I MAY NO LONGER be a journalist, but I remain incurably nosey. So whenever a colleague beats me to the Backstory phone and their tone and expression indicate a conversation that differs from the usual request to reserve the latest Richard Osman or check on our opening hours, I demand a thorough debriefing afterwards. So it was that I heard about the customer who called to ask what Japanese fiction we stock — before specifying, knowing exactly what was about to come, “not about bookshops, or cats… or cats in bookshops”. Reader, he was not amewsed.
Now of course there are plenty of Japanese novels not about cats. Some of them are not about animals at all. There’s Butter, for one, still at the top of our chart, seven months after its UK publication — although our caller might have disqualified it on account of the prominent cow on its cover.
In our small bookshop alone, there are volumes by Natsuko Imamura (The Woman in the Purple Skirt), Yasunari Kawabata (Snow Country), Mieko Kawakami (Heaven), Seicho Matsumoto (Tokyo Express), Yukio Mishima (Beautiful Star), Yoko Tawada (Scattered All Over the Earth), Mizuki Tsujimura (Lonely Castle in the Mirror), Emi Yagi (Diary of a Void), Banana Yoshimoto (Kitchen) — as well as, of course, plenty of Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore etc). Then there’s Seishi Yokomizo, supposedly the “Japanese Agatha Christie”, with a whole array of rather gruesome covers in our crime section.
I can’t think of another country from whose authors we stock a wider variety of fiction in translation. Even before you reach the tottering pile of Abroad in Japan on the non-fiction paperback table, you’ve probably encountered the place half a dozen times about the shop.
And yet the man on the phone had a point.
None of the above writers — not even Murakami — has shifted more copies in our shop than Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. Japanese? Check. Books on cover? Check. Cat on cover? Check. Even more popular still are The Cat Who Saved Books, She and Her Cat, and Before The Coffee Gets Cold (cat on cover, of course), the latter of which has outsold David Nicholls’s One Day.
What You Are Looking for Is In The Library may be a controversial twist on the genre — with a library rather than bookshop setting — but, reassuringly, it does feature a cat on the cover. It has sold as many copies at Backstory as the latest Zadie Smith. The latest arrival, We’ll Prescribe You A Cat (cats on cover: five), is already flying out.
So while I was glad my colleague was able to point our caller towards a strong selection of Japanese fiction, I do wonder whether we would please many more of our customers by introducing a new section: Cats in translation.
**
Sally Rooney klaxon!
Sally Rooney’s fourth novel, Intermezzo, is published this Tuesday. We have our embargoed copies, ready to put out on the front table when we open our doors at 10am! Come along and grab one on the day, or order one anywhere in the UK with free delivery from our website.
Here’s Megan’s first-look review:
She’s done it again. This delicious book about two brilliant brothers is a treat for people who loved Normal People, and those who know a thing or two about chess, weird siblings, grief, and thinking deep thoughts but sometimes struggling to express them to the people you love the most.
Event announcement
Kieran Yates at Backstory — Wednesday 16 October, 7.30pm
By the age of 25, Kieran Yates had lived in 20 different houses. She joins us to talk about why housing has become such a big political issue, why the system isn’t working and her memoir, which charts the heartbreaks and joys of a life spent searching for home.
Upcoming events
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25 September, 7.30pm Gabriel Gatehouse, The Coming Storm: A Journey Into the Heart of the Conspiracy Machine — SOLD OUT
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2nd October, 7.30pm Freya Bromley, The Tidal Year — A story about the healing power of wild swimming and the space it creates for reflection, rewilding and hope. An exploration of grief in the modern age, it's also a tale of female rage, sisterhood and falling in love after loss.
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5th October, 10am-6pm Backstory’s 2nd birthday party — join us all day at the shop for nibbles and competitions as we celebrate our 2nd birthday. All welcome!
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9 October, 7.30pm Wendy Joseph KC, Rough Justice — Join us as we welcome Her Honour Wendy Joseph KC, with many years’ experience as a murder judge, to talk about whether our justice system works. Have we got any better at delivering what is right and fair to both the perpetrators and the victims of society’s most heinous crimes?
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11 October, 6.30pm Poetry open mic night Free. No need to book a ticket, just turn up, whether you want to read or just hear some new poetry.
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6 November, 7.30pm Andrew O’Hagan, Caledonian Road SOLD OUT
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28 November, 7.30pm Tim Shipman, Out A handful of new tickets have just been released. We’re very excited to welcome Tim Shipman, The Sunday Times’s Chief Political Commentator, to talk about the final volume in his epic quartet charting the Brexit psychodrama of the last few years, Out. We’ll also quiz Tim on the first five months of our new government and what lies ahead.
The Backstory chart
Hardback
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We Solve Murders by Richard Osman The Thursday Murder Club author is back, with a new series of cosy crime.
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Evenings and Weekends by Oisin McKenna I devoured this book, set over the course of one sweltering weekend in London, as the deeds and desires of several interconnected characters collide.
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Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers. Our book of the month, from the author of Small Pleasures.
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Think Again by Jacqueline Wilson. The first book for adults from the children’s author with a devoted following.
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We’ll Prescribe You A Cat by Syou Ishida. See above!
Paperback
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Butter by Asako Yuzuki Still going strong.
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Brotherless Night by VV Ganeshananthan Winner of this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, coming to our Backstory fiction book club in November.
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Kala by Colin Walsh One of my favourite books of last year. A dark, twisty tale of friendship and suspicion set on the Irish coast.
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Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano Denise loved this book, an homage to Little Women set in Chicago.
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Damascus Station by David McCloskey Sun, sex, spies — and Syria. I tore through this debut thriller from a former CIA operative.
Join our club
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Subscribe to our gorgeous and irreverent magazine all about books and bookshops. From as little as £9 a year.
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Join our fiction or non-fiction book clubs, which meet every month on Zoom with each book’s author. We’ve heard from winners of the Pulitzer, Nobel and Women’s prizes, and big names like Patrick Radden Keefe, Caleb Azumah Nelson and Christina Lamb. Join for £15 a month or come to a one-off session for £16.
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Take out a Backstory book subscription, tailored to each individual recipient. These start from £60 for three months (or £45 for kids) and make brilliant presents.
Happy reading!
Tom