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The Restaurant of Lost Recipes
49,000 TNDTucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner. Running this unique establishment are a father-daughter duo who serve more than just mouth-watering feasts. The pair have reinvented themselves as ‘food detectives’, offering a service that goes beyond traditional dining.
Through their culinary sleuthing, they reconstruct beloved dishes from the memories of their customers, creating a connection to cherished moments from the past. Among those who seek an appointment is a one-hit wonder pop star, finally ready to leave Tokyo and give up on her singing career. She wants to try the tempura that she once ate to celebrate her only successful record.
Another diner is a budding Olympic swimmer, who desires the bento lunch box that his estranged father used to make him. The Kamogawa Diner doesn’t just serve meals – it revives lost recipes and rekindles forgotten memories. It’s a doorway to the past through the miracle of delicious food.
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The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea
49,000 TNDA tale of youth and warped masculinity, this is the suspenseful, lyrical and page-turning Japanese classic. A band of thirteen-year-old boys reject the stupidity of the adult world. They decide it is illusory, hypocritical and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call ‘objectivity’.
When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship’s officer, he and his friends idealise the man at first, but it is not long before they conclude that he is, in fact, soft and romantic. They regard this disillusionment as an act of betrayal on his part – and the retribution is deliberate and horrifying. ‘Mishima’s greatest novel, and one of the greatest of the past century’ The TimesTRANSLATED BY JOHN NATHAN
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The Salmon Who Dared to Leap Higher
59,000 TNDOn the first day of monsoon the old ramshackle building appears – this is The Rainfall Market. Inside: magical bookstores, hairdressers, perfumeries – anything your heart desires. But to Translated for the first time into English, The Salmon Who Dared To Leap Higher by Ahn Do-hyun is a multi-million copy bestselling modern fable about finding freedom and a harmony with nature we have either forgotten or lost in the binding realities of life. The life of the salmon is a predictable one: swimming upstream to the place of its birth to spawn, and then to die. This is the story of a salmon whose silver scales mark him out as different – who dares to leap beyond his fate.
It’s a story about growing up, and about aching and ardent love. For swimming upstream means pursuing something the salmon cannot see: a dream.
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The Second Chance Convenience Store
59,000 TNDSeoul Station is home to Dokgo, a man with no memories of his past. Until one day his subdued existence is disrupted when he stumbles upon a lost wallet, triggering a chain of events that will change the course of his life.
Enter Mrs. Yeom, a retired teacher turned convenience-store owner, who, upon discovering Dokgo’s act of kindness in returning her purse, offers him a meal as a token of her gratitude. Their chance encounter blossoms into an unexpected alliance when the man’s bravery saves the store from ruin, earning him not just a job but a place in the heart of the neighbourhood.
But just when things are looking up for Dokgo, Mrs. Yeom’s troubled son, eager to sell the store, hires a detective to dig into the mysterious man’s past and unearth what he seems to be trying so hard to forget . . .
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The Secret of the Blue Glass
49,000 TNDIn a dustylibrary, in the quietest corner of a house in a Tokyo suburb, live the LittlePeople: Fern and Balbo, Robin and Iris. Just a few inches high, sleeping incigarette boxes and crafting shoes from old book jackets, they need only onething from their Humans – a nightly glass of milk, served in a sparkling BlueGlass goblet, by a trusted young member of the Humanfamily.
But when the Second World War comes to Japan,bringing a dangerous new kind of patriotism, both Humans and their belovedLittle People face a world they could never before have imagined. It will takegreat love, bravery, and a rather loyal pigeon, to bring their unique familiesback together once more…
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The Setting Sun
69,000 TND“Dazai’s best novel […] focusing on a woman forced to deal with the consequences of heedless, Dazai-like behavior.” —The New York Times”Carpenter conveys Dazai’s discordant voices while sweeping away some of the rhetorical cobwebs of Donald Keene’s 1956 translation and its dated introduction, making this the definitive edition of an epochal classic of postwar Japan for a new generation.” —Library JournalA completely new translation of one of Osamu Dazai’s best-loved novels, by award-winning translator, Juliet Winters Carpenter. The Setting Sun tells the story of Kazuko, a strong-willed young woman from an aristocratic family that has fallen into poverty since the war. The book follows Kazuko’s journey as she and her family struggle to adapt to the harsh new conditions of a Japan destroyed by American fire-bombings.
In addition to having to move from the city to the countryside, where she has to work in the fields to support her family, she has to deal with a divorce, her mother’s illness, and the return of her drug-addicted brother from the army. An inspiring portrait of one woman’s determination to survive in a society in the grip of a social and moral crisis, this classic work will appeal to those with an interest in modern Japanese literature as well as to those familiar with Osamu Dazai from the popular manga and anime series Bungo Stray Dogs, where he is the lead character.
