Convenience store woman
Convenience store womanSayaka Murata
Buy on Amazon

Convenience store woman (2018)

Sayaka Murata

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

Keiko Furukura had always been considered a strange child, and her parents always worried how she would get on in the real world, so when she takes on a job in a convenience store while at university, they are delighted for her. For her part, in the convenience store she finds a predictable world mandated by the store manual, which dictates how the workers should act and what they should say, and she copies her coworkers' style of dress and speech patterns so that she can play the part of a normal person. However, eighteen years later, at age 36, she is still in the same job, has never had a boyfriend, and has only few friends. She feels comfortable in her life, but is aware that she is not living up to society's expectations and causing her family to worry about her. When a similarly alienated but cynical and bitter young man comes to work in the store, he will upset Keiko's contented stasis--but will it be for the better?

ISBN:
9780802129628
Length:
163 pages

Genres: literary fiction

Lists: …

Similar books

1 of 6
  • Earthlings

    Sayaka Murata

    2020 · 3 reviews

    Others: Overwhelmingly positive

    An otherworldly coming-of-age tale of a woman who believes she is an alien, from the author of the international sensation Convenience Store Woman. Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman was one of the most unusual and refreshing bestsellers of recent years, depicting the life of a thirty-six-year-old clerk in a Tokyo convenience store. Now, in Earthlings, Sayaka Murata pushes at the boundaries of our ideas of social conformity in this brilliantly imaginative, intense, and absolutely unforgettable novel. As a child, Natsuki doesn't fit in with her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut, who talks to her. He tells her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. One summer, on vacation with her family and her cousin Yuu in her grandparents' ramshackle wooden house in the mountains of Nagano, Natsuki decides that she must be an alien, which would explain why she can't seem to fit in like everyone else. Later, as a grown woman, living a quiet life with her asexual husband, Natsuki is still pursued by dark shadows from her childhood, and decides to flee the "baby factory" of society for good, searching for answers about the vast and frightening mysteries of the universe—answers only Natsuki has the power to uncover. Dreamlike, sometimes shocking, and always strange and wonderful, Earthlings asks what it means to be happy in a stifling world, and cements Sayaka Murata's status as a master chronicler of the outsider experience and our own uncanny universe. Praise for Earthlings A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times, TIME and Literary Hub Named a Most Anticipated Book by the New York Times, TIME, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, the Guardian, Vulture, Wired, Literary Hub, Bustle, PopSugar, and Refinery29 "Intimate, deadpan, and unflinchingly unhinged. . . . Exceptionally fun. . . . Amid all the hedgehog and alien talk is a novel that asks how happiness and freedom can be possible inside a stiflingly anxious world, and its answers, while grotesque, are worth reading." — Wired "If you're in the mood for weird, Sayaka Murata is always a reliable place to turn. . . . [ Earthlings] centers on Natsuki, a character whose story begins in childhood with her cousin in the mountains and spirals ever more darkly (and bizarrely) into adulthood and its many strange reckonings. This is a story that's best not to spoil, but it will get into your head." — Seattle Times "It's the book's visceral, grim savagery, and those final shocking pages, that makes this such a vital, powerful novel. . . . Earthlings is the sort of challenging, confronting fiction that wakes you up with a jolt and leaves a lasting impression." — Locus

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    Also literary fiction
    52%
    On 5+ of the same lists
    34%
    2 creators loved both
    14%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • Housekeeper and the Professor

    Yoko Ogawa

    1998 · 6 reviews

    Others: Overwhelmingly positive

    A brilliant maths Professor, due to a head injury, lives with only eighty minutes of short-term memory. An astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, is hired to care for him. Each morning, they're reintroduced. Despite his memory loss, the Professor's mind is filled with past mathematical equations. He creates clever maths riddles based on her personal details, revealing a poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her son. With each new equation, a mysterious affection and deep bond forms between them, transcending memory.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    Also literary fiction
    51%
    On 5+ of the same lists
    40%
    Jack Edwards loved both
    9%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • The Pachinko Parlour

    Elisa Shua Dusapin

    2018 · 2 reviews

    Others: Positive

    The days are beginning to draw in. The sky is dark by seven in the evening. I lie on the floor and gaze out of the window. Women’s calves, men’s shoes, heels trodden down by the weight of bodies borne for too long. It is summer in Tokyo. Claire finds herself dividing her time between tutoring twelve-year-old Mieko, in an apartment in an abandoned hotel, and lying on the floor at her grandparents: daydreaming, playing Tetris and listening to the sounds from the street above. The heat rises; the days slip by. The plan is for Claire to visit Korea with her grandparents. They fled the civil war there over fifty years ago, along with thousands of others, and haven’t been back since. When they first arrived in Japan, they opened Shiny, a pachinko parlour. Shiny is still open, drawing people in with its bright, flashing lights and promises of good fortune. And as Mieko and Claire gradually bond, a tender relationship growing, Mieko’s determination to visit the pachinko parlour builds. The Pachinko Parlour is a nuanced and beguiling exploration of identity and otherness, unspoken histories, and the loneliness you can feel amongst family. Crisp and enigmatic, Shua Dusapin’s writing glows with intelligence.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    Also literary fiction
    54%
    On 2 of the same lists
    37%
    PeruseProject loved both
    9%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • The Bridegroom Was a Dog

    Yōko Tawada

    1998 · 165 pages · 2 reviews

    Others: Positive

    A schoolteacher tells her class a fable about a princess who promises her hand in marriage to a dog that has licked her bottom clean. Strangely, a doglike suitor then appears to court the teacher. Much to the chagrin of her friends, an odd romance ensues - simmering with secrets, chivalry, and sex.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    Also literary fiction
    57%
    On the same reading list
    34%
    Jean's Thoughts loved both
    9%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • Second Place

    Rachel Cusk

    2021 · 184 pages · 1 review

    Others: Positive

    From the author of the Outline trilogy, a fable of human destiny and decline, enacted in a closed system of intimate, fractured relationships. A woman invites a famed artist to visit the remote coastal region where she lives, in the belief that his vision will penetrate the mystery of her life and landscape. His provocative presence provides the frame for a study of female fate and male privilege, of the geometries of human relationships, and of the struggle to live morally in the intersecting spaces of our internal and external worlds. With its examination of the possibility that art can both save and destroy us, Rachel Cusk's Second Place is deeply affirming of the human soul, while grappling with its darkest demons.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    Also literary fiction
    57%
    On 3 of the same lists
    33%
    Jack Edwards loved both
    10%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • The travelling cat chronicles

    Hiro Arikawa

    2018 · 277 pages · 5 reviews

    Others: Overwhelmingly positive

    "Sometimes you have to leave behind everything you know to find the place you truly belong ... Nana the cat is on a road trip. He is not sure where he's going or why, but it means that he gets to sit in the front seat of a silver van with his beloved owner, Satoru. Side by side, they cruise around Japan through the changing seasons, visiting Satoru's old friends. He meets Yoshimine, the brusque and unsentimental farmer for whom cats are just ratters; Sugi and Chikako, the warm-hearted couple who run a pet-friendly B and Kosuke, the mournful husband whose cat-loving wife has just left him. There's even a very special dog who forces Nana to reassess his disdain for the canine species. But what is the purpose of this road trip? And why is everyone so interested in Nana? Nana does not know and Satoru won't say. But when Nana finally works it out, his small heart will break ..."--

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    Also literary fiction
    58%
    On 5+ of the same lists
    32%
    BooksandLala loved both
    10%
    Personalize your recommendations

Reviews5