en-US Sun, 27 Apr 2025 01:12:48 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 217388015 From sci-fi visionary and acclaimed author Annalee Newitz comes Automatic Noodle, a cozy near-future novella about a crew of abandoned food service bots opening their very own restaurant.

While San Francisco rebuilds from the chaos of war, a group of food service bots in an abandoned ghost kitchen take over their own delivery app account. They rebrand as a neighborhood lunch spot and start producing some of the tastiest hand-pulled noodles in the city. But there’s just one problem. Someone―or something―is review bombing the restaurant’s feedback page with fake “bad service” reports. Can the bots find the culprit before their ratings plummet and destroy everything they created?]]> 176 Annalee Newitz 1250357462 Nafiza 0 to-read 4.16 2025
author: Annalee Newitz
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
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]]> 214229691 From an outstanding new voice in cozy fantasy comes?Greenteeth,?a ?tale of fae, folklore, and found family, narrated by a charismatic lake-dwelling monster with a voice unlike any other, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher.

Beneath the still surface of a lake lurks a monster with needle sharp teeth. Hungry and ready to pounce.

Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake, something makes Jenny decide she's worth saving. Temperance doesn't know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor.

Though they have nothing in common, these two must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Jenny's lake and Temperance's family, as well as the very soul of Britain.]]> 304 Molly O'Neill Nafiza 0 to-read 3.98 2025
author: Molly O'Neill
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 123161631 The Last Contract of Isako is a searing space opera like no other that takes aim squarely at late-stage capitalism. Get ready to meet an aging contractor, Ithmus Isako, whose final mission thrusts her deep into a world of espionage and sword fights on an isolated colony planet.]]> Fonda Lee 0356526712 Nafiza 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Fonda Lee
name: Nafiza
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
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]]> 60910208
Neither here nor there, but long ago… After fleeing a patricidal prince, legendary merchant Loulie al-Nazari and banished prince Mazen bin Malik find themselves in the realm of jinn. But instead of sanctuary, they find a world on the cusp of collapse.

The jinn cities, long sheltered beneath the Sandsea by the magic of its kings, are sinking. Amid the turmoil, political alliances are forming, and rebellion is on the rise. When Loulie assists a dissenter—one of her bodyguard’s old comrades—she puts herself in the center of a centuries-old war.

Trapped in a world that isn’t her own and wielding magic that belongs to a fallen king, Loulie must decide: Will she carry on someone else’s legacy or carve out her own?]]> 544 Chelsea Abdullah Nafiza 0 tbr-owned-books 4.20 2025
author: Chelsea Abdullah
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
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]]> 46987 199 Leonora Carrington 1878972197 Nafiza 0 4.06 1974
author: Leonora Carrington
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
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]]> 55143103 240 Amy Sparkes 1406395315 Nafiza 0 3.68 2021
author: Amy Sparkes
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
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]]> 203469691
It is already a haven of tranquility and reflection for locals, but when someone leaves a notebook behind, the laundromat becomes a place that brings people together. One by one, customers start jotting down candid diary entries, opening their hearts and inviting acts of kindness from neighbours who were once just faces in the crowd.

But there is more to the diary than first appears, and before long the laundromat's regulars are teaming up to solve a mystery and help the notebook's former owner find peace.]]> 320 Kim Jiyun 1529437431 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 3.92 2023
author: Kim Jiyun
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: tbr-translations
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]]> 13533771 ?
Indridi and Sigrid, two blissfully happy young lovers, have their perfect worlds threatened (along with Indridi’s sanity) when they are “calculated apart” and are forced to go to extreme lengths to prove their love. Their journey ultimately puts them on a collision course with LoveStar, who is on his own mission to find what might become the last idea in the world.
?]]> 320 Andri Sn?r Magnason 1609804260 Nafiza 0 3.79 2002
author: Andri Sn?r Magnason
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/21
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]]> 52706058 One of Japan's greatest classic murder mysteries, introducing their best loved detective, translated into English for the first time.

In the winter of 1937, the village of Okamura is abuzz with excitement over the forthcoming wedding of a son of the grand Ichiyanagi family. But amid the gossip over the approaching festivities, there is also a worrying rumour - it seems a sinister masked man has been asking questions around the village.

Then, on the night of the wedding, the Ichiyanagi household are woken by a terrible scream, followed by the sound of eerie music. Death has come to Okamura, leaving no trace but a bloody samurai sword, thrust into the pristine snow outside the house. Soon, amateur detective Kosuke Kindaichi is on the scene to investigate what will become a legendary murder case, but can this scruffy sleuth solve a seemingly impossible crime?]]> 189 Seishi Yokomizo 1782275002 Nafiza 0 3.63 1946
author: Seishi Yokomizo
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1946
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/19
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]]> 210499009 Retail work has never been wilder than in this quirky manga that inspired a new animated movie!

Working retail is tough enough with regular human customers, but what about when they're owls, wolves, koalas...and a woolly mammoth? Welcome to the Hokkyoku Department Store, where new employee Akino's customers are talking animals--including extinct species! Just like any shopper, each has their own complicated request that Akino must strive to satisfy. From a wealthy laughing owl searching for the perfect present to delight his wife to a thespian sea mink attempting to find a gift for a long-awaited reunion with her father, Akino must learn to meet their needs, while also dealing with her challenging coworkers and elusive floor manager.]]> 146 Tsuchika Nishimura Nafiza 0 3.93 2017
author: Tsuchika Nishimura
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/19
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]]> 2379561 192 Kozue Chiba 4091308252 Nafiza 5 genre-manhwa 3.62 2007
author: Kozue Chiba
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: genre-manhwa
review:

]]> 6753060 with Daddy to a new house from our old house waaaaaaay over there! And
moving's fun 'cos people wave! (Ohhhh!!) And Yotsuba met these nice
people next door and made friends to play with (one of 'em acted like
one of those bad strangers Daddy told Yotsuba not to go with, but it was
okay in the end). I hope we get to play a lot. And eat ice cream!
And-and-and...oh yeah! You should come play with Yotsuba too!]]> 226 Kiyohiko Azuma 0316073873 Nafiza 5 genre-manhwa 4.37 2003
author: Kiyohiko Azuma
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: genre-manhwa
review:

]]> 52948513 192 Hinako Ashihara 142151477X Nafiza 5 genre-manhwa 3.97 2003
author: Hinako Ashihara
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: genre-manhwa
review:

]]> 6897011 The Book of Disquiet, an astonishing work that, in George Steiner's words, "gives to Lisbon the haunting spell of Joyce's Dublin or Kafka's Prague."Published for the first time some fifty years after his death, this unique collection of short, aphoristic paragraphs comprises the "autobiography" of Bernardo Soares, one of Pessoa's alternate selves. Part intimate diary, part prose poetry, part descriptive narrative, The Book of Disquiet is one of the greatest works of the twentieth century.

Fernando Pessoa, one of the founders of modernism, was born in Lisbon in 1888. Most of Pessoa's writing was not published during his lifetime: The Book of Disquiet was first published in Portugal in 1982.]]> 262 Fernando Pessoa 1846687357 Nafiza 0 books-i-own, working-on 4.15 1982
author: Fernando Pessoa
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: books-i-own, working-on
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]]> 221179055 From the brilliant and hilarious author of The Rook, a delightful new supernatural When the heir to the British throne suddenly dies under mysterious circumstances, Checquy operative and reluctant aristocrat Alix is assigned to be lady-in-waiting/personal bodyguard to the new Crown Princess, and must navigate the halls of power and privilege while investigating the supernatural murder of the Prince of Wales.
?
Alexandra "Alix" Dennis-Palmer-Hudson-Gilmore-Garnsey, the twelfth Lady Mondegreen, has never had any control of her life. Her supernatural ability to shatter bones with a touch made her the automatic property of the Checquy, the secret British government agency that deals with the supernatural. Her aristocratic ancestry made Alix the perfect asset for the Checquy to deploy close to the royal family. Since childhood, Alix has been coached to befriend Princess Louise, second in line to the throne, but despite all machinations, the two have never been close. Now an adult and a full Pawn of the Checquy, Alix is a skilled investigator unravelling supernatural manifestations for the security of the nation.
?
Everything changes when Louise's brother, the Prince of Wales, dies abruptly, and all signs point to an unnatural assassination. To protect Louise, the new and unwilling heir apparent, Alix is assigned to be her lady-in-waiting. Thrust into the limelight overnight—both in the everyday world and in the underground world of the Checquy—Alix must juggle her responsibilities and her loyalties as she attempts to unravel the murder, keep Louise safe, and learn how to smile graciously while eerie threats loom around every corner.]]> 416 Daniel O'Malley 0316568104 Nafiza 0 to-read 4.10 2025
author: Daniel O'Malley
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> 217388316
Together in one volume for the first time:

Emilie and the Hollow World
Running away from home, and stowing away on the wrong ship, Emilie embarks on a fantastic adventure.

