Book Review by Aditi Yadav
Title: The Bookshop Woman
Author: Nanako Hanada
Translator: Cat Anderson
Publisher: Brazen
There is a unique charm around books that talk of books and bookstores. Nanako Hanada’s The Bookshop Woman is an honest and touching memoir where she recounts and reflects on real life incidents that transpired in the rock-bottom phase of her life. Seamlessly translated from the Japanese by Cat Anderson, the narrative opens on a certain night in January 2013, with a distraught Nanako sitting listless and dejected in a restaurant at 2 a.m. in Yokohama. She had parted ways with her husband, and moved out of their flat. Living out of a suitcase, she moves through cheap hotels and public bathhouses, like a homeless drifter with an uncertain future.
Nanako is a manager at a branch of Village Vanguard, a bookshop chain. She is depressed with the thought that there’s a lot lacking in her life. However, as we flip through the pages, we see the resilient side of Nanako. She intends to rise above the mess and her depression. She learns to walk with her head held high without feeling sorry for herself. She moves into a cramped apartment near Yokohama station, and also happens to join a new social networking site, the ‘Perfect Strangers’, which provides dating services. She embarks on her ‘Perfect Strangers’ journey with a profile that reads, “I’m the manager of a very unusual bookshop. I have access to huge database of over ten thousand books, and I’ll recommend the one that’s perfect for you.” Although a trivial trend of the modern times, joining this new virtual platform proved a turning point in Nanako’s life.
Through several encounters with random strangers, Nanako discovers a world beyond her broken relationship and self doubt. Meeting new people puts her social skills to test and starts her on a journey of self-discovery. She learns to open up without being over-conscious of herself. In the larger picture, she understands that accepting changes in life is the right way to embrace it. The discussions that Nanako holds with people provide insight into the conditions of the modern day world and human relationships. However, through the eyes of Nanako, Tokyo which “had only felt cold and inhospitable” turns interesting beyond her dreams when she just “tried opening! What freedom there was here!” , and all she wanted to do with this freedom was to introduce more people to new books.
Meanwhile, as the manager of the Village Vanguard, she passionately continues to do her best, innovating with selling strategies and tending to her customers. She gradually learns to “discern what was special about books that perhaps didn’t look so promising at first, and to distil their charm in words”. She talks of the ‘joy of bookselling’ and gives a first-hand account of the challenges of her business. Nanako introduces readers to a host of books through the recommendations she offers during her Perfect Stranger sessions. There is even an appendix in the book that provides more details about these recommendations.
Experimenting with her ideas, Nanako also holds book jam sessions where people come over at a designated spot at an assigned time and share about their favourite books. These book jam sessions humbled her, as she realises that she had hitherto been ‘slightly condescending’ in recommending new books to people. This realisation transforms her outlook immensely.
Weaving through myriads of book suggestions and social meet-ups, Nanako evolves as a person and finds her footing in the real world. Even in the professional sphere she follows her heart and makes changes that resonate with her personal evolution. Her love for books and devotion to bookselling make her empathetic to the extent that she “would inadvertently get a glimpse of something deep in a person’s heart”.
Within a year of that dreary lonesome night in Yokohama, life comes a full circle for Nanako. As a result of her adventures and experiments, she finds peace within herself. Her divorce gets amicably finalised and she even quits the virtual platform to immerse herself in the natural flow of the delightful world she’d discovered — one full of meaningful human connections, friendships, the warmth of books and bookstores. We see Nanako wondering about the day when someone else would pick her books and recommend it to others, triggering an infinite loop– such is the power of books that turns drifters into trendsetters and dreams into reality. The book is indeed a must read to discover this incredible power and reaffirm one’s faith in resilience of human spirit!
Aditi Yadav is an amateur writer from India. She is also a South Asia Speaks fellow (2023). Her works appear in Rain Taxi Review, EKL Review, Usawa Literary Review, Gulmohur Quarterly, Narrow Road Journal, Borderless Journal and the Remnant Archive.
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