Last week, when penning my Just Arrived post for Wifedom by Anna Funder, I realized that not only was my last Just Arrived post way back in November, but that I had only posted on one of the four books mentioned — the indomitable Pinch Perkins.

Starting today, I’m rectifying my neglect of the other three works by posting on Michiko Aoyama’s What You Are Looking For Is In the Library, translated by Alison Watts.

As mentioned in November, it was a Times bestseller and one of Time magazine’s Top 100 books of 2023, so I read it with some anticipation. I was not disappointed.

What You Are Looking For Is In the Library is what I call a “gentle” read, and comprises a series of linked short (of the longish sort) stories. Each story follows a separate character, but eventually their stories overlap to a degree.

The stories are “slice of life” in terms of people negotiating careers and/or retirement, leisure, and relationships with others, while becoming more authentically themselves. The central, connecting factor of every story is a community library, and the enigmatic librarian, Ms Komachi. Ms Komachi’s superpower is recommending a book, or books, that may not appear directly related to the protagonist’s search but ends being “perfect” for the real issue each one is grappling with.

Yes, you’re right, there is a hint of magic realism to the book. Mostly, though, the linked stories stick to the real life side of the ledger. Initially, I thought the read was pleasant enough, but maybe not “best book” good — but it definitely grew on me as each story built into the next.

One of the passages I really liked came in the second story, where the protagonist, Ryo, wants to open an antiques shop. His lover, Hina, observes that what makes the world go around is not love, or money, or power, but trust.

“Anything you do — borrowing money from a bank, commissioning a piece of work, sending or receiving a parcel, making a plan with friends…all these things can only happen because of mutual trust on both sides.”

Later, Ryo’s story demonstrates just how well made Hina’s point regarding trust is. It also resonated with me as a reader, in much the same way as Frank Grecco’s observation in City of Girls that, “The world ain’t straight…Never will be.”

By the time I closed the book on the fifth and final story, What You Are Looking For Is In the Library definitely had me hooked, as well as charmed. And although gentle, the five linked stories have an individual and cumulative  emotional depth and insight.

So yes, I am recommending it to you. If you have read and enjoyed books like Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog, The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, and Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, you may also like to put What You Are Looking For Is In the Library on your reading list.

What You Are Looking For Is In the Library was published by Penguin Random House in 2023. I read an uncorrected proof copy, 147 pp, supplied to me a book rep.