Lounge
Exploring Japan's books about books phenomenon
Summary
‘Days at the Morisaki Bookshop’ and other titles that chronicle the pleasures of reading, from bookstore browsing to bonding over old booksAt the heart of Tokyo in Japan is Jimbocho, a neighbourhood that is home to close to 200 bookstores that sell rare, used, second-hand and antique books. This historical arcade, a sepia-toned wonderland of books, comes vividly alive in Japanese writer Satoshi Yagisawa’s 2023 debut novel 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.
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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 chronicling the many pleasures of reading—the joy of browsing various bookstores, the act of staying up till dawn to finish a book, the thrill of encountering fellow readers who love the same author, the weirdly familiar musty smell of old books. The books hold within them some excellent recommendations too, although this topic sparks a debate in Hanada’s book where she writes, “You couldn’t recommend a book to someone if you didn’t know them…and you couldn’t recommend a book if you didn’t know it well yourself." As a reader, recommending books to non-readers may get tricky. If you’ve enjoyed reading a book, you’d want another person to read it too, but your endorsement may not sit well with another everytime. But does that mean one should stop recommending books?
Michiko Aoyama’s What You Are Looking For Is In The Library deviates a bit to the library. It brings together the stories of five individuals, none of whom are readers. Their somewhat directionless outlook towards life is nonchalantly guided by an enigmatic librarian, Ms Sayuri Komachi, who intuitively recommends books from the community library, which proves to be instrumental in changing their lives for the better.
The book feels like a warm hug and it’s heartening to see non-readers finding purpose after reading a book—there’s Tomoka, a 21-year-old sales assistant who knows she wants to pick up a new skill but doesn’t know which one; Hiroya, a young manga artist who is uninspired to pursue his talent; Natsumi, former magazine editor who, after her maternity leave, is hopeful about getting back to her job; Masao, a 65-year-old man dealing with the monotony of retired life; and Ryo, a middle-aged accountant who secretly harbours the passion to open an antique store someday.
Japan’s reading culture has spawned a separate bookish vocabulary—tachiyomi suru (to browse or read while standing), heiki dokusho (to read multiple books at a time), tsundoku (buying more books than actually reading them), and kikobonkyo (a person who collects rare and antique books). All of these terms resonate with the books about books by Yagisawa, Hanada and Aoyama.
Hanada’s The Bookshop Woman was inspired by her own life. After separating from her husband, she stumbled upon a dating site where she met people of all kinds and started giving them personalised book recommendations. It’s an unassuming, simple story about a woman trying to figure things out and doing what she does best—recommend books.
Perhaps books aren’t supposed to be as complicated as people make them out to be, because this story resonated with readers so much so that royalties from the book sales (a total of 60,000 copies in Japan alone) allowed Hanada to open her own bookstore—Kani Books—in Tokyo, a dream that many of us hope to live.
Arunima Mazumdar is the founder of Dokusha Book Club for fans of Japanese literature.