Emilie learns that the crew hopes to use an experimental engine to journey to the interior of the planet, but when the ship becomes damaged on arrival, and evidence points to sabotage they encounter the treacherous Lord Ivers, along with a strange new race.

Can Emilie and her new-found friends possibly reach the surface world again?

Emilie and the Sky World
When Emilie arrives in Silk Harbor, Professor Abindon, an old colleague of her friend Lady Marlende, warns them of something strange and potentially deadly in the sky, a disruption in an upper air aether current. On further investigation they realize it’s a ship from another aetheric plane.

How to determine if it’s a friendly explorer, or something far more sinister… Nothing less than a journey into the dangerous air currents will do.

Join Emilie and she navigates the strange landscapes of the upper air, and the deadly menace that inhabits the Sky World.]]> 416 Martha Wells 1250873142 Nafiza 0 to-read 3.86 2025
author: Martha Wells
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> 214151418 A whip-smart family dramedy about estranged siblings competing to inherit their father’s Vietnamese sandwich franchise and unravel family mysteries.

Duc Tran, the eccentric founder of the national Vietnamese sandwich chain Duc’s Sandwiches, has decided to retire. With the help of the shady family lawyer, he informs his five estranged adult children that to get their inheritance, they must revitalize run-down shops in undesirable, old-school Little Saigon locations across Houston, San Jose, New Orleans, and Philadelphia—within a year. The only one without a shop is the bachelor son, but if he gets married before the year’s up, the inheritance goes to him.

Each daughter is stuck in a new city they don’t want to be in, battling gentrification, declining ethnic enclaves, messy love lives, and struggling to modernize their father’s American dream. The son wonders if he wants to marry for love or for money. As Duc’s children continue to work, family mysteries begin to unravel along the way as they learn the real intention behind the inheritance scheme.

The Family Recipe is about rediscovering one’s roots, different types of fatherly love, familial legacy, and finding one’s place in a divided country where the only commonality among your neighbors is the universal love of sandwiches.]]> 320 Carolyn Huynh 1668033046 Nafiza 0 to-read 3.75 2025
author: Carolyn Huynh
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> 223120401 Murder disrupts the peaceful, predictable daily routine of life for four quirky librarians who must protect their life-altering secrets in the first contemporary mystery from USA Today bestselling author Sherry Thomas.

Sometimes a workplace isn’t just a workplace but a place of safety, understanding, and acceptance. And sometimes murder threatens the sanctity of that beloved refuge....

In the leafy suburbs of Austin, Texas, a small branch library welcomes the public every day of the week. But the patrons who love the helpful, unobtrusive staff and leave rave reviews on Yelp don’t always realize that their librarians are human, too.

Hazel flees halfway across the world for what she hopes will be a new beginning. Jonathan, a six-foot-four former college football player, has never fit in anywhere else. Astrid tries to forget her heartbreak by immersing herself in work, but the man who ghosted her six months ago is back, promising trouble. And?Sophie, who has the most to lose, maintains a careful and respectful distance from her coworkers, but soon that won't be enough anymore.

When two patrons turn up dead after the library’s inaugural murder mystery–themed game night, the librarians’ quiet routines come crashing down. Something sinister has stirred, something that threatens every single one of them. And the only way the librarians can save the library—and themselves—is to let go of their secrets, trust one another, and band together....

All in a day’s work.]]> 368 Sherry Thomas 0593640454 Nafiza 0 to-read 3.81 2025
author: Sherry Thomas
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 223121168 Two-time Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo reunites with two-time Caldecott Medalist Sophie Blackall in an original fairy tale set in the world of The Puppets of Spelhorst and The Hotel Balzaar.

When a shoemaker discovers a tiny girl (as small as a mouse!) in his shop, he takes her in, names her Evangeline, and raises her as his own. The shoemaker’s wife, however, fears that Evangeline has bewitched her husband, so when an opportunity arises to rid herself of the girl, she takes it. Evangeline finds herself far from her adopted father and her home, a tiny girl lost in the wide world. But she is brave, and she is resourceful, and with the help of those she meets on her journey—including a disdainful and self-satisfied cat—she may just find her way again. Return to the magical land of Norendy in this third original fairy tale by renowned storyteller Kate DiCamillo, perfect for savoring alone or for reading aloud with someone you love. Graced with exquisite black-and-white illustrations by Sophie Blackall, this timeless story of a girl and her father will make you believe in the impossible.]]> 160 Kate DiCamillo 1536225525 Nafiza 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Kate DiCamillo
name: Nafiza
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 217388109 Status is hereditary, class is bestowed, trust must be earned.

When an arrogant prince (and his equally arrogant entourage) gets stuck in Orledder Halt as part of brutal political intrigue, competent and sunny deputy courier Elen―once a child slave meant to shield noblemen from the poisonous Pall―is assigned to guide him through the hills to reach his destination.

When she warns him not to enter the haunted Spires, the prince doesn’t heed her advice, and the man who emerges from the towers isn’t the same man who entered.

The journey that follows is fraught with danger. Can a group taught to ignore and despise the lower classes survive with a mere deputy courier as their guide?

The Witch Roads is the latest epic novel by fan favorite, Kate Elliott.]]> 448 Kate Elliott 1250338611 Nafiza 0 to-read 4.19 2025
author: Kate Elliott
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> 215819850 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?meets?Past Lives?in this gripping, emotional story of two childhood friends navigating the fallout of one erasing their memory of the other, from acclaimed author Sarah Suk.

Seventeen-year-old Yena Bae is spending the summer in Busan, South Korea, working at her mom’s memory-erasing clinic. She feels lost and disconnected from people, something she’s felt ever since her best friend, Lucas, moved away four years ago without a word, leaving her in limbo.

Eighteen-year-old Lucas Pak is also in Busan for the summer, visiting his grandpa, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. But he isn’t just here for a regular visit—he’s determined to get his beloved grandpa into the new study running at the clinic, a trial program seeking to restore lost memories.

When Yena runs into Lucas again, she’s shocked to see him and even more shocked to discover that he doesn’t remember a thing about her. He’s completely erased her from his memories, and she has no idea why.

As the two reconnect, they unravel the mystery and heartache of what happened between them all those years ago—and must now reckon with whether they can forge a new beginning together.]]> 288 Sarah Suk 0063255189 Nafiza 0 to-read 4.08 2025
author: Sarah Suk
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 215805865 In the hilarious and poignant follow-up to National Book Award Finalist Huda F Cares?, Huda's life and worldview is turned upside down when her parents announce they're divorcing.

Huda Fahmy is ready for junior year. She’s got a plan to join all the clubs, volunteer everywhere, ace the ACTs, write the most awe-inspiring essay for her scholarship applications. Easy.

But then Mama and Baba announce the most unthinkable they’re getting a divorce.?

Huda is devastated. She worries about what this will mean for her family, their place in the Muslim community, and her future. Her grades start tanking, she has a big fight with her best friend, and everything feels out of control. Will her life ever feel normal again? Huda F wants to know.]]> 224 Huda Fahmy 0593855620 Nafiza 0 to-read 4.38 2025
author: Huda Fahmy
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> 202468425 Translated from the Japanese bestseller, this charming and magical novel, inspired by the myth of cats returning favors to those who care for them, reminds us that it’s never too late to follow our stars.

In Japan cats are a symbol of good luck. As the myth goes, if you are kind to them, they’ll one day return the favor. And if you are kind to the right cat, you might just find yourself invited to a mysterious coffee shop under a glittering Kyoto moon. This particular coffee shop is like no other. It has no fixed location, no fixed hours, and seemingly appears at random to adrift young people at crucial junctions in their lives.

It’s also run by talking cats.

While customers at the Full Moon Coffee Shop partake in cakes, coffees, and teas, the cats also consult them on their star charts, offer cryptic wisdom, and let them know where their lives have veered off course—because every person who visits the shop has been feeling more than a little lost. And for a down-on-her-luck screenwriter, a romantically stuck movie director, a hopeful hairstylist, and a technologically challenged website designer, the feline guides will set them back on their fated paths. After all, there is a reason the shop appeared to each of them…]]> 240 Mai Mochizuki 0593726820 Nafiza 0 3.60 2020
author: Mai Mochizuki
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> 84352 462 Lin Yutang 0688163521 Nafiza 0 to-read 4.09 1937
author: Lin Yutang
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1937
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> 196839697 The brilliant debut from a winner of the 2021 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers.The Knot of My Tongue flows through poetic and prose forms, traversing continents, generations, and empires to examine the loss of speech and language occurring at and after moments of violence and rupture, from migration and colonial violence to intimate partner violence.Following a cast of characters from personal memory, family history, and Islamic traditions, at instances where they have either been rendered silent or found ways to speak forward and through experiences of loss—a father struggling to speak as an immigrant in Canada; a grandmother as she loses her children and her home after the 1947 Partition;? the Quranic story of Hajar, abandoned in the desert without water.The poems investigate both slow and immediate violence, what makes some go silent and others become louder in the face of loss? What do different kinds of violence—public and private—do to our ability to express and communicate? And what happens to us, to our bodies, and to our sense of self, when we are not able to communicate, when we have been rendered silent? In the aftermath of such moments, where and how do we turn and find expression?]]> 95 Zehra Naqvi 0771011342 Nafiza 0 books-i-own 4.54
author: Zehra Naqvi
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.54
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> 30211956
"I've always believed that everything you need to know you can find in a book," writes Will Schwalbe in his introduction to this thought-provoking, heartfelt, and inspiring new book about books.

