Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, tranlsated by Geoffrey Trousselot (Before the Coffee Gets Cold #1)

Summary from Goodreads: If you could go back, 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 to travel 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?

I was rec’d Before the Coffee Gets Cold a few times, so I decided to pick it up not really knowing what to expect.

Except…time travel. (I’m still not sure how I managed to read three books in about 4 weeks that all had time travel in some way, considering that it’s not my favorite plot-device.)

But I took it on faith that people whose taste I respect would not do me wrong, and jumped into this short novel that is almost more like a play, with several “acts” each revolving around a different person’s life and reasons for needing to time travel.

I really liked the rules of this particular time-travelling cafe chair. One of which is that nothing you do while in the past can change the future. Another is that you have to drink all the coffee in the cup before you before it gets cold. If you don’t – you become a ghost. (And there IS a ghost who occupies that cafe chair 95% of the time…until she goes to use the bathroom. If you don’t wait politely for her to get up, and try to force her to leave, she will curse you. So, cautionary tale.)

I thought this would mostly be a pretty sweet book, and it’s lovely with some pretty asides about cicadas and Tanabata festivals, but it’s also a sad book. One character is a nurse whose husband’s Alzheimer’s disease is progressing rapidly. One is a woman who avoided seeing her sister, and then the sister was killed in a car accident. Another is a woman who may not live to see her unborn child grow up. There’s a lot of grief here, in various ways, so a content warning there.

I’ve already picked up book 2. And it looks like book 3 will publish in the US in the fall. (And this looks like it’s actually a #BookTok book, too.) Although there isn’t a cafe cat, so the cover design is a fake-out.

Dear FTC: I bought my copy of this book from my store.

Man In Furs by Catherine Sauvat, illustrated by Anne Simon, translated by Mercedes Claire Gilliom

Summary from Goodreads: In 1870, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch published Venus in Furs, an erotic novel revealing the author’s desire to be dominated by a woman. (And paid homage in the classic Velvet Underground song of the same name.) After the novel’s success, a woman turns up at his doorstep and offers to take on the role in Sacher-Masoch’s real life. He completely submits to her, and they get married. Years later, Leopold has remarried and lives a quiet life, far removed from the sexual escapades of his first marriage. Then he learns that his surname, to his detriment, has come to describe a new sexual perversion: masochism. Man In Furs is his story.

This compelling graphic biography is a collaboration between the biographer Catherine Sauvat and the celebrated cartoonist Anne Simon. Simon’s gentle cartooning perfectly complements Sauvat’s empathetic script.

Apparently, Man in Furs, is a biography told as graphic novel – which is what drew me to the book. Sacher-Masoch’s life story is an interesting one, given his unwilling conflation with the development of the term “masochism” after his erotic novel Venus in Furs becomes notorious. But this is a pretty dry story and the art, rather than being that beautiful fin-de-siècle style like the cover was more like an early 20th century comic strip. It made for a boring book.

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Dick Fight Island, Vol. 1 by Reibun Ike

Summary from Goodreads: Eight mighty island warriors battle to become king. The deciding factor? The one who comes last, of course!

Eight islands represented by their best warriors must battle it out in a tournament to decide their king. To win this battle of endurance, it’s not the last one standing but the last one coming that matters!

The tournament to choose the next king of the islands is about to begin. The rules are simple—whoever comes first loses! Participating warriors protect their mighty swords with armor that grows larger and more elaborate with each tournament. But one warrior has returned from studying abroad with a technique certain to force a pleasurable eruption! Is there a competitor alive able to withstand it? Or is this deft warrior destined to become king?! 

The title of this manga series tells you exactly what you’re getting – an island where a series of guys fight with their dicks. Dick Fight Island! *shrug* It’s delightfully bonkers, this setting where eight clans routinely battle for the right to have governance over the island grouping – but they have evolved from fighting with actual weapons to fighting with…sex appeal? The storyline beyond that is somewhat thin, with just a few hints at behind-the-scenes character arcs. The strongest character development, in my opinion, comes via Harto – a competitor who has spent time abroad as a student – having a likely-boyfriend from outside the islands who arrives unannounced during the competition. The competition itself is just a hoot, though, with the increasing size of the competitors’ armor, and the swagger, and a lot of funny asides as they fight to be the last man, er, standing. #sorrynotsorry The art is pretty good, although it was sometimes confusing with the amount of “action” words in a panel that felt unnecessary. (Also, the little gray “modesty bar” across the penises did very little to disguise the art, but rather drew attention to it. I realize that it’s a convention, but it did feel like overkill.) I did find it a little weird that there were occasional moments of “is gay sex a thing? you put your dick up there??” [“there” meaning “anus”] that didn’t read as explicitly homophobic but just felt off, even with an aside at the very end about how too much training was perhaps making competitors “innocent” (maybe it felt more like a violation of consent?). Maybe this is also a genre convention that I’m not familiar with.

