Tag: Japanese novels

Book of the Week, mystery, new releases

Book of the Week: A Game of Cat and Killer

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Happy Tuesday everyone. After last week’s Japanese fiction Recommendsday it just so happens that I’ve got another Japanese novel in translation today – it’s actually a new release in English and it’s got a very different feel from the ones I mentioned last week…

Yoshitaro Katayama is not an ideal candidate to be a detective: he doesn’t like heights, he’s socially awkward and he’d rather not come into contact with dead bodies. But his father was detective and it was his dying wish for his son. And so here he is. One morning he’s offer the choice of looking at some gruesome crime scene photos of a murdered young woman or going to the college she was a student at to conduct investigations. He chooses the latter, but soon there are more bodies and he has acquired a cat which belonged to one of the victims. He’s not keen on having a pet, until she starts to show an unusual level of interest in the case…

Now I know there are a lot of cozy mysteries with cats (often talking cats) in them. This is not one of those. Katayama also has a sister that he lives with and worries a lot about, and an auntie who is trying to arrange him a marriage but this is not cozy. Do not be deceived. This is a serial killer mystery which happens to have a cat. The detective is a bit hapless but the crimes he is investigating are anything but.

This originally came out in the late 1970s and is the first in a long running series by Jiro Akagawa that has only just making it into English. Considering their age they felt surprisingly current – obviously there are no mobile phones or computers but apart from that they could have been now. Of course that could be down to the choices Haydn Trowell has made in the translation. The murders were a bit on the gruesome side for what I’m used to reading, but I am interested enough in what happens to detective Katayama next that I may pick up the next one when it comes out in a few months time.

My copy came from NetGalley, but it’s out today in Kindle and Kobo and all the usual formats. I have no sense of how easy (or otherwise) this will be to get in hard copy, but it’s got physical copies listed so it may be possible

Happy Reading!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Japanese Novels in Translation

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Happy Wednesday! I’ve said that it’s feeling autumnal and there’s something about autumn that makes these three Japanese novels feel really apt. I’ve said they’re in translation which is a bit of a “well obviously” because I haven’t been hiding a secret talent for Japanese, but there’s a definitely a bit of a vibe about this sort of Japanese novel too – it’s sort of cozy and low stakes and reflective. And that is what I want in back to school season, even though it’s a long time since school!

Tsubaki Stationery Store by Ito Ogawa*

Hatoko has recently returned to Kamakura to take over her grandmother’s stationery store and scribe business. As a child Hatoko rebelled against the expectation that she would become a scribe and the atrict training that was required and ran away (sort of) as soon as she was old enough. But now she is back, she starts to find her place in the community as she writes various correspondence for the locals and she starts to uncover the secrets of her grandmother as the seasons of her first year running the shop gently pass. This is really lovely. Hatoko gets into a sort of flow state when she’s writing and reading about her process is very soothing too. I could really imagine her neighbourhood, the people that she helps, the friends she makes and the food she eats. There are no bad consequences from her letters to worry about and it has a real gentle rhythm about it that is sort of hypnotic.

The Cat Who Saved The Library by Sosuki Natsukawa*

This is the sequel to former BotW The Cat Who Saved Books and Tiger the Cat is back and saving more books. This time our human is 13-year-old Nanami who has asthma and spends more time with books than she does with other children.

Nanami had a peculiar habit of reading multiple books at once, yet still feeling the need to reach for new ones. There were always so many books she wanted to read, far more than she could keep up with.

I mean I think we know that this is basically me. I have such a huge pile of books to read and so many on the go at once and yet I still find myself standing in front of the to-read bookshelf trying to find something I want to read next. Anyway. Nanami notices that books are disappearing from the library where she spends a lot of her free time and finds herself helping a talking cat to save the books from forces of darkness. I enjoyed this as much as I did the first one – and was delighted to see some of the characters from that first book reappear here. And of course there are plenty of parallels with what is going on in the book and with books being banned in real life.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa*

I often find Japanese fiction slightly more melancholic than I want it to be, but I pretty much always enjoy it anyway. This is one of those. The central character is Takako who goes to stay in the flat above her uncle Satoru’s bookshop after her boyfriend tells her he is marrying someone else. What happens then is a discovery of shared community, making of new friends, a new found love of reading and a greater understanding of love. It’s short but it’s very readable, although I preferred the first section that is about Takako, her uncle and the community around the bookshop to the second part which has the return of Satoru’s long disappeared wife. This has got a sequel out now, which I’ve seen in bigger bookshops.

And that’s your lot for this week – enjoy!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: The Cat Who Saved Books

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Making a bit of a change this week, and I’ve got some Japanese fiction in translation for you. I do like to mix it up a little when I can, and today is one of those weeks where I can!

Our hero is Rintaro, a high school student whose beloved grandfather had just died and left him his second hand bookshop. The trouble is, Rintaro is also going to have to close it down because his aunt is his new guardian and wants him to move in with her. Rintaro is shy and would rather be reading books in the shop than talking to other people or going to school. Then a talking cat appears in the bookshop and tells him he needs his help to save books. What happens next sees Rintaro and Tiger entering different labyrinths to try and free the books.

This is about a teenager and a cat and the friends he makes along the way as he tries to rescue books from people who are misusing and mistreating them. Rintaro has to debate the value of books and reading against people who are diminishing them. That might sound a little heavy but it’s actually a charming story about how a love of books and reading can help you in difficult times and is important in a world where things are changing fast. It’s not a massively long book but I read it in one sitting and was very sad it was over so fast. A treat for the bookish and something a little bit different.

My copy was part of my NetGalley back log, so it has been out for a while now. I’m not sure how easy it will be to get a physical copy – I don’t think I’ve seen it in Foyles’s books in translation section – or at least not with the cover. But it is on Kindle and Kobo and in audiobook.

Happy Reading!