird dress sense.
And then of course, there’s the [Japanese] book recommendations. From “The Chieko Poems” by Kotaro Takamura, to “Train of Fools” by Hyakken Uchida, to several others, including the mysterious book “The Golden Dream” that got the characters looking after it all over the city.
Unfortunately, however, the majority of these wonderful books are only available in Japanese language. But I am pleased to found and purchased the kindle version of “In Praise of Shadows” by Junichiro Tanizaki (which has an English translation), the book that uncle Satoshi puts in Takako’s hand and insisted that she reads it on the spot, a book that the English translator of the book also highly praised in the last note.
All in all, this is a well-written and heart-warming book, the most appropriate sequel for Days at the Morisaki Bookstore that makes the entire story even richer and deeper. I absolutely love it.
THE CHAOS THEORY 