I picked this up because I saw the galley for Volume 2 on Edelweiss, however, the galley is just the script dialog, which is basically indecipherable without any art to tell you what the characters are doing. So I’ll definitely be looking to buy Volume 2 when it’s out, since it seems to give us more of Harto’s backstory.

Dear FTC: I bought a copy of this manga and read it on my nook.

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa, translated by Louise Heal Kawai

Summary from Goodreads: A celebration of books, cats, and the people who love them, infused with the heartwarming spirit of The Guest Cat and The Travelling Cat Chronicles.

Bookish high school student Rintaro Natsuki is about to close the secondhand bookstore he inherited from his beloved bookworm grandfather. Then, a talking cat named Tiger appears with an unusual request. The feline asks for—or rather, demands—the teenager’s help in saving books with him. The world is full of lonely books left unread and unloved, and Tiger and Rintaro must liberate them from their neglectful owners. 

Their mission sends this odd couple on an amazing journey, where they enter different mazes to set books free. Through their travels, Tiger and Rintaro meet a man who leaves his books to perish on a bookshelf, an unwitting book torturer who cuts the pages of books into snippets to help people speed read, and a publishing drone who only wants to create bestsellers. Their adventures culminate in one final, unforgettable challenge—the last maze that awaits leads Rintaro down a realm only the bravest dare enter…

The Cat Who Saved Books is, on the surface, a cute fable(?) about a withdrawn teen who inherits his grandfather’s secondhand bookshop and is tasked by a talking cat to help him save books. Rintaro has been raised by his grandfather, but now that his grandfather has passed away Rintaro’s aunt has determined it would be best if Rintaro closed the shop and moved in with her to finish school. Rintaro is very much grieving his grandfather and the quiet, orderly life they led but can’t really muster the will or energy to do anything about his situation. But then one day a talking cat appears in the bookshop and goads Rintaro into helping him save some books. Over the course of three adventures – one in the company of a classmate, Sayo – Rintaro slowly comes out of his grief to make some decisions about his future.

This was such a quiet, deceptive book about the love of books and reading and about grief and loss. It reminded me a little of Miyazaki’s Spirited Away in the way that the task-based adventures occurred in a liminal/spiritual space yet brought a lot of meaning to the real-life situations of the characters.

The Cat Who Saved Books is out now!

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

‘BEOWULF: A NEW TRANSLATION’ IS A NEW, FEMINIST TRANSLATION OF BEOWULF BY THE AUTHOR OF THE MUCH-BUZZED-ABOUT NOVEL ‘THE MERE WIFE’.

Nearly 20 years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of ‘Beowulf’ – and 50 years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world – there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley that brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English, re-contextualizing the binary narrative of monsters and heroes into a tale in which the two categories often entwine, justice is rarely served, and dragons live among us.

A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. The familiar elements of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history – ‘Beowulf’ has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment, powerful men seeking to become more powerful, and one woman seeking justice for her child, but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation of ‘Beowulf’, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation.

Maria Dahvana Headley’s long-awaited (hey, she made an adorable Grim in the middle, so we’ll accept the wait) translation of Beowulf has arrived.

It might sound weird to say a translation of an Old English poem is “bouncy” but it is. It has a very jaunty, devil-may-care feel to it since Maria mixed older words like “scop”, descriptive terms like “opened his word-hoard” (which is such a great way to set up a long speech), and of-the-minute soundbites like “hashtag: blessed” (got a zing off that one because it nails the rhythm of the line and gives it an ironic cast). Even the choice of “Bro!” as the opening “Whaet” (or however we represent that Old English term that doesn’t have a direct translation to modern English) makes me think of a bunch of dudes sitting around drinking and someone goes “Bruuuuhhhh, tell me about that time Chet went snowboarding naked” (or whatever Chets do). So fun.

The introduction really sets up Maria’s attitude toward this translation and why she made the choices she did. And while you don’t have to be familiar with other translations of Beowulf, if you’ve read the Heaney or, especially, the Tolkein translation you can really see where this new translation is finding new ground. It’s very similar to Emily Wilson’s introduction to The Odyssey which also brought new facets to an old classic.

Beowulf: A New Translation published on Tuesday, August 25!

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.

The Girl Who Reads on the Métro by Christine Féret-Fleury

Summary from Goodreads:
In the vein of Amelie and The Little Paris Bookshop, a modern fairytale about a French woman whose life is turned upside down when she meets a reclusive bookseller and his young daughter.

Juliette leads a perfectly ordinary life in Paris, working a slow office job, dating a string of not-quite-right men, and fighting off melancholy. The only bright spots in her day are her metro rides across the city and the stories she dreams up about the strangers reading books across from her: the old lady, the math student, the amateur ornithologist, the woman in love, the girl who always tears up at page 247.