In each chapter he makes clear the ways in which a particular book has helped to shape how he leads his own life and the ways in which it might help to shape ours. He talks about what brought him to each book - or vice versa; the people in his life he associates each book with; how each has led him to other books; how each is part of his understanding of himself in the world. And he relates each book to a question of our daily lives, for example: Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener speaks to quitting; 1984 to disconnecting from our electronics; James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room to the power of finding ourselves and connecting with one another; Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea to taking time to recharge; Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird to being sensitive to the surrounding world; The Little Prince to making friends; Paula Hawkins's The Girl on the Train to trusting.

Here, too, are books by Dickens, Daphne du Maurier, Haruki Murakami, Edna Lewis, E. B. White, and Hanya Yanagihara, among many others. A treasure of a book for everyone who loves books, loves reading, and loves to hear the answer to the question: "What are you reading?"]]> 288 Will Schwalbe 0385353545 Nafiza 0 3.85 2016
author: Will Schwalbe
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> 54369251
But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…]]> 306 T. Kingfisher 1614505241 Nafiza 4 books-i-own 4.02 2020
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> 12349282
The Silver Nutmeg continues the adventures begun in Beyond the Pawpaw Trees , and features loads of sense, a little nonsense, and more charming verses from Anna Lavinia’s favorite book of rhymes. Best of all, fans of Palmer Brown’s intricate drawings will find every page a delight for the eyes]]> 152 Palmer Brown 159017500X Nafiza 0 source-library 3.97 1956
author: Palmer Brown
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/29
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: source-library
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]]> 277551
Dickens creates the Victorian industrial city of Coketown, in northern England, and its unforgettable citizens, such as the unwavering utilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the factory owner Josiah Bounderby, and the result is his famous critique of capitalist philosophy, the exploitative force he believed was destroying human creativity and joy. This edition includes new notes to the text.]]> 496 Charles Dickens 0393975606 Nafiza 3 3.49 1854
author: Charles Dickens
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1854
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/04/04
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]]> 38643164
In these eleven stories, the individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces are confronted with the bizarre, the grotesque, the fantastic, the alien--and, through it, find a way to liberation. The English-language debut of one of Japan's most fearlessly inventive young writers.]]> 224 Yukiko Motoya 1593766785 Nafiza 5 3.60 2018
author: Yukiko Motoya
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2018
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/04/01
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]]> 328696 144 Xavier de Maistre 1843910993 Nafiza 0 to-read 3.61
author: Xavier de Maistre
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.61
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 148650491 128 Jess Housty 0889714509 Nafiza 5 4.40
author: Jess Housty
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.40
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
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]]> 1320279 540 Mo Yan 1559708530 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations, relais 4.05 2006
author: Mo Yan
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: tbr-translations, relais
review:

]]> 199793675
Equal parts magical and humorous, Invisible Kitties tells the story of a young couple that one day accidentally comes into possession of a delightful, playful kitten. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, this new companion, aptly named Cat, upturns the routine of the narrator and her husband in their cramped apartment, and soon they find their existence forever altered as they gradually gain insight into the fantastical world of cats.

Every cat contains multitudes... Charting the couple’s ever-evolving relationship with cats –some they live with, others who exist solely in their imagination– Invisible Kitties introduces us to a coterie of extraordinary, physics-defying, death-defying cats. They drop from the sky, they grow from the soil, they transmute. They fly, flow, and evaporate. The young couple’s everyday life, often eclipsed by the drama of cats, offers a gentle glimpse of how joy can suddenly sneak into our lives.

Composed of sixty chapters written in Yu Yoyo’s elegant and witty style and complemented by the author’s own illustrations— Invisible Kitties is a celebration of ordinary life and the felines we love, deftly playing with the invisible boundaries between reality and imagination.

Translated from the Chinese by Jeremy Tiang]]> 256 Yu Yoyo 0063336227 Nafiza 0 to-read 3.31
author: Yu Yoyo
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.31
book published:
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date added: 2025/03/18
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]]> 32865086 Winner of the 2018 Singapore Literature Prize for Poetry in English

A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore is a 19th century reference book (on philology? art history? anthropology? nobody remembers) that fell into a tropical swamp and was rescued, then lovingly restored, by a nice lady in curlers.

Caked in organic matter too dense to scrub off, the pages of Samuel Lee's debut collection reveal visions and premonitions of a city filled with characters engaged in their own private sorrows, both minute and expansive. To read him is to be lost in the aisles of millennia.]]> 61 Samuel Lee 9811112371 Nafiza 0 to-read 3.71 2016
author: Samuel Lee
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40130150 168 Inez Tan 981478544X Nafiza 0 to-read 3.72
author: Inez Tan
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.72
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 44776648 A house in Bangkok is the confluence of lives shaped by upheaval, memory, and the lure of home.

A missionary doctor pines for his native New England even as he succumbs to the vibrant chaos of nineteenth-century Siam. A post-WWII society woman marries, mothers, and holds court, little suspecting her solitary future. A jazz pianist in the age of rock, haunted by his own ghosts, is summoned to appease the resident spirits. A young woman tries to outpace the long shadow of her political past. And in New Krungthep, savvy teenagers row tourists past landmarks of the drowned old city they themselves do not remember. Time collapses as these stories collide and converge, linked by the forces voraciously making and remaking the amphibious, ever-morphing capital itself.]]> 360 Pitchaya Sudbanthad 1473677270 Nafiza 0 to-read 3.61 2019
author: Pitchaya Sudbanthad
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43357303 Against the backdrop of the war on drugs and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, a Korean girl comes of age in her parents' bodega in the Queensbridge projects, offering a singular perspective on our nation of immigrants and the tensions pulsing in the margins where they live and work.

In Su Hwang's rich lyrical and narrative poetics, the bodega and its surrounding neighborhoods are cast not as mere setting, but as an ecosystem of human interactions where a dollar passed from one stranger to another is an act of peaceful revolution, and desperate acts of violence are "the price / of doing business in the projects where we / were trapped inside human cages--binding us / in a strange circus where atoms of haves / and have-nots always forcefully collide." These poems also reveal stark contrasts in the domestic lives of immigrants, as the speaker's own family must navigate the many personal, cultural, and generational chasms that arise from having to assume a hyphenated identity--lending a voice to the traumatic toll invisibility, assimilation, and sacrifice take on so many pursuing the American Dream.

"We each suffer alone in / tandem," Hwang declares, but in Bodega, she has written an antidote to this solitary hurt--an incisive poetic debut that acknowledges and gives shape to anguish as much as it cherishes human life, suggesting frameworks for how we might collectively move forward with awareness and compassion.]]> 96 Su Hwang 1571315241 Nafiza 0 tbr-poetry, relais 4.12 2019
author: Su Hwang
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: tbr-poetry, relais
review:

]]> 144870 The Conference of the Birds transforms deep belief into magnificent poetry.]]> 278 Attar of Nishapur 0140444343 Nafiza 0 tbr-poetry, relais 4.25 1177
author: Attar of Nishapur
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1177
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: tbr-poetry, relais
review:

]]> 195725
In Men in the Off Hours , Carson offers further proof of her tantalizing gifts. Reinventing figures as diverse as Oedipus, Emily Dickinson, and Audubon, Carson sets up startling Lazarus among video paraphernalia, Virginia Woolf and Thucydides discussing war, Edward Hopper paintings illuminated by St. Augustine. And in a final prose poem, she meditates movingly on the recent death of her mother. With its quiet, acute spirituality and its fearless wit and sensuality, Men in the Off Hours shows us a fiercely individual poet at her best.]]> 176 Anne Carson 0375707565 Nafiza 0 4.08 2000
author: Anne Carson
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: anne-carson, tbr-poetry, relais
review:

]]> 209997076 150 Bae Myung-hoon 1915829127 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 3.12 2013
author: Bae Myung-hoon
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 205706169
Masterfully translated by Yewon Jung, The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre weaves a chilling tale of deceptive sweetness and the body horror of slowly melting into your loved ones.]]> 208 Cho yeeun 1915829038 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 3.56 2019
author: Cho yeeun
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 57938998 The kinetic story of a sixty-five-year-old female assassin who faces an unexpected threat in the twilight of her career--this is an international bestseller and the English language debut from an award-winning South Korean author

At sixty-five, Hornclaw is beginning to slow down. She lives modestly in a small apartment, with only her aging dog, a rescue named Deadweight, to keep her company. There are expectations for people her age--that she'll retire and live out the rest of her days quietly. But Hornclaw is not like other people. She is an assassin.