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The Story of a Single Woman
59,000 TNDA piercingly beautiful and candid novel of love, sex and independence in 1920s Japan by a trailblazing Japanese writer. Growing up in a remote mountain village, Kazue always nurtured a spirit of independence. Ignoring the values of her traditional community, she rejects an early arranged marriage and embarks on a scandalous affair.
Exiled from her home, Kazue departs to follow her impulses wherever they might lead. Driven by her enduring hope and resilience, Kazue goes first to Korea and then to Tokyo, taking up with a series of men but always casting out again on her own path. Sparklingly beautiful, The Story of a Single Woman is an autobiographical account of desire and freedom by a trailblazing Japanese writer.
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The Temple of Dawn
59,000 TNDMishima’s literary powers are on full display in his penultimate novel, a meditation on reincarnation and Buddhist philosophy. Honda, a brilliant lawyer and man of reason, is called to Bangkok on legal business. He is granted an audience with a young Thai princess known as ‘Moonlight’, an encounter that radically alters the course of his life.
Convinced she is a reincarnated spirit, he undertakes a long, arduous pilgrimage to the holy places of India. There he encounters her again. But the princess has become one more embodiment of all that Honda cannot possess.
‘An elegy to the loss of pureness in the Japanese national spirit’ Japan Times
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The Third Love
59,000 TNDHaving married her childhood sweetheart, Riko now finds herself trapped in a relationship that has been soured by infidelity. One day, she runs into her old friend Mr Takaoka, who offers friendship, love, and an unusual escape: he teaches her the trick of living inside her dreams. Now, each night, she sinks into another life: first as a high-ranking courtesan in the 17th century, and then as a serving lady to a princess in the late Middle Ages.
As she experiences desire and heartbreak in the past, so Riko comes to reconsider her life as a 21st-century woman – as a wife, as a mother, and as a lover – and to ask herself: after loving her husband and loving Mr Takaoka, is she is ready for her third great love?
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The Travelling Cat Chronicles
59,000 TNDNana is on a road trip, but he is not sure where he is going. All that matters is that he can sit beside his beloved owner Satoru in the front seat of his silver van. Satoru is keen to visit three old friends from his youth, though Nana doesn’t know why and Satoru won’t say.
Set against the backdrop of Japan’s changing seasons and narrated with a rare gentleness and humour, Nana’s story explores the wonder and thrill of life’s unexpected detours. It is about the value of friendship and solitude, and knowing when to give and when to take. -
The Trunk
69,000 TND**NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX TV SERIES, STARRING GONG YU AND SEO HYUN-JIN **Read the gripping international feminist satire for fans of KIM JIYOUNG BORN 1982, CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN and YELLOWFACE. ‘So this is the world we live in, where even spouses can be rented’Meet Noh Inji: thirty years old, five wedding rings so far, and she’s never once been in love. When Inji takes a job at Wedding & Life, the popular matchmaking service, she never imagines her role will be with NM, their secretive marriage division that rents out ‘field spouses’ for a fixed period to their elite clientele.
Just like a real marriage, Inji’s assignments involve a wedding, some sex and a spot of housework. It’s all tailored exactly to the client’s desires – no legal battles, no fights, no emotional baggage. In no way is Inji interested in finding real love, because accidents happen when you mistakenly assume that you are somehow special.
When one of Inji’s old husbands, a mysterious high-profile music producer, requests her back for another year of marriage, Inji’s own dark past will begin to unravel – as well as the sinister underbelly of the NM management, who will stop at nothing to preserve their reputation – and that of their wealthiest clients …Readers love THE TRUNK!!!:‘It enraged me, it made me laugh, it was everything’‘Intriguing and gripping’‘Unique and intriguing and perfect for fans of Kim Jiyoung, born 1982’‘Absorbing and consistently fascinating’‘Really interesting book full of social commentary, rich characters … I had vibes of The Handmaid’s Tale meets Convenience Store Woman’___________
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The Unfilial : Four Tragic Tales from Modern China
79,000 TNDModern China moves fast, leaving its people trailing behind. The mirage of a picture-perfect home compels some to gamble away the family house, while others live with debts of a shameful past. When something inevitably cracks, it’s always the women who are left to pick up the pieces.
In four stories, Yao Emei shines a brutally honest light on the crumbling foundations of the family unit with scalpel-sharp precision. As her characters struggle to escape a vicious cycle of abuse, come inside – or stare through the window – at your peril: after all, what’s a closet without its skeletons?