Books selected by the participants ofJFT Book Club (Hybrid) – With Silent Reading Time –Holiday Reading Recommendations
November 16, 2023
Title

Before the Coffee Gets ColdAuthor

Genre

KAWAGUCHI Toshikazu

Literary Fiction, Magical Realism

If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet?
In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than
one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee - the chance totravel back in time.
Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time
travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as
long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.
Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s internationally
bestselling novel explores the age-old question: What would you change if you could travel back in time?
*Physical book[EN] and ebook[EN] & audiobook[EN] available at JFT Library.

Blank Canvas :My So-Called Artist's Journey
かくかくしかじかHIGASHIMURA Akiko

Manga, Autobiography

High schooler Akiko has big plans to become a popular mangaka before she even graduates, but she needs
to get much better at drawing if she ever wants to reach her goal. Looking for an easy fix, she signs up for
an art class, thinking all her problems will soon be solved. She's in for a surprise: her new instructor is abamboo sword-wielding taskmaster who doesn't care about manga one bit. But maybe this unconventionalart teacher is just what she needs to realize her dreams!
*Physical book[JP] and ebook[EN] available at JFT Library.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

MURAKAMI Haruki

Literary Fiction, Short Stories,
Magical Realism

Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an ice man, as well as the dreams that shape us and thethings we might wish for. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit Murakami’s ability totransform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and entertaining.
*Physical book[EN] and ebook[EN] available at JFT Library.

Golden Kamuy
ゴールデンカムイ

NODA Satoru

Manga, Historical Fiction,Action & Adventure

In the early twentieth century, Russo-Japanese War veteran Saichi "Immortal" Sugimoto scratches out ameager existence during the postwar gold rush on the wild frontier of Hokkaido. When he stumbles across a
map to a fortune in hidden Ainu gold, he sets off on a treacherous quest to find it. But Sugimoto is not the
only interested party, and everyone who knows about the gold will kill to possess it! Faced with the harshconditions of the northern wilderness, ruthless criminals and rogue Japanese soldiers, Sugimoto will need all
his skills and luck—and the help of an Ainu girl named Asirpa—to survive.
*Physical book [JP] and ebook[EN] available at JFT Library.

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TitleHow Do You Live?
君たちはどう生きるか

AuthorGenre

YOSHINO Genzaburo

Young Adult Literature,
Coming of Age

The streets of Tokyo swarm below fifteen-year-old Copper as he gazes out into the city of his childhood.
Struck by the thought of the infinite people whose lives play out alongside his own, he begins to wonder,
how do you live? Considering life's biggest questions for the first time after the death of his father, Copper
turns to his dear uncle for heart-warming wisdom. As the old man guides the boy on a journey ofphilosophical discovery, a timeless tale unfolds, offering a poignant reflection on what it means to behuman. But when Copper betrays one of his new friends, how will he ask for forgiveness — and how can heforgive himself? How Do You Live? is the inspiring, transformative story of a young man who, like hisnamesake Copernicus, looks to the stars and uses his discoveries to answer the question of what kind ofperson he will grow up to be.
*Physical book[EN & JP], manga [JP] and ebook[EN] & audiobook[EN] available at JFT Library.

Kowloon Generic Romance
九龍ジェネリックロマンス

MAYUZUKI Jun

Manga, Romance, Sci-Fi

Welcome to Kowloon Walled City: a dystopian townscape where the people are brimming with nostalgia,
and where the past, present, and future converge. Amid the hidden emotions and extraordinary daily livesof the men and women working in its confines, a tale of romance begins to unfold for real estate agent
Reiko Kujirai―one that feels as familiar as Kowloon itself…
*Physical book [EN & JP] available at JFT Library.
Norwegian Wood
ノルウェイの森

MURAKAMI Haruki

Literary Fiction, RomanceToru, a serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective youngwoman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. As Naoko
retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself drawn to a fiercely independent and sexuallyliberated young woman.
Stunning and elegiac, Norwegian Wood first propelled Haruki Murakami into the forefront of the literary
scene.
*Physical book[EN & JP] and ebook[EN] & audiobook[EN] available at JFT Library.
Rurouni Kenshin

WATSUKI Nobuhiro

Manga, Historical Fiction,
Action & AdvenuteOne hundred and forty years ago in Kyoto, with he coming of the American "Black Ships," there arose awarrior who, felling men with his bloodstained blade, gained the name Hitokiri, manslayer! His killer blade
helped close the turbulent Bakumatsu era and slashed open the progressive age known as Meiji. Then hevanished, and with the flow of years, became legend.
*Not in JFT Library Collection. Live-action movies DVDs available at JFT Library.