Double-crossers, corporate enemies, cheating spouses--for the past four decades, Hornclaw has killed them all with ruthless efficiency, and the less she's known about her targets, the better. But now, nearing the end of her career, she has just slipped up. An injury leads her to an unexpected connection with a doctor and his family. But emotions, for an assassin, are a dangerous proposition. As Hornclaw's world closes in, this final chapter in her career may also mark her own bloody end.

A sensation in South Korea, and now translated into English for the first time by Chi-Young Kim, The Old Woman with the Knife is an electrifying, singular, mordantly funny novel about the expectations imposed on aging bodies and the dramatic ways in which one woman chooses to reclaim her agency.]]> 288 Gu Byeong-mo 1335425764 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 3.49 2013
author: Gu Byeong-mo
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 49092634
We next meet San, aged twenty-two, as she starts a job in a flower shop. There, we are introduced to a colourful cast of characters, including the shop's mute owner, the other florist Su-ae, and the customers that include a sexually aggressive businessman and a photographer, who San develops an obsession for. Throughout, San's moment with Namae lingers in the back of her mind.

A story of desire and violence about a young woman who everyone forgot, VIOLETS is a captivating and sensual read, full of tragedy and beauty.]]> 218 Kyung-Sook Shin 1558612904 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 3.58 2001
author: Kyung-Sook Shin
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 211287653 Read the pageturning Korean feminist thriller for fans of KIM JIYOUNG BORN 1982 and CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN – soon to be a major Netflix Original TV Series starring Gong Yoo from SQUID GAMES and Seo Hyun-jin

Meet Noh thirty years old, with five wedding rings so far, and she’s never once been in love.

When Inji takes a job at Wedding & Life, the popular matchmaking service, she never imagines role will be with NM, their secretive marriage division that rents out ‘field husbands and wives’ to their wealthiest clientele for a limited time. Just like a real marriage, Inji's assignments involve a wedding, some sex and a bit of housework, there is even a special helpline in case of any DV. It's all tailored exactly to the client’s desires - no legal battles, no fights, no emotional baggage.

In no way is Inji interested in finding real love, despite everyone trying to convince her otherwise- her brazen neighbour Granny, her flirtatious best friend Shi-jeong, and her failed blind date, Tae-seong.

Then one of Inji's old husbands, a mysterious high-profile music producer, requests her back for another year. Soon Inji’s own dark past will begin to unravel – as well as the sinister underbelly of the NM’s management team, who will stop at nothing to preserve their reputation - and that of their clients.]]> 304 Kim Ryeo-ryeong 1335015019 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 2.87 2015
author: Kim Ryeo-ryeong
name: Nafiza
average rating: 2.87
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 213570821 From the bestselling author of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife and Midnight is the Darkest Hour comes a chilling, compulsive story of five amateur sleuths, whose hunt for an elusive killer catapults them into danger as the world watches.

It's the most famous crime in modern history. But only she knows the true story.

After the unexpected death of her father, college student Jane Sharp longs for a distraction from her grief. She becomes obsessed with true crime, befriending armchair detectives who teach her how to hunt killers from afar. In this morbid internet underground, Jane finds friendship, purpose, and even glory...

So when news of the shocking deaths of three college girls in Delphine, Idaho takes the world by storm, and sleuths everywhere race to solve the crimes, Jane and her friends are determined to beat them. But the case turns out to be stranger than anyone expected. Details don't add up, the police are cagey, and there seems to be more media hype and internet theorizing than actual evidence. When Jane and her sleuths take a step closer, they find that every answer only begs more questions. Something's not adding up, and they begin to suspect their killer may be smarter and more prolific than any they've faced before. Placing themselves in the center of the story starts to feel more and more like walking into a trap...

Told one year after the astounding events that concluded the case and left the world reeling, when Jane has finally decided to break her silence about what really happened, she tells the true story of the Delphine Massacres. And what she has to confess will shock even the most seasoned true crime fans...


]]> 480 Ashley Winstead 1728270006 Nafiza 0 to-read 3.68 2025
author: Ashley Winstead
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> 310720
White Walls is the most comprehensive collection of Tolstaya's short fiction to be published in English so far. It presents the contents of her two previous collections, On the Golden Porch and Sleepwalker in a Fog, along with several previously uncollected stories. Tolstaya writes of lonely children and lost love, of philosophers of the absurd and poets working as janitors, of angels and halfwits. She shows how the extraordinary will suddenly erupt in the midst of ordinary life, as she explores the human condition with a matchless combination of unbound imagination and unapologetic sympathy.

A New York Review Books Original

"Tolstaya carves indelible people who roam the imagination long after the book is put down." --Time]]> 404 Tatyana Tolstaya 1590171977 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 4.01 2007
author: Tatyana Tolstaya
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 17262561 Autobiography of a Corpse, and the extraordinary spills out.

Contents:
Autobiography of a corpse --
In the pupil --
Seams --
The collector of cracks --
The land of nots --
The runaway fingers --
The unbitten elbow --
Yellow coal --
Bridge over the Styx --
Thirty pieces of silver --
Postmark: Moscow.]]> 230 Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky 1590176707 Nafiza 0 3.87 1927
author: Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1927
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: source-library, wish-list, tbr-translations
review:

]]> 17591560 219 Jung Mi-Kyung 1564789101 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 3.91 2008
author: Jung Mi-Kyung
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 30091914 A riveting, poetic, and fearless portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice by the acclaimed author of The Vegetarian.

In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed.

The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho’s best friend, who meets his own fateful end, to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, both suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother, their collective heartbreak and acts of hope tell the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice.

An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of a historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.]]> 218 Han Kang 1101906723 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 4.26 2014
author: Han Kang
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 41953346
When our heroine Ophelia is promoted to Vice-storyteller by Farouk, the ancestral Spirit of Pole, she finds herself unexpectedly thrust into the public spotlight and her special gift is revealed to all. Ophelia knows how to read the secret history of objects and there could be no greater threat to the nefarious denizens of her icy adopted home than this. Beneath the golden rafters of Pole’s capitol, Citaceleste, she discovers that the only person she may be able to trust is Thorn, her enigmatic fiancé. As one after another influential courtier disappears, Ophelia again finds herself unintentionally implicated in an investigation that will lead her to see beyond Pole’s many illusions to the heart of the formidable truth.]]> 540 Christelle Dabos 160945507X Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 4.35 2015
author: Christelle Dabos
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 36348525
Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?

A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale and satire.]]> 291 Ling Ma 0374261598 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 3.90 2018
author: Ling Ma
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-translations
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]]> 55333961
This is the question the unnamed protagonist of Ghost Forest considers after her father dies. One of the many Hong Kong "astronaut" fathers, he stays there to work, while the rest of the family immigrated to Canada before the 1997 Handover, when the British returned sovereignty over Hong Kong to China.

As she revisits memories of her father through the years, she struggles with unresolved questions and misunderstandings. Turning to her mother and grandmother for answers, she discovers her own life refracted brightly in theirs.

Buoyant, heartbreaking, and unexpectedly funny, Ghost Forest is a slim novel that envelops the reader in joy and sorrow. Fung writes with a poetic and haunting voice, layering detail and abstraction, weaving memory and oral history to paint a moving portrait of a Chinese-Canadian astronaut family.]]> 272 Pik-Shuen Fung 0593230965 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 4.15 2021
author: Pik-Shuen Fung
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-translations
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]]> 41067286
"That’s how it generally is with Aeja’s stories. They’re as potent as a putrid peach. Listening to her words your head starts to droop with their sticky juice trickling down your ears, until all you can do is succumb to the saccharine flow."

From one of South Korea’s most acclaimed young authors comes the story of two sisters, Sora and Nana. When Sora was ten years old, and Nana was nine, their father died in a freak accident at the factory where he worked, his body sucked under a huge cogwheel, crushed beyond recognition. Their mother Aeja, numb with grief, gives in to torpor, developing an unhealthy obsession with the paradoxical violence implicit in life.

Now adults, Sora finds herself dreaming of the past when she discovers that Nana is pregnant. Her initial reaction is shock – though they live together, she never even realised her younger sister had a lover – and Nana’s icy response to her attempt at being considerate (‘You hate this, so don’t pretend like I’m some poor pregnant woman you have to pity’) drives a wedge between the two. Can Naghi – the boy who shared their childhood, and the simple, nourishing meals cooked by his mother – help the sisters break free of Aeja’s worldview in which life is ultimately futile and love is always doomed?

