More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

Originally published as 続・森崎書店の日々 in Japan in 2011 by Shogakukan Inc.

In this charming & emotionally resonant follow up to the internationally bestselling Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Satoshi Yagisawa paints a poignant & thoughtful portrait of life, love, & how much books & bookstores mean to the people who love them.

Set again in the beloved Japanese bookshop & nearby coffee shop in the Jimbochi neighborhood of Toyko, More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop deepens the relationship between Takako, her uncle Satoru, & the people in their lives. A new cast of heartwarming regulars have appeared in the shop, including an old man who wears the same ragged mouse-colored sweater & another who collects books solely for the official stamps with the author's personal seal.

Satoshi Yagisawa illuminates the everyday relationships between people that are forged and grown through a shared love of books. Characters leave & return, fall in & out of love, & some eventually die. As time passes, Satoru, with Takako’s help, must choose whether to keep the bookshop open or shutter its doors forever. Making the decision will take uncle & niece on an emotional journey back to their family’s roots & remind them again what a bookstore can mean to an individual, a neighborhood, & a whole culture.

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Translator’s Note

In Satoshi Yagisawa’s previous novel, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Takako finds the book that changes her life by simply closing her eyes and reaching out her hand to pick one at random from the stack of texts beside her futon. One of the joys of the sequel is that it’s a novel about the pleasures of searching for books. The truth is, we do not always know why we find ourselves looking for a particular volume...

No matter if we are browsing a bookstand in an airport or searching for a rare first edition, our motivation often remains mysterious. The books lie ahead of us; they seem to know things we do not...