Make a Bad Day Better With a Good Book: Cats, Coffee and Captivating Japanese Fiction

A purring cat curled in your lap, a good cup of coffee, sitting in a café with a good book — these are just a few of our favorite things. With whimsy, tenderness and adventure, these novels, translated from the Japanese, have our whole hearts, and we know they’ll capture yours too. 

Who would you visit if you could travel through time? At this magical café in a back alley in Tokyo, customers hope for an opportunity to make the journey themselves: to face regrets, to relive nostalgic moments, seek reconciliation and reconnect with loved ones. In a life of too-lates and missed opportunities, Toshikazu Kawaguchi invites us back to the coffee shop of regrets and second-chances with brand-new patrons. Grab your copy of Before We Forget Kindness today, and check out our exclusive editions of the other books in the series. Pull up a seat to time travel at this café — just don’t let your coffee get cold.

We’re going back to our favorite Tokyo bookstore — and we couldn’t be happier. After Takako finds her footing again and settles into life in Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, we find her deepening her relationship with family, friends and store regulars in More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. A touching tale of the power of community and literature, new love and old friends, this will have you scribbling in the margins. These stories of new beginnings, love and family is told with the kind of tenderness and whimsy that will lift your mood.

Hiro Arikawa first captured our cat-loving hearts with The Traveling Cat Chronicles, a charming story about Nana the cat and his owner and their journey across Japan. Now its highly anticipated sequel, The Goodbye Cat, gives us seven more stories of well-loved cats and their devotion to their humans. Full of wonder and warmth, both of these books will make you want a feline friend of your own.