I read this popular Japanese novel in its English translation by Alison Watts, and if I could use only one word to describe it, it would be ‘warm’. The book has five sections, each narrated by one of a diverse collection of residents of the Hatori ward of Tokyo. Each of them, for one reason or another, visits the community library. The fearsome librarian, Sayuri Komachi, recommends an unexpected book which helps things work out in their life.

This is a comforting book about things which turn out well for lovely people, if not quite as originally envisaged. It’s a kind and tender book, but it’s a deep kindness: this is a story with depth. I was charmed by it.

This quotation captures the theme of the book, I think:

Life is one revelation after another. Things don’t always go to plan, no matter what your circumstances. But the flip side is all the unexpected, wonderful things that you could never have imagined happening. Ultimately it’s all for the best that many things don’t turn out the way we hoped. Try not to think of upset plans or schedules as personal failure or bad luck. If you can do that, then you can change, in your own self and in your life overall.

Sometimes, books which feature books become a bit overly sentimental about, well, books. Aoyama nicely captures the way that the experience of reading depends as much on the reader as the writer. This is an obvious truth, but it’s too often overlooked in favour of sentimentality about books in books:

Readers make their own personal connections to words irrespective of the writer’s intentions and each reader gains something unique.

It was just lovely.