This was pure joy from start to finish. A love letter to all thing stationery, the book is a collection of 5 short stories - Fountain Pen, Organiser, Notebooks, Postcards, Memo Pads - all centred around a stationery shop in the Ginza region of Tokyo.

In each chapter the owner of the shop, Ken, assists people who need help moving something forward. There's a eulogy to write, a romance to start and a chef to thank, amongst other things. All the stories are delightful, real hugs in books, and I was sad to end it.

It regularly refers to many stationery items losing places to digital versions and it's so true. However, whilst I love the ease of using Google Keep (I'm writing this review on it!) you cannot beat a lovely notebook, decent pen and stickers/stamps. (On a side note, this is why I love Postcrossings, because I get to hand write postcards to people all over the world - drop me a message if you are curious)

Sorry, back to the review! I'm obsessed with the shop in this book. Think Paperchase but independent. There are journals, post its, fountain pens, colouring pencils, postcards, writing paper and envelopes. I think it I wandered into a shop like this I would never leave. The author also clearly has a love of food, as it is always so beautifully described. I found myself pausing to look up Japanese words too, so I could full engage with the stories.

Thanks to Manilla Press for a digital ARC in exchange for my review. I'll be needing to get a copy of this to add to my translated fiction shelves. It's out on 7th November.

Advertised for fans of Before The Coffee Gets Cold and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, for me is nothing similar to the first one andmaybe closer to the latter one.

I love Before The Coffee Gets Cold series, is one of my favourites! I can't say the same about Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. I didn't really enjoyed it as much. And this one for me didn't have that great feeling. It was a nice read without the wow factor,

3.5 I so enjoy the serial short style where each story contributes to an overall arc. I thought elements of this were really strong from that perspective.

The characters were a mixed bag. Nanami and Fumi stood out as favourites and their stories were most enjoyable for me. I liked Ken but I didn’t care for the pressure people were putting on him to get involved with Ryoko. As I reader, I didn’t sense he had a romantic interest in Ryoko so all the pressure felt almost coercive.

I loved the setting at the stationery shop. I have such a soft spot for stationery and really liked the themes the author chose. The research into fountain pens and notebooks were a nice touch too! I love learning stuff in fiction and the way the author wove the research into the narrative was well done.

For the most part, the stories were varied and enjoyable. Some themes I found a bit sickly sweet (implausibly financially generous employers, a horrible man’s ex-wives who are all BFFs). I enjoyed the food theme of the final section.

While I loved some of the untranslated Japanese words and the care taken with cultural and kanji details, the translation felt a bit flat in speech: character interactions felt forced and didn’t flow well. I noticed an overuse of the word “venerable” and some colloquialisms/expressions that felt more western than Japanese, particularly in the first two sections.

It didn’t end so much as just stop. I’m not sure how I feel about that. 🤔