I’m a sucker for a novel about books. I’ve also become drawn to Japanese fiction. It has a distinct style that often explores emotional landscapes and can be beautifully subtle and introspective.

It’s important to stand still sometimes. Think of it as a little rest in the long journey of your life. This is your harbor. And your boat is just dropping anchor here for a little while. And after you’re well rested, you can set sail again.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa (translated by Eric Ozawa) is about a young woman called Takako. Takako resigns from her job after a man from her work who she’s been dating, breaks up with her to marry someone else. Depressed and unemployed, she moves into a room in the bookshop owned by her uncle in the Jimbocho district to hide in her misery. Takako is not a reader.

I don’t think it really matters whether you know a lot about books or not. That said, I don’t know that much myself. But I think what matters far more with a book is how it affects you.

Takako’s uncle asks her to mind the shop for a period each day and over time Takako learns to love reading and begins to make friends in the community. She also develops a deep bond with her uncle and the experience heals her.

It was as if, without realizing it, I had opened a door I had never known existed. That’s exactly what it felt like. From that moment on, I read relentlessly, one book after another. It was as if a love of reading had been sleeping somewhere deep inside me all this time, and then it suddenly sprang to life.

The second half of the book revolves around Takako’s uncle Satoru’s heartache.  His wife who mysteriously left him five years earlier returns unexpectedly. Satoru asks his niece to find out why his wife Momoko has returned. Takako and Momoko go on a road trip to the mountains and their relationship develops.

Don’t be afraid to love someone. When you fall in love, I want you to fall in love all the way. Even if it ends in heartache, please don’t live a lonely life without love.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop is a short comforting novella. Elegant in its simplicity, it’s about loss, family, friendship, hope, new beginnings and how reading can facilitate change and open doors to help us understand our feelings. The book also has a great cover.