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Haunted by memories of a doomed love affair, and living in something of a strange hiatus in Tokyo, the narrator finds himself dreaming of the days he used to wile away playing pinball in J’s Bar. Until one day he embarks on a quest: to find the exact model of pinball machine he played years earlier – the infamous three-flipper Spaceship.
Tucked behind the trees in a quiet neighbourhood in Tokyo, the beloved Marble café offers a cup of warm, healing matcha to all who pass through its doors. Customers flock all week to Café Marble, tucked away behind the cherry trees. But Monday is a special day: the enigmatic owner hosts a tea tasting. The ritual invites its clientele to pause, reconnect with their inner peace, and rediscover the value of simplicity, allowing the bitterness of matcha to soothe their troubles. Following the twelve calendar months, ‘Matcha on Monday’ follows people from all walks of life: a woman who needs to change, a couple facing a crisis, an artist who has lost her purpose, and a young woman struggling to break free from family expectations. As each customer frequents Café Marble’s cosy haven, they start their week with a warm sip of matcha and the joys of everyday human connection.
Trundling through the scenic countryside of Kyoto and Osaka is the Hankyu Line, a burgundy-coloured electric train that has been carrying its commuters to their destinations for decades. Over the course of a single journey in springtime, and the return journey six months later just as the leaves begin to fall: a young man meets the woman who happens to take out the last copy of the library book he was about to borrow; an angry wedding guest dresses in a white gown to upstage the bride; a university student leaves home for the first time; a twenty-something finally grows the courage to walk away from an abusive partner- a widow learns independence, as she and her granddaughter meet their new dog. As the seasons and the landscapes change, passengers jostle and connect, as this gentle timeless train carries each one forward towards the person they intend to become.
A young couple build their lives around the objects they long to own. From furniture to clothes to carefully imagined interiors, their desires shape their sense of who they are – and who they might become. Yet satisfaction always seems just out of reach. Precise and quietly ironic, the story explores the promises of material life – and the emptiness that can follow.
Saints and sinners, emperors and embezzlers, barmaids and balalaikas all play their part in the bawdy reminiscences of Hrabal’s cobbler as he charms an audience of young beauties with his tale.
Alberto Ruiz-Tagle was once the quiet, unknowable, unpromising member of Chile’s young poetry scene. But the military coup of 1973 sees Alberto reborn as Chile’s leading celebrity poet, Carlos Wieder. Known for his daring sky poems, penned in smoke high above the cities, Weider’s dazzling trajectory is a cause for astonishment and speculation amongst his old poetry friends. Where did this talent suddenly spring from? And, how is it connected to the disappearance of the beautiful Garmendia twins? Told from across the years in exile in Europe, the narrator’s attempts to trace the fate of his old circle will lead him to one last confrontation with the brutality of their generation.
From one of the greatest Chinese authors of the twentieth century, these delicate stories illuminate the most intimate matters of the human heart. Since childhood, Ruliang has had the peculiar habit of sketching a certain profile in the margins of his books. He has mapped out this same face, over and over again, without knowing why – until he meets Cythnia. As brief and evocative as sketches themselves, these five stories of lost loves, nostalgia and migration reveal a master of feeling at the peak of her powers.
What begins as a miracle of science soon turns into a nightmare. After a plague wipes out all of Russia’s chickens, eyes fall on zoologist Periskov and his strange discovery that promises to revive their population. But quickly, the state’s attempt to control nature spirals rapidly out of control, and soon all of Moscow is under siege by creatures they hadn’t bargained for. ‘The Fatal Eggs’ is Mikhail Bulgakov’s savage, darkly comic tale of progress gone wrong. Blending satire with science fiction, it captures the dangers of unchecked power – and the absurdity of believing that catastrophe can be neatly managed.