One morning, avoiding the office for as long as she can, Juliette finds herself on a new block, in front of a rusty gate wedged open with a book. Unable to resist, Juliette walks through, into the bizarre and enchanting lives of Soliman and his young daughter, Zaide. Before she realizes entirely what is happening, Juliette agrees to become a passeur, Soliman’s name for the booksellers he hires to take stacks of used books out of his store and into the world, using their imagination and intuition to match books with readers. Suddenly, Juliette’s daydreaming becomes her reality, and when Soliman asks her to move in to their store to take care of Zaide while he goes away, she has to decide if she is ready to throw herself headfirst into this new life.

Big-hearted, funny, and gloriously zany, The Girl Who Reads on the Metro is a delayed coming-of-age story about a young woman who dares to change her life, and a celebration of the power of books to unite us all.

I was reading along, enjoying the plotless-finding-yourself-through-books storyline of The Girl Who Reads on the Métro AND THEN there was an Epilogue….with a POINT OF VIEW CHANGE. For some reason, totally unearned and unnecessary, the POV switched from a close third to a first person and UGH. I hates it Precious. Three stars.

(Also, this is translated from the French, but I can’t figure out the translator is so I guess it’s the author. The translation is fine.)

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi, translated by Marilyn Booth

Summary from Goodreads:
Winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize

In the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who chooses to refuse all offers and await a reunion with the man she loves, who has emigrated to Canada.

These three women and their families, their losses and loves, unspool beautifully against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Oman, a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present. Through the sisters, we glimpse a society in all its degrees, from the very poorest of the local slave families to those making money through the advent of new wealth.

The first novel originally written in Arabic to ever win the Man Booker International Prize, and the first book by a female Omani author to be translated into English, Celestial Bodies marks the arrival in the United States of a major international writer.

I was very interested in this International Man Booker winner, the first Arabic-language winner of the prize and the first-ever novel by an Omani woman to be translated to English. Catapult was kind enough to approve my galley request. It is a beautifully-translated novel comprised of linked vignettes (best descriptor I have since the narrative is only vaguely linear with many narrators and points-of-view). Alharthi’s dream-like narrative uses the many perspectives of three generations of a family to capture a country and culture transitioning into the modern world.  There are a LOT of characters and the narrative shifts back and forth in time, so this definitely isn’t a fast read, but they’re all so interesting, especially the three sisters Mayya, Asma, and Khawla, Mayya’s husband Abdullah, and Zarifa, a woman formerly enslaved to Abdullah’s father.

Celestial Bodies is out now.

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Last Letters: The Prison Correspondence, 1944–1945 by Freya and Helmuth James von Moltke, edited by Helmuth Caspar, Johannes, and Dorothea von Moltke, translated by Shelley Frisch

Summary from Goodreads:
An NYRB Classics Original

Tegel prison, Berlin, in the fall of 1944. Helmuth James von Moltke is awaiting trial for his leading role in the Kreisau Circle, one of the most important German resistance groups against the Nazis. By a near miracle, the prison chaplain at Tegel is Harald Poelchau, a friend and co-conspirator of Helmuth and his wife, Freya. From Helmuth’s arrival at Tegel in late September 1944 until the day of his execution by the Nazis on January 23, 1945, Poelchau would carry Helmuth’s and Freya’s letters in and out of prison daily, risking his own life. Freya would safeguard these letters for the rest of her long life, much of it spent in Norwich, VT, from 1960 until her death in 2010.

Last Letters is a profoundly personal record of the couple’s love, faith, and courage in the face of fascism. Written during the final months of World War II, the correspondence is at once a collection of love letters written in extremis and a historical document of the first order. Published to great acclaim in Germany, this volume now makes this deeply moving correspondence available for the first time in English.

I read the description of Last Letters in the NYRB Classics catalog and knew immediately that I had to read it. Freya von Moltke had allowed other volumes of letters from her correspondence with her husband Helmuth James to be published during her lifetime but these letters, the very intimate letters exchanged while Helmuth was imprisoned by the Nazis, she only allowed to be published after her death in 2010. They are incredible.

This is not an easy book to read in one go – it’s a collection of letters between a couple that expected almost daily that he would be executed by the Nazis and contain minute details of Helmuth’s defense and Freya’s visits to various officials to try and get Helmuth released, so they do get a repetitive when read all at once, one after the other. But their discussions of faith and love, reminiscences about their children and family, regrets, and heart-felt farewells in each letter are truly moving. Each of these letters was smuggled into and out of Tegel prison by the prison chaplain, a close friend, at risk to his own life (also included here are a few of the “official” letters that Helmuth and Freya exchanged via the usual prison mail route to avoid raising suspicion).

Reading this collection makes one wonder if one could place themselves at risk, knowing the stakes, if in the same situation the von Moltkes and their friends were in during WWII. Would I place my family in danger to deliver these letters? Or even to be a member of a group like the Kreisau Circle? These letters give so much insight into how Helmuth leaned on his faith and prayer, and supported Freya as she struggled with her own faith, during his imprisonment, right up until his execution. His execution date was kept secret so there is no real “end” to the letters, merely a note that Freya’s final letter was not received before Helmuth’s death. This is an incredibly intimate collection of letters. We are so lucky they were preserved.

Last Letters is out now.

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.