Snow Country

KAWABATA Yasunari

Literary Fiction, Romance

At an isolated mountain hot spring, with snow blanketing every surface, Shimamura, a wealthy dilettantemeets Komako, a lowly geisha. She gives herself to him fully and without remorse, despite knowing that
their passion cannot last and that the affair can have only one outcome. In chronicling the course of thisdoomed romance, Kawabata has created a story for the ages—a stunning novel dense in implication andexalting in its sadness.
*Physical book [EN] and ebook[EN] available at JFT Library.

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TitleThe Boy and the Dog
少年と犬AuthorGenre

HASE Seishū

Literary Fiction, Animal

One dog changes the life of everyone who takes him in on his journey to reunite with his first owner in thisinspiring novel about the bond between humans and dogs and the life-affirming power of connection.
Following a devastating earthquake and tsunami, a young man in Japan finds a stray dog outside aconvenience store. The dog’s tag says “Tamon,” a name evocative of the guardian deity of the north. The
man decides to keep Tamon, becoming the first in a series of owners on the dog’s five-year journey to findhis beloved first owner, Hikaru, a boy who has not spoken since the tsunami. An agent of fate, Tamon is a
gift to everyone who welcomes him into their life.
At once heartrending and heartwarming, intimate and panoramic, suspenseful and luminous—anddeepened in its emotion by the author’s mastery of the gritty details and hardscrabble circumstances thatdefine the lives of the various people who take Tamon in on his journey—this bestselling, award-winning
novel weaves a feel-good tale of survival, resilience, and love beyond measure.
*Physical book [EN & JP] and ebook[EN] available at JFT Library.

The Phone Booth at theEdge of the World

Laura Imai Messina

Literary Fiction, Cultural Heritage

When Yui loses both her mother and her daughter in the tsunami, she begins to mark the passage of timefrom that date onward: Everything is relative to March 11, 2011, the day the tsunami tore Japan apart, andwhen grief took hold of her life. Yui struggles to continue on, alone with her pain.
Then one day she hears about a man who has an old disused telephone booth in his garden. There, those
who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief.
As news of the phone booth spreads, people travel to it from miles around.
Soon Yui makes her own pilgrimage to the phone booth, too. But once there she cannot bring herself tospeak into the receiver. Instead she finds Takeshi, a bereaved husband whose own daughter has stopped
talking in the wake of her mother’s death.
Simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World is the signpost
pointing to the healing that can come after.
*Physical book[EN] available at JFT Library.

Triton Of The Sea

TEZUKA Osamu

Manga, Fantasy

The ocean holds many tales. Tales of mermaids, of underwater kingdoms, and of fantastical beasts
lurking in the deep. Spurred by these tales, Kazuya sets out to find the truth, but what he finds is ababy?! Not just any baby, the baby Kazuya finds is Triton! The last of a once mighty and proud race ofpeople from the sea. Triton seems human, but unusual and terrible events begin to happen with all
those around him. Who is Triton, and why does he bring misfortune to everyone around him?
*Physical book[EN] and ebook[EN] available at JFT Library.
1Q84

MURAKAMI Haruki

Literary Fiction, Magical Realism,Romance, Fantasy, Mystery

The year is 1984. Aomame is riding in a taxi on the expressway, in a hurry to carry out an assignment. Her
work is not the kind that can be discussed in public. When they get tied up in traffic, the taxi driversuggests a bizarre 'proposal' to her. Having no other choice she agrees, but as a result of her actions she
starts to feel as though she is gradually becoming detached from the real world. She has been on a top
secret mission, and her next job leads her to encounter the superhuman founder of a religious cult.
Meanwhile, Tengo is leading a nondescript life but wishes to become a writer. He inadvertently becomesinvolved in a strange disturbance that develops over a literary prize. While Aomame and Tengo impact oneach other in various ways, at times by accident and at times intentionally, they come closer and closer tomeeting. Eventually the two of them notice that they are indispensable to each other. Is it possible forthem to ever meet in the real world?
*Physical book [EN & JP] and ebook[EN] available at JFT Library.

*Book descriptions from Libby and/or Amazon.ca
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