A delicate stylist with an unflinching social gaze, in I’ll Go On Hwang Jungeun has crafted a poignant novel with an uncanny ear for the unspoken secrets and heartaches buried beneath daily life and family ritual. Above all, it is a stunning exploration of the intensity of early bonds – and the traces they leave on us as we grow up.]]> 283 Hwang Jungeun 1911284207 Nafiza 0 to-purchase, tbr-translations 3.78 2014
author: Hwang Jungeun
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: to-purchase, tbr-translations
review:

]]> 57485174 Startling stories that center the bodies, memories, myths, and relationships of Asian American women, from the National Book Award “5 Under 35” honoree and author of Bestiary

In “Auntland,” a steady stream of aunts adjust to American life by sneaking surreptitious kisses from women at temple, buying tubs of vanilla ice cream to prepare for citizenship tests, and hatching plans to name their daughter “Dog.” In “The Chorus of Dead Cousins,” ghost-cousins cross space, seas, and skies to haunt their live-cousin, wife to a storm-chaser. In “Xífù,” a mother-in-law tortures a wife in increasingly unsuccessful attempts to rid the house of her. In “Mariela,” two girls explore one another’s bodies for the first time in the belly of a plastic shark while in “Virginia Slims,” a woman from a cigarette ad comes to life. And in “Resident Aliens,” a former slaughterhouse serves as a residence to a series of widows, each harboring her own calamitous secrets.

With each tale, K-Ming Chang gives us her own take on a surrealism that mixes myth and migration, corporeality and ghostliness, queerness and the quotidian. Stunningly told in her feminist fabulist style, these are uncanny stories peeling back greater questions of power and memory.]]> 224 K-Ming Chang 0593241584 Nafiza 0 3.70 2022
author: K-Ming Chang
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: 2022-releases, tbr-translations
review:

]]> 139874 542 Cao Xueqin 0140442936 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 4.21 1791
author: Cao Xueqin
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1791
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 153426 173 Clarice Lispector 0816617120 Nafiza 0 want-2023, tbr-translations 4.20 1964
author: Clarice Lispector
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1964
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: want-2023, tbr-translations
review:

]]> 194036469
For Penny, an enthusiastic new hire, working at the store is the opportunity of a lifetime. As she uncovers the workings of this whimsical world, she bonds with a cast of unforgettable characters, including DallerGut, the flamboyant and wise owner, Babynap Rockabye, a famous dream designer, Maxim, a nightmare producer, and the many customers who dream to heal, dream to grow, and dream to flourish.

A captivating story that will leave a lingering magical feeling in readers' minds, this is the first book in a bestselling duology for anyone exhausted from the reality of their daily life.]]> 243 Lee Mi-ye 1035412748 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 3.65 2020
author: Lee Mi-ye
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 209192695 From the bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.

We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life.

Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world—a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.]]> 449 Haruki Murakami 0593801970 Nafiza 0 3.72 2023
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: 2024-releases, tbr-japanaese-lit
review:

]]> 207670238
“What is it you think you’re protecting in that brain of yours? The war is over. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame extinguished. There’s no one left for you to save.”

Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner—of war and of her own mind. Her Resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed.

In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia’s new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile, undead creatures helped bring about their victory, holds Helena captive.

According to Resistance records, she was a healer of little importance within their ranks. But Helena has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder: Is she truly as insignificant as she appears, or are her lost memories hiding some vital piece of the Resistance’s final gambit?

To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena’s fight—to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self—is just beginning. For her prison and captor have secrets of their own . . . secrets Helena must unearth, whatever the cost.]]> 976 SenLinYu Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 4.73 2025
author: SenLinYu
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.73
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 60387307 A charmingly idiosyncratic look at writing, creativity, and the author’s own novels.

Haruki Murakami’s myriad fans will be delighted by this unique look into the mind of a master storyteller. In this engaging book, the internationally best-selling author and famously reclusive writer shares with readers what he thinks about being a novelist; his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians. Readers who have long wondered where the mysterious novelist gets his ideas and what inspires his strangely surreal worlds will be fascinated by this highly personal look at the craft of writing.]]> 224 Haruki Murakami 0451494644 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.90 2015
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-japanaese-lit
review:

]]> 208894879 The million-copy internationally bestselling illustrated life guide about how to stop comparing yourself to others—especially on social media—and how to find the strength to be yourself

In a world where it can seem impossible to feel that you are ever good enough, and where it’s easy to judge yourself by the unrealistic standards of social media, I Decided to Live as Me offers guidance and encouragement for celebrating yourself and feeling comfortable in your own skin.

With her charming illustrations and words of comfort, Kim Suhyun has reached millions of readers—including Jung Kook from the K-pop band BTS—who have found inspiration in her journey of self-love. She offers a checklist to guide you on your own journey, with advice including:

- Don't be kind to those who aren't kind to you.
- Remember that no one lives a perfect life.
- Don't be swayed by others' opinions.
- Crack corny jokes sometimes.
- Don't try too hard to get along with everyone.

Through these tips and more, I Decided to Live as Me teaches you that by freeing yourself from the pressure of other people's expectations, you can focus on what truly matters: living not for anyone else, but for yourself.]]> 272 Kim Suhyun 0143138227 Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 3.72 2016
author: Kim Suhyun
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-translations
review:

]]> 52041353 In the gateway city, only the best stories survive.

The port of Tianjin is where the ancient Chinese empire met the sea. Its inhabitants, shaped by the bitter earth that the city sprang from, are known for their coarse and hardy nature, and they are not easily impressed.

However, every once in a while there emerges someone so remarkable that a new name is inducted into Tianjin’s hall of fame, forever woven into the social fabric.

From a miracle doctor to an educated gangster, they come from every walk of life and in all shapes and sizes. Together, their stories make up the rich tapestry of a city that the modern world has washed away…]]> 285 Feng Jicai 191076048X Nafiza 0 tbr-translations 3.73
author: Feng Jicai
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.73
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-translations
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]]> 213712805 The power dynamics of the office are never more obvious than when it comes to food: mandatory lunches with the boss, the colleague who tries to curry favour with home-baked goods, discovering the discarded remnants of someone else's late-night binge . . .

In their Saitama office, Ashikawa is the kind of woman Nitani knows he will likely marry: sweet, obliging, and determined to wean him off his addiction to instant noodles. But he finds himself increasingly unable to respect her – or the sugary treats she shares around the workplace, winning their colleagues’ affection with baking rather than hard work.

Oshio is bolder and uninhibited – she is Nitani's drinking buddy. In the oppressive office atmosphere, the pair grows closer, both outsiders struggling with the rigid status quo.

Driven to behave in increasingly absurd ways by the workplace rules that govern their lives, they must navigate the tensions of modern life: between leisure and hard work; indulgence and restraint; the promise of delicious food, and the reality of a lonely pot noodle.]]> 134 Junko Takase 1804947342 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.04 2022
author: Junko Takase
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-japanaese-lit
review:

]]> 54884155 A story from one of Japan's rising literary stars about memory, loss, and love, Touring the Land of the Dead is a mesmerizing combination of two tales, both told with stylistic inventiveness and breathtaking sensitivity.

Taichi was forced to stop working almost a decade ago and since then he and his wife Natsuko have been getting by on her part-time wages. But Natsuko is a woman accustomed to hardship. When her own family's fortune dried up years during her childhood, she, her brother, and her mother lived a surreal hand-to-mouth existence shaped by her mother's refusal to accept their new station in life.

One day, Natsuko sees an ad for a spa and recognizes the place as the former luxury hotel that Natsuko's grandfather had taken her mother to when she was little. She decides to take her damaged husband to the spa, despite the cost, but their time there triggers hard but ultimately redemptive memories relating to the complicated history of her family and a reconciliation with her husband.

Modeled on Junichiro Tanizaki's classic story, The Makioka Sisters, Ninety-Nine Kisses is the second story in this book and it portrays in touching and lyrical fashion the lives of the four unmarried sisters in a historical, close-knit neighborhood of contemporary Tokyo.]]> 119 Maki Kashimada 1609456521 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.11 2012
author: Maki Kashimada
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.11
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> 41825397 304 Tomihiko Morimi 1975382609 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.72 2010
author: Tomihiko Morimi
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-japanaese-lit
review:

]]> 211301202 The perfect gift for cat lovers: a beloved Japanese modern classic that chronicles the author's twenty-year bond with her cat, meditating on solitude, independence, companionship, the writing life, and how cats can change our lives.

For the last 20 years, Japanese readers have been falling in love with the late poet and prizewinning author Mayumi Inaba's story of life with her cat Mii, after she rescued her as a newborn kitten from a riverbank in Tokyo.

The book follows their everyday joys through the seasons, as Mayumi develops her career as a writer, and finds her feet in life, with her small feline always at her side.

Translated into English for the first time by world-renowned translator Ginny Tapley Takemori, Mornings With My Cat Mii is set to capture the hearts and imaginations of readers and booksellers everywhere.]]> 180 Mayumi Inaba 1787304418 Nafiza 0 3.49 1999
author: Mayumi Inaba
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: 2024-releases, tbr-japanaese-lit
review:

]]> 213819980 Welcome to Tenderness!

