Finally, the wet and stormy season is over in the UK…! I enjoyed taking photos of flowers and had a chance to drop by Waterstones. During COVID-19, the kindle reader was one of my ‘must have’ items. Thinking about repeated and lengthy lockdowns, it’s a luxury to be able to take new books at hand. Among them, I found some Japanese books translated into English. Those in the photos are bestsellers in the UK as well as in Japan, and displayed in the foreground of the bookshelves! It’s such a moment I feel proud of being Japanese.😊
“Before the Coffee Gets Cold” (2015, translated 2019) by Masakazu Kawaguchi is about people gathering in a small coffee shop in Tokyo, where they can time travel for a brief time with a rule that their past won’t be changed anyway. Then, why do we want to travel…?
“The Decagon House Murders” (1987, translated 2020) by Yukito Ayatsuji is a classic mystery that has a similar style as Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then, There Were None” (1939). It’s about perfect murders committed in the house, where students having a group trip disappear one by one.
Both books have different writing styles, but intriguing from the beginning. Good reads whether you’re at home or in the park!