The Bookshop Woman

This was SO GOOD!

I love books about books, I am a huge fan of Japanese literature and I love a good memoir, so The Bookshop Woman felt like it was tailor-made for me! It's such a beautiful ode to the power of books and their ability to bring people together and help us when we're not sure where to go and/or what to do with our lives.

In The Bookshop Woman, we meet Nanako, who has worked as a bookseller for quite a few years but has been feeling really down with both her personal and professional life. To meet new people, she decides to join a meet-up site where people meet for 30 minutes for all sorts of reasons (e.g., romance, sharing ideas, building a network). She says on her profile that she's able to give anyone she meets a perfect recommendation for a book, and the result of that is that she ends up meeting a wide range of people and getting a new perspective on her own life and the variety of individuals out there.

I'd say this fits the healing "fiction" kind of genre, but it's even better because it's not fiction, it's based on Nanako Hanada's own experiences. It had been quite a while since I'd read a memoir and this felt like the perfect book to get me back to this genre. Some memoirs read "like fiction", if that makes sense, in the best possible way because the writing feels smooth and fluid, and this was the perfect example of a book like that. Of course, part of the credit here goes to the translator, Cat Anderson, for making that come across in English.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book, narrated by Yuriri Naka, after reading it for the first time on my Kindle and it was also such a good experience, especially being able to hear the pronunciation of some of the names that had been a bit tricky to pronounce when I first read it.

Thank you very much to Brazen and NetGalley for the ALC!

Ah that lovely thing, but in abundance, not just a book within a book, but multiple books within a book. This is a quick easy and fun read, and such a fantastic idea!!

When we meet Nanako her life is on a downward spiral, she’s separated from her husband, living place to place and witnessing the demise of her beloved bookshop. She’s going to turn it around though!

Nanako joins a dating site, where people meet their matches for 30 minutes at a time, Nanako markets herself as “The sexy bookseller” and her headline is a promise to match each date with their perfect book by the end. Each of the hundreds of people she meets along the way open another little piece of Nanako up to life, and are soon discovers she’s not just a quirky little book lover.

The writing is beautiful, on the surface the story is funny and Nanako is an endearing character, but if you dig a little bit deeper there’s a message of hope and inspiration.

The narration and translation were beautifully done.

This is a special one.
All the stars 🌟
#Jorecimmends

I’d like to extend my gratitude for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook for review to Ovtopus audio and NetGalley.

Look out for publications on June 6th.

An unexpected gem of a listen. Really enjoyed both the plot and premise of the book. The narrator was a super match for the audio. It’s subtle humor and the close to real life narrative of a part memoir made it different to the norm but a brilliant different listen