Loved itIt is just the most wonderful experience of bitter and sweet. I am crying in the club every single time I read one of these books.
Review 1 of 6
Tales from the Cafe (2017)
Others: Positive The second book in the multi-million-copy bestselling series about a cosy Japanese cafe that offers its visitors the chance to travel back in time. Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s heartwarming Tales from the Cafe, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, explores the age-old question: what would you do if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time? In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time . . . From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold comes a story of four new customers each of whom is hoping to take advantage of Cafe Funiculi Funicula's time-travelling offer. Among some faces that will be familiar to readers, we will be introduced to: The man who goes back to see his best friend who died 22 years ago The son who was unable to attend his own mother’s funeral The man who travelled to see the girl who he could not marry The old detective who never gave his wife that gift . . . This beautiful tale tells the story of people who must face up to their past, in order to move on with their lives.
- ISBN:
- 9781529050868
Genres: fantasy
Lists: …
Similar books
1 of 6
Before Your Memory Fades
Toshikazu Kawaguchi
2019 · 247 pages · 7 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveThe latest novel in the international bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series, following four new customers in a little Tokyo café where customers can travel back in time. In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time. From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Tales from the Cafe comes another story of four new customers, each of whom is hoping to take advantage of Café Funiculi Funicula's time-travelling offer. Among some familiar faces from Kawaguchi's previous novels, readers will also be introduced to a daughter, a comedian, a sister, and a lover, each with something they wish they had said differently. With his signature heartwarming characters and immersive storytelling, Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
On 5+ of the same lists40%Similar descriptions35%Also fantasyPersonalize your recommendations25%Lantern of Lost Memories
Sanaka Hiiragi
2023 · 196 pages · 3 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveEsta é a história de Hirasaka e do peculiar estúdio fotográfico onde trabalha, um local que é um ponto de transição entre a vida e a morte. Os «visitantes» de Hirasaka acordam no estúdio, onde são recebidos com uma chávena de chá, a par de uma inesperada novidade: acabaram de falecer. Antes de partirem para o Céu, terão de cumprir uma última tarefa: selecionar, de entre uma pilha de fotografias – testemunhos de toda a sua existência –, uma por cada ano de vida. Para além disso, têm a possibilidade de viajar no tempo, na companhia de Hirasaka, para capturar uma nova fotografia da memória mais especial, aquela que mais os marcou. No fim, o visitante assiste ao filme da sua vida, projetado por uma lanterna rotativa, cuidadosamente montada por Hirasaka. Completa-se assim o ciclo, antes da passagem em definitivo para a eternidade. Um elegante e comovente romance, que nos traz à memória histórias marcantes como A vida é bela ou After Life. Com a simplicidade dos mestres, Sanaka Hiiragi oferece-nos uma narrativa inspiradora, que nos leva a questionar o que é realmente importante na vida.
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
Also fantasy51%On the same reading listPersonalize your recommendations49%The Rainfall Market
You Yeong-Gwang
2025 · 1 review
Others: NegativeIf 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…
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
Also fantasy61%On the same reading listPersonalize your recommendations39%Piranesi
Susanna Clarke
2020 · 276 pages · 33 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality. Piranesi's house is no ordinary building; its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is one other person in the house--a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known. For readers of Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller's Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth full of startling images of surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds. This description comes from the publisher.
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
Also fantasy63%On 5+ of the same lists27%PeruseProject loved bothPersonalize your recommendations10%The Starless Sea
Erin Morgenstern
2019 · 512 pages · 22 reviews
Others: Leaning positiveFAR BENEATH the surface of the earth, upon the shores of the Starless Sea, there is a labyrinthine collection of tunnels and rooms filled with stories. The entryways that lead to this sanctuary are often hidden, sometimes on forest floors, sometimes in private homes, sometimes in plain sight. But those who seek will find. Their doors have been waiting for them. Zachary Ezra Rawlins is searching for his door, though he does not know it. He follows a silent siren song, an inexplicable certainty that he is meant for another place. When he discovers a mysterious book in the stacks of his campus library, he begins to read and is entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, lost cities, and nameless acolytes. Suddenly, a turn of the page brings Zachary to a story from his own childhood, impossibly written in this book that is older than he is. A bee, a key, and a sword emblazoned on the book lead Zachary to two people who will change the course of his life: Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired painter, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances. These strangers guide Zachary through masquerade-party dances and whispered backroom stories to the headquarters of a secret society, where doorknobs hang from ribbons, and finally through a door conjured from paint to the place he has always yearned for. Amid twisting tunnels filled with books, gilded ballrooms, and wine-dark shores, Zachary falls into an intoxicating world soaked in romance and mystery. But a battle is raging over the fate of this place, and though there are those who would willingly sacrifice everything to protect it, there are just as many intent on its destruction. As Zachary, Mirabel, and Dorian venture deeper into the space and its histories and myths, searching for answer and one another, a timeless love story unspools, casting a spell of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a Starless Sea. This description comes from the publisher.
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
Also fantasy66%On 5+ of the same lists23%PeruseProject loved bothPersonalize your recommendations11%Babel
R. F. Kuang
2022 · 560 pages · 32 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveFrom award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide… Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
Also fantasy70%On 5+ of the same lists18%PeruseProject loved bothPersonalize your recommendations12%
Loved it