A quaint seaside town in Kitakyushu, Mojiko is full of hidden delights. And one unexpected treasure is the 24/7 convenience store, Tenderness.

At first glance, it’s a store like any other.

Sure, it’s a bit odd that the handsome manager has his own fan club. And perhaps the customers are somewhat eccentric. But there’s a warmth about Tenderness that draws you in.

The bright lights are always on. The employees know you by name. And the shelves are stacked with delicious treats, from strong hot coffee to sweet parfaits, egg sandos to ramen, crispy fried chicken to refreshing soba.

After a while, you get the feeling that whatever you need might just be waiting for you here…

Celebrating the joy of connection and community, The Convenience Store by the Sea is the heartwarming international bestseller from award-winning Japanese novelist Sonoko Machida.]]> 282 Sonoko Machida 1398722774 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.83 2020
author: Sonoko Machida
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-japanaese-lit
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]]> 23352450
One day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. She is a beautiful creature. She leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. New, small joys accompany the cat; the days have more light and colour. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife; they go walking together, talk and share stories of the cat and its little ways, play in the nearby garden. But then something happens that will change everything again.

The Guest Cat is an exceptionally moving and beautiful novel about the nature of life and the way it feels to live it. The book won Japan's Kiyama Shohei Literary Award, and was a bestseller in France and America.]]> 140 Takashi Hiraide 1447279409 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.45 2001
author: Takashi Hiraide
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> 215369044 For lovers of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, a new book about the beauty of humble objects, the power of writing, and reconnecting with those you have lost.

Write your story, heal your heart . . .

Hidden away in a corner of the Ginza neighbourhood is a venerable stationery shop. To venture inside is to find everything your stationery-loving heart desires, from the most delicate paper to fountain pens that fit exactly to the shape of your hand to gorgeously coloured inks. The shop owner intuits your every need, inviting you to take a seat at a small wooden table on the top floor, where you'll find the words flowing, helping you unlock repressed memories, secret longings and your own mysteries.

To this shop comes a young company employee, uncertain in his career and needing a connection back to his past; the hostess of an elegant club; the vice-captain of a high-school archery team, an ageing businessman and a formerly homeless sushi chef. With impeccable manners and a warm demeanour, the shop owner helps each of them with more than just their stationery needs.]]> 224 Kenji Ueda 1786584646 Nafiza 0 3.79 2022
author: Kenji Ueda
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: 2024-releases, tbr-japanaese-lit
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]]> 148026113 Mieko Kawakami Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 4.31 2023
author: Mieko Kawakami
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> 211479192 A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical journey when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike and enchanting fantasy novel.

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.

Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.

Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds.

But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.]]> 384 Samantha Sotto Yambao 0593724992 Nafiza 0 3.79 2025
author: Samantha Sotto Yambao
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: 2025-releases, tbr-japanaese-lit
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]]> 41753650 316 Soetsu Yanagi Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.50 2017
author: Soetsu Yanagi
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> 215366525 Follow the bank of the Koitogawa river until you reach the beach. From there a path of white seashells will lead you to the Chibineko Kitchen. Step inside, they'll be expecting you.

Nagi Hayakawa is facing an impossible choice. Should she agree to marry her boyfriend, despite being ill and not knowing how many years she has left to live, or should she protect him from future heartbreak by refusing? Desperate for advice from the one person no longer there to give it - her mother who died years before - she reserves a table at the Chibineko Kitchen.

When she takes her first bite of the miso-marinated tofu and rice, prepared for her by the restaurant's young chef, Kai, the gulls outside fall silent and the air grows hazy.

Deliciously heart-warming, The Chibineko Kitchen is about savouring every moment.]]> Yuta Takahashi 1399817698 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 4.06 2020
author: Yuta Takahashi
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> 59422061
Cho Norie, twenty-seven and originally from Taiwan, is working an office job in Tokyo. While her colleagues worry about the economy, life-insurance policies, marriage, and children, she is forced to keep her unconventional life hidden—including her sexuality and the violent attack that prompted her move to Japan. There is also her unusual fascination with death: she knows from personal experience how devastating death can be, but for her it is also creative fuel. Solo Dance depicts the painful coming of age of a gay person in Taiwan and corporate Japan. This striking debut is an intimate and powerful account of a search for hope after trauma.

Translated from Japanese by Arthur Reiji Morris]]> 149 Kotomi Li 1642861162 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.68 2017
author: Kotomi Li
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> 200117093 Is there anyone you wish to see?

When Hirase, a young woman from Tokyo, arranges an appointment with the Go-Between, she doesn't expect a teenager to show up. Dressed preppily in a duffel coat and carrying a scuffed notebook, he arranges for the dead to meet the living. At least, this is what Hirase has been told.

He ushers his clients into a chilly hospital courtyard where he lays down the rules: the reunion is at full moon; the deceased can be summoned only once; they can refuse; the service is entirely free.

- Hirase asks to see the TV star who once helped her;
- A stubborn family man asks his deceased mother where the deeds are to some land;
- A young woman gets a horrible shock when she receives a message from the best friend whose death she caused;
- A weary salary man explores why his girlfriend went missing days after he proposed.

With each heartbreaking reunion, clues are scattered for readers to piece together the mindblowing truth behind the boy in the duffel coat, as Tsujimura shows with astonishing empathy and insight how the power of memory can give our lives meaning.]]> 320 Mizuki Tsujimura 1529911427 Nafiza 0 3.92 2010
author: Mizuki Tsujimura
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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]]> 216616111 The long-awaited sequel to the #1 international bestseller The Cat Who Saved Books—a delightful and heartwarming celebration of books, libraries, cats, and the people who love them.

A chronic asthma condition prevents thirteen-year-old Nanami from playing sports or spending time with her friends after school. But nothing can stop her from one of her favorite activities. Nanami loves to read and happily spends much of her free time in the school library, cocooned among the stacks.

Then one day, Nanami notices that, despite the library being as deserted as ever, some of her favorite books, including literary classics like Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar and Anne of Green Gables are disappearing from the shelves. When she alerts the library staff, they dismiss her concerns. But just as Nanami is about to return to her reading, she spots a suspicious man in a gray suit. Eager to discover what he’s up to, she follows him. The chase is cut short when Nanami suffers an asthma attack. By the time she catches her breath, the man has disappeared and all that is left behind is a mysterious light filtering through the library’s familiar passageways.

That’s when Tiger, the talking tabby cat who saves books, comes to the rescue.

Are Nanami and Tiger prepared to face the dangerous challenges that lie ahead? Why are faceless gray soldiers burning books in a stone castle? And what happened to Rintaro, the socially withdrawn hero who helped Tiger save books in a second-hand bookshop?

At a time of increased book bannings worldwide, Sosuke Natsukawa urges us not to underestimate the power of great literature—and to be prepared to defend our freedom to choose.]]> 224 Sōsuke Natsukawa 0063419246 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.83 2024
author: Sōsuke Natsukawa
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> 201072367 A symphony of interconnected lives that offers a compelling reflection on life in modern-day metropolises at the intersection of isolation and intimacy.

Set over several nights, between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., in and around Tokyo, this mind-blowingly constructed book is an elaborate, energetic fresco of human nocturnal existence in all its mystery, an enigmatic literary mix of Agatha Christie, Teju Cole, and Heironymous Bosch.

On this journey through the labyrinthine streets and hidden corners of one of the world’s most fascinating cities, everybody is searching for something, and maybe searching in the wrong places. Elements of the fantastical and the surreal abound, as they tend to do in the early pre-dawn hours of the morning, yet the settings, the human stories, and each character’s search are all as real as can be.

Goodnight Tokyo offers readers a unique and intimate take on Tokyo as seen through the eyes of a large cast of colorful characters. Their lives, as disparate and as far apart as they may seem, are in fact intricately interconnected and as their fates converge against the backdrop of the city’s neon-lit streets and quiet alleyways, Yoshida masterfully portrays in captivating, lyrical prose the complexities of human relationships, the mystery of human connection, and the universal quest for meaning.]]> 176 Atsuhiro Yoshida Nafiza 0 3.55 2018
author: Atsuhiro Yoshida
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> 205654869 A heart warming and irresistible novel about the rejuvenating power of pottery, for fans of Before The Coffee Gets Cold and What You Are Looking For Is In The Library.

She rubbed the spoiled clay with her fingertips. Like a wound as it heals, the traces faded, and had soon vanished completely, as if they’d never been there at all.

Burnt out by her newswriting job, Jungmin abruptly quits; she’s worked tirelessly for years and she needs to make a change.

