Exploring Japan's books about books phenomenon
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, translated by Eric Ozawa. An international bestseller and winner of the Chiyoda Literature Prize (named after the district that is home to Tokyo’s beloved Jimbocho neighbourhood of bookshops), Yagisawa’s book is the story of 25-year-old Takako, who, after having broken up with her boyfriend and quit her publishing job, comes to live with her maternal Uncle Saturo, the owner of the Morisaki bookshop.
This thirty-year old bookshop that has been in the family for three generations and which specialises in literature of the modern era (housing classics by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Soseki Natsume, Ogai Mori, Juni’chiro Tanizaki, among others) rests comfortably in one corner of the bustling book district. Takako makes the cramped little room inside the bookshop her temporary home, where she spends her days and nights surrounded by books.
Sleepless, heartbroken and despondent, and despite having no real affinity with books and reading, one day Takako gives herself another chance at life—unable to sleep one night, she pulls out a copy of Saisei Murō’s Until the Death of the Girl from one of the overflowing shelves and stays up until morning reading it. Thus begins her journey of reading and discovering many books and authors.
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop is just one of the recent books that falls into the category of ‘books about books’ from Japan translated into English. Its recently-released sequel—More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (also translated by Ozawa) is another, along with Nanako Hanada’s The Bookshop Woman (translated by Cat Anderson, 2024) and Michiko Aoyama’s What You Are Looking For Is In The Library (translated by Alison Watts, 2023) Each of these books does an excellent job of
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