Her name is Meryem, but you’d be surprised at how difficult people find that to spell. Meryem is twenty-five years old and has just started working at the offices of Supersaurio – the most important supermarket chain in the Canary Islands. Watched over by the chain’s benevolent blue dinosaur logo, Meryem contends with co-workers who don’t mean to sound sexist, but aren’t women just harder work than men?, a boss who seems determined to make Meryem’s life as miserable as possible, and Omar – smart, funny, very-senior-but-nevertheless-seems-like-a-normal-person Omar, who also happens to be devastatingly handsome. We follow Meryem as she makes the transition from intern, to temp, to arrive finally at the promised land of fixed employment – only to find that she might have left part of her soul behind.
She’s living a perfect life – so why does Laurence feel so torn?Weekends in the country, weekdays in Paris – Laurence’s life features all the trappings of 1960s French bourgeoisie. She has money, a handsome husband, two daughters and a lover. She also has a successful career as an advertising copywriter, though her mind writes copy while she’s at home, and dreams of domesticity in the office.All her life she has strived to meet the expectations of others. But when her 10-year-old daughter, Catherine, starts to vocalise her despair about the unfairness of the world, Laurence must finally grapple with a life that prizes image over truth.Slim but powerful, this is a classic story of womanhood and its oppressors, parents and their children, and the quest for personal truth – by the iconic feminist Simone de Beauvoir.’The best book I’ve read so far this year’ The Times’Beautifully written, what surprises is how very modern this feminist rite
Fleeing a pitch-dark past, Emilia Innocenti arrives in a tiny village deep in the mountains of Piedmont, Northern Italy, with one aim; to hide away from the world. Surrounded only by a handful of inhabitants, the looming Alps and the weight of her own terrible crime, Emilia is determined to let isolation be her punishment. Equally intent on cutting himself off from the world is Bruno, one of her only neighbours. In the wake of a devastating loss, living in complete solitude seems like the perfect complement to the pain in his heart. But when Emilia and Bruno meet, the two realise they can’t be alone forever – and maybe, they no longer want to be. As Emilia’s dark secret threatens to break the surface, both will question everything they thought they knew about each other – and themselves.
Riko Nishioka is deputy manager of the Pegasus Shobo Kichijoji bookstore. After five years working part-time, she’s finally secured a full-time position at the age of forty. But now she has a nemesis. Aki Kobata, twenty-seven, has waltzed in as a full-time employee thanks to her family connections. A free spirit with a rebellious streak and a silver spoon in her mouth, she’s anything but a team player. The two are always clashing – both at work and over their personal lives. But when Riko is given notice that the store will be closing in six months’ time, they face a stark choice. Can they put their petty enmities aside to boost sales and save their livelihoods or will they go down fighting each other?
Nestled among rugged mountains, in a remote part of Catalonia frequented by wolf hunters, bandits, witches, deserters, ghosts, beasts and demons, sits the old farmhouse called Mas Clavell. Inside, an impossibly old woman lies on her deathbed while family and caretakers drift in and out. All the women who have ever lived and died in that house are waiting for her to join them. They are preparing to throw her a party. As day turns to night, four hundred years’ worth of memories unspool, and the house reverberates with the women’s stories. Stories of mysterious visions, of those born without eyelashes and tongues or with deformed hearts. But it begins with the story of the matriarch Blanca who double-crosses the devil, heedless of what the consequences might be.
The sixth book in the unstoppable, multi-million bestselling Japanese series; four guests with four poignant stories get another chance at lasting happiness.
During WWII, a young Tuscan woman falls in love with a man from the rural depths of southern Italy. As the conflict finally draws to a close, the two travel from Rome to finally meet with his family. But very quickly a dawning realisation breaks: her in-laws and their friends are eccentric in the extreme. They barely leave the house and they rarely speak to their son, fretting instead about their ‘daughter’ – a loud little dog – and worrying constantly, incessantly, about the weather. And, worst of all, they speak with a nostalgic warmth about the region’s recently overthrown fascist regime.
Set in Romania at the height of Ceausescu’s reign of terror, this autobiographical novel tells the story of a group of young students, each of whom has left the impoverished provinces in search of better prospects in the city.
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