Now, after months of hibernation, it’s time to put her life back together. Venturing out into the streets near Seoul, she stumbles upon the Soyo pottery workshop. Drawn in by its light and warmth, and the smell of clay and coffee, Jungmin feels something unfurl within her…

Here, everyone has a story to share, and as the seasons change, Jungmin returns to herself. Pot by pot, plate by plate, Jungmin discovers that as her hands become busier, her mind becomes calmer, and her heart opens up like never before.

From a rising talent, this is an uplifting story of new friends and old practices, of finding community, and of what happens when you finally slow down in this fast-paced world.]]> 272 Yeon Somin 0241698707 Nafiza 0 3.84 2023
author: Yeon Somin
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> 216670080
A pregnant woman’s sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning.

A child’s picture of his home contains a dark secret message.

A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbit hole that will reveal a horrifying reality.

Structured around these nine childlike drawings, every one holding a disturbing clue, this novel invites readers to piece together the harrowing truth behind each and the overarching backstory that connects them all. Strange Pictures is the bestselling international debut from mystery-horror YouTube sensation Uketsu—an enigmatic masked figure who has become one of Japan's most talked about contemporary authors.]]> 236 Uketsu 0063433087 Nafiza 0 4.04 2022
author: Uketsu
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> 59892213 Japan's internationally celebrated master storyteller returns with five stories of women on their way to healing that vividly portrays the blissful moments and everyday sorrows that surround us in everyday life.

First published in Japan in 2003 and never-before-published in the United States, Dead-End Memories collects the stories of five women who, following sudden and painful events, quietly discover their ways back to recovery.

Among the women we meet in Dead-End Memories is a woman betrayed by her fiancé who finds a perfect refuge in an apartment above her uncle's bar while seeking the real meaning of happiness. In "House of Ghosts", a daughter of a yōshoku restaurant owner encounters the ghosts of a sweet elderly couple who haven't yet realized that they have been dead for years. In "Tomo-chan's Happiness", an office worker who is a victim of sexual assault finally catches sight of the hope of romance.

Yoshimoto's gentle, effortless prose reminds us that one true miracle can be as simple as having someone to share a meal with and that happiness is always within us if only we take a moment to pause and reflect. Discover this collection of what Yoshimoto herself calls the "most precious work of my writing career".]]> 240 Banana Yoshimoto 1640093699 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.94 2003
author: Banana Yoshimoto
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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]]> 185767238
In 1903, a fifteen-year-old girl named Ichi Aoi is sold to the most exclusive brothel in Kumamoto, Japan. Despite her modest beginnings in a southern fishing village, she becomes the protégée of an oiran, the highest-ranking courtesan at the brothel. Through the teachings of her oiran, Shinonome, Ichi begins to understand the intertwined power of sex and money. And in her mandatory school lessons, her writing instructor, Tetsuko, encourages Ichi and the others to think clearly and express themselves.?

Based on real-life events in Meiji-era Japan, award-winning and critically acclaimed veteran writer Kiyoko Murata re-creates in stunning detail the brutal yet vibrant lives of women in the red-light district at the turn of the twentieth century—the bond they share, the survival skills they pass down, and the power of owning one's language. By banding together, the women organize a strike and walk away from the brothel and into the possibility of new lives.]]> 320 Kiyoko Murata 1640095799 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.81 2013
author: Kiyoko Murata
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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]]> 61175097 WINNER OF THE MISHIMA YUKIO PRIZE

An ordinary housewife finds herself haunted by visions of a mushroom cloud and abruptly leaves her husband and son to travel alone to the city of Nagasaki, where she soon begins an affair with a young half-Russian, half-Japanese man.

Inspired by Marguerite Duras’s screenplay for Hiroshima, Mon Amour, this novel is a further demonstration of Kashimada’s distinctive literary style and technique and her commitment to plumbing the depths of her characters’ psychology. Dealing with the travails and traumas of history, with gendered identity, with the tension between private and public selves, Love at Six Thousand Degrees is a distinctive and intriguing novel by one of Japan’s most unique contemporary authors.]]> 128 Maki Kashimada 1609458192 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 2.97 2005
author: Maki Kashimada
name: Nafiza
average rating: 2.97
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> 37800111
As hopes for Japan's youngest generation fade, a secretive organisation embarks on an audacious plan to find a cure - might Yoshiro's great-grandson be the key to saving the last children of Tokyo?]]> 138 Yōko Tawada 1846276705 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.30 2014
author: Yōko Tawada
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> 205878442 Is three days with a cat long enough to change your life?

The troubled and anxious of Tokyo are desperate to find out. They all have their problems - and they all want to believe that a temporary feline companion from a unique pet shop can help them find a solution. Or at least provide a few days' relief and distraction.

But, like all their kind, the Blanket Cats are mysterious creatures with their own unknowable agendas, who delight in confounding expectations. And perhaps what their hosts are looking for isn't what they really need. Three days may not be enough to change your life. But it can be enough to change how you see it.]]> Kiyoshi Shigematsu 1529435250 Nafiza 0 tbr-japanaese-lit 3.58 2008
author: Kiyoshi Shigematsu
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/01
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]]> 60382735
Morrigan Crow is ready for a new adventure. In? The Mystery of Morrigan Crow , we will travel to places in Nevermoor that we've never seen, we'll meet people from Morrigan's past who will be very important in untangling the mystery of who she is...as she sides with someone very dangerous to learn more of the Wundrous Arts.]]> 592 Jessica Townsend 0316348392 Nafiza 0 to-read 4.67 2025
author: Jessica Townsend
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 204593511 From acclaimed Japanese author?Sanaka Hiigari comes a?heartwarming, life-affirming novel about a?magical photo studio, where people go after they die to view key moments from their life—and relive one precious memory before they pass into the afterlife.

The hands and pendulum of the old wooden clock on the wall were motionless. Hirasaka?cocked his head to listen, but the silence inside the photo studio was almost deafening. His?leather shoes sank softly into the aging red carpet as he strode over to the arrangement of?flowers on the counter and carefully adjusted the angle of the petals...

This is the story of the peculiar and magical photo studio owned by Mr. Hirasaki, a collector of antique cameras. In the dimly lit interior, a paper background is pulled down in front of a wall, and in front of it stands a single, luxurious chair with an armrest on one side. On a stand is a large bellows camera. On the left is the main studio; photos can also be taken in the courtyard.

Beyond its straightforward interior, however, is a secret. The studio is, in fact, the door to the afterlife, the place between life and death?where those who have departed have a chance—one last time—to see their entire life flash before their eyes via?Mr. Hirasaki's "spinning lantern of?memories."

We meet?Hatsue, a ninety-two year old woman who worked as a nursery teacher,?the rowdy Waniguchi, a yakuza overseer in his life who is also capable of great compassion, and finally?Mitsuru, a young girl who has died tragically young at the hands of abusive parents.?

Sorting through the many photos of their lives,?Mr. Hirasaki also offers guests one guests a second a?chance to travel back in time to take a photo of one?particular moment in their lives that they wish to cherish in a special way.

Full of charm and whimsy, The Lantern of Lost Memories will sweep you away to a world of nostalgia,?laughter, and love.]]> 208 Sanaka Hiiragi 1538757435 Nafiza 0 4.12 2019
author: Sanaka Hiiragi
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> 11613007
But did the letters ever reach their intended recipient? Only the teenage Afaf, who works at the local post office, would know. Her duty is to open the mail and inform her collaborator father of the contents—until she finds a mysterious set of love letters, for which she selects another destiny.

Afaf has lived in shame ever since her mother left her father for another man. And in this novel, her story is followed in turn by another: the story of a woman who leaves her husband for someone else, to whom she declares her love in a letter…

The chain of stories that make up this singular novel form a wrenching examination of relationships and their limits—relationships tenuous, oblique, and momentous. In prose at once fierce and subtle, We Are All Equally Far from Love is a haunting portrait of alienation and desire.]]> 148 Adania Shibli Nafiza 0 books-i-own 3.40 2004
author: Adania Shibli
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/28
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review:

]]> 210693153 In the beloved tradition of Howl’s Moving Castle, a whimsical and unforgettable story of fantastic adventure, common sense, and the power of love to overcome the greatest of obstacles . . .

Before Foss Butcher was Snagged, she thought no more of the magic-users than did anyone else in her tiny village. Sometimes gorgeous women in impossible carriages rolled into town and took bits of people’s hearts. Everyone knew hearts fueled their magic. But Foss, plain, clumsy, and practical as a boot, never expected anyone would want hers.

True enough, when the only sorcerer in the kingdom stepped from his glossy carriage, he didn’t intend to hook Foss. Sylvester’s riot of black curls and perfectly etched cheekbones caught her eye a moment too long, that was all. Suddenly, Foss is cursed and finds herself stomping toward the grand City to keep his enchanted House, where her only friend is a talking cat and the walls themselves have moods.

But as Foss learns the ways of magic, she realizes she’s far from its only unwilling captive. Even Sylvester is hemmed in by spells and threats. It’s said this sorcery protects king, country, and order for thousands. If Foss wants to free herself—and, perhaps, Sylvester—she’ll have to confront it all . . . and uncover the blight nestled in the heart of the kingdom itself.]]> 448 Andrea Eames 1645661881 Nafiza 0 to-read 3.60 2025
author: Andrea Eames
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/26
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]]> 221034989 A publishing event ten years in the making—a searing, exquisite new novel by the best-selling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists—the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires.

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until — betrayed and brokenhearted — she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America – but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.]]> 416 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 0008685738 Nafiza 0 to-read 3.89 2025
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/26
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]]> 62107762
Except, her gift of green magic has begun to fade, and if that wasn’t enough to upset the balance of her life, a fateful run-in with another power-hungry witch with a penchant for stolen magic has threatened to bring it all to ruin.

Cast into an unexpected alliance with her dreadfully arrogant classmate, Aurelia goes into hiding among a peculiar family of witches, where she discovers that the secret to their safety requires breaking rules she has followed all her life:
Make no promises,
Tell no one what you are,
and
Never stay the night.]]> 418 Isabel Agajanian Nafiza 0 to-read 3.65 2023
author: Isabel Agajanian
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/25
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]]> 213702691 Perfect Victims is an urgent affirmation of the Palestinian condition of resistance and refusal―an ode to the steadfastness of a nation.

Palestine is a microcosm of the on fire, stubborn, fragmented, dignified. While a settler colonial state continues to inflict devastating violence, fundamental truths are deliberately obscured—the perpetrators are coddled while the victims are blamed and placed on trial.

Why must Palestinians prove their humanity? And what are the implications of such an infuriatingly impossible task? With fearless prose and lyrical precision, Mohammed El-Kurd refuses a life spent in cross-examination. Rather than asking the oppressed to perform a perfect victimhood, El-Kurd asks friends and foes alike to look Palestinians in the eye, forgoing both deference and condemnation.

How we see Palestine reveals how we see each other; how we see everything else. Masterfully combining candid testimony, history, and reportage, Perfect Victims presents a powerfully simple dignity for the Palestinian.]]> 256 Mohammed El-Kurd Nafiza 0 tbr-owned-books 4.89 2025
author: Mohammed El-Kurd
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.89
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Refaat wrote extensively about a range of topics: teaching Shakespeare and the way Shylock could be appreciated by young Palestinian students; the horrors of living under repeated brutal assaults in Gaza, one of which, in 2014, killed another of his brothers; and the generosity of Palestinians to each other, fighting, in the face of it all, to be the one paying at the supermarket checkout.

Such pieces, some never before published, have been curated here by one of Refaat’s closest friends and collaborators. This collection forms a fitting testament to a remarkable writer, educator, and activist, one whose voice will not be silenced by death but will continue to assert the power of learning and humanism in the face of barbarity.]]> 288 Refaat Alareer 1682196216 Nafiza 0 tbr-owned-books 4.87 2024
author: Refaat Alareer
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.87
book published: 2024
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]]> 19596
How did the most precious color blue travel all the way from remote lapis mines in Afghanistan to Michelangelo’s brush? What is the connection between brown paint and ancient Egyptian mummies? Why did Robin Hood wear Lincoln green? In Color , Finlay explores the physical materials that color our world, such as precious minerals and insect blood, as well as the social and political meanings that color has carried through time.

Roman emperors used to wear togas dyed with a purple color that was made from an odorous Lebanese shellfish–which probably meant their scent preceded them. In the eighteenth century, black dye was called logwood and grew along the Spanish Main. Some of the first indigo plantations were started in America, amazingly enough, by a seventeen-year-old girl named Eliza. And the popular van Gogh painting White Roses at Washington’s National Gallery had to be renamed after a researcher discovered that the flowers were originally done in a pink paint that had faded nearly a century ago. Color is full of extraordinary people, events, and anecdotes–painted all the more dazzling by Finlay’s engaging style.

Embark upon a thrilling adventure with this intrepid journalist as she travels on a donkey along ancient silk trade routes; with the Phoenicians sailing the Mediterranean in search of a special purple shell that garners wealth, sustenance, and prestige; with modern Chilean farmers breeding and bleeding insects for their viscous red blood. The colors that craft our world have never looked so bright.]]> 448 Victoria Finlay 0812971426 Nafiza 0 tbr-owned-books 3.81 2003
author: Victoria Finlay
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2003
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]]> 212807260 Your table awaits at the Chibineko Kitchen, where a soul-nourishing meal in the company of the resident kitten will transport you back in time to reunite with departed loved ones—for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and The Midnight Library.

In a remote seaside town outside of Tokyo, Kotoko makes her way along a seashell path, lured by whispers of an enigmatic restaurant whose kagezen, or traditional meals offered in remembrance of loved ones, promise a reunion with the departed. When a gust of wind lifts off her hat, she sees running after it a young man who looks like her recently deceased brother. But it’s not her brother; it’s Kai, the restaurant’s young chef, who returns her hat and brings her to the tiny establishment, where he introduces her to Chibi, the resident kitten, and serves her steaming bowls of simmered fish, rice, and miso soup—the exact meal her brother used to cook for her. As she takes her first delicious bite, the gulls outside fall silent, the air grows hazy, and Kotoko begins a magical journey of last chances and new beginnings.]]> 192 Yuta Takahashi 0143138618 Nafiza 0 tbr-owned-books 4.03 2020
author: Yuta Takahashi
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
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]]> 216785385 If you could swap your life for a better one, which would you choose?

On the outskirts of Rainbow Town, there is an old, abandoned house. They say that if you send a letter detailing your misfortunes there, you could receive a ticket. If you bring this ticket to the house on the first day of the rainy season, you'll be granted entrance into the mysterious Rainfall Market—where you can choose to completely change your life.

No one is more surprised than Serin when she receives a ticket. Lonely and with no real prospects for a future, Serin ventures to the market, determined to create a better life for herself.

There, she meets a magical cat companion named Issha and they search through bookstores, perfumeries, and fantastical realms while Serin tries to determine what her perfect life will look like.

The catch? Serin only has one week to find her happiness or be doomed to vanish into the market forever.

And all the while, a shadow follows quietly behind them…]]> 206 You Yeong-Gwang 0593952669 Nafiza 0 tbr-owned-books 3.48 2023
author: You Yeong-Gwang
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2023
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]]> 154488299 The Kamogawa Food Detectives is the first book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese series for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?

Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that’s not the main reason customers stop by . . .

The father-daughter duo are ‘food detectives’. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories – dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility.

A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal.]]> 201 Hisashi Kashiwai 0593717716 Nafiza 0 tbr-owned-books 3.70 2013
author: Hisashi Kashiwai
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2013
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]]> 23249553 215 Ann Everett Nafiza 0 tbr-craft 3.83 2014
author: Ann Everett
name: Nafiza
average rating: 3.83
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]]> 7517330 The Art of Recklessness, Dean Young's sprawling and subversive first book of prose on poetry, imagination swerves into primitivism and surrealism and finally toward empathy. How can recklessness guide the poet, the artist, and the reader into art, and how can it excite in us a sort of wild receptivity, beyond craft? "Poetry is not a discipline," Young writes. "It is a hunger, a revolt, a drive, a mash note, a fright, a tantrum, a grief, a hoax, a debacle, an application, an affect . . ."]]> 167 Dean Young 1555975623 Nafiza 0 tbr-craft 4.14 2010
author: Dean Young
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2010
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]]> 44084762 Shanghai is under siege in this captivating and searingly romantic sequel to These Violent Delights, which New York Times bestselling author Natasha Ngan calls “deliciously dark.”

The year is 1927, and Shanghai teeters on the edge of revolution.

After sacrificing her relationship with Roma to protect him from the blood feud, Juliette has been a girl on the warpath. One wrong move, and her cousin will step in to usurp her place as the Scarlet Gang’s heir. The only way to save the boy she loves from the wrath of the Scarlets is to have him want her dead for murdering his best friend in cold blood. If Juliette were actually guilty of the crime Roma believes she committed, his rejection might sting less.

Roma is still reeling from Marshall’s death, and his cousin Benedikt will barely speak to him. Roma knows it’s his fault for letting the ruthless Juliette back into his life, and he’s determined to set things right—even if that means killing the girl he hates and loves with equal measure.

Then a new monstrous danger emerges in the city, and though secrets keep them apart, Juliette must secure Roma’s cooperation if they are to end this threat once and for all. Shanghai is already at a boiling point: The Nationalists are marching in, whispers of civil war brew louder every day, and gangster rule faces complete annihilation. Roma and Juliette must put aside their differences to combat monsters and politics, but they aren’t prepared for the biggest threat of all: protecting their hearts from each other.]]> 494 Chloe Gong 1529344565 Nafiza 0 tbr-owned-books 4.29 2021
author: Chloe Gong
name: Nafiza
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2021
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