BookBrowse Highlights
Hello Readers!
This week, we bring you two translations of contemporary Japanese works.
In First Impressions, The Friday Bookshop by Sawako Natori is a cozy book-lover’s novel with a unique premise—a bookstore that helps you find the book you need to read.
Our Editor’s Choice pick is Abandoning a Cat, the long autobiographical essay from novelist Haruki Murakami on his relationship with his father and the details that make up a life.
You can also read our “beyond the book” article about the societal pressure to become a mother that figures into Sarah Anderson’s debut Fallow, featuring a woman who works as a surrogate for business executives.
And now it’s time to really get excited, because our most anticipated books of 2027 are up for you to peruse and pore over. Plus, explore this week’s Booker Prize winner (and our discussion about the award), and a new Wordplay!
Thanks for reading,
The BookBrowse Team
First Impressions
Each month, we share books with BookBrowse members to read and review. Here are their opinions on one recently released title.
The Friday Bookshop by Sawako Natori
“The Friday Bookshop is the bookshop where you will find the book you want to read. Located in a secluded train station in a town north of Tokyo, the shop is operated by three colorful shopkeepers who met as high school students and became friends through their love of books. Kurai is a college student who comes to the Friday Bookshop seeking a specific book for his father, who is in the hospital. Although he has never been an avid reader and feels that he is not ‘qualified’ to read novels, he is fascinated by the shop and its proprietors and soon becomes a part-time employee of the shop. The story evolves through a series of quirky and interesting customers and their interactions with Kurai and the shopkeepers.” —Jean_M
“What a delightful read! Granted, the title itself is intriguing to anyone who loves to read, but the mystical connotations of a bookstore that promises to find the exact book you need to read and the way that is developed throughout the book was something different.” —Mark_S
“The other bookstore employees were characters in the ‘unusual person’ sense of the word…Kurai is one of the most openly vulnerable characters I've read about in some time.” —Kathryn_H
Editor’s Choice
Abandoning a Cat by Haruki Murakami
How well can we ever know our parents? How do we grapple with the accidental incidents and the "what ifs" that make up a life? These are just a few of the questions novelist Haruki Murakami explores in his long essay, Abandoning a Cat: A Personal Story. First published in the Japanese magazine Bungeishunjū in 2019 (and translated into English for The New Yorker that same year by Murakami's frequent collaborator Philip Gabriel), the essay is now being released for the first time in a hardcover edition with stunning illustrations by Yuko Shimizu. As Murakami shows, through writing a parent's history, it is possible to understand them better, even if they are long gone. … continued
Review by Christine Runyon
Beyond the Book
The Pressure to Become a Mother
In Sarah Anderson's Fallow, motherhood is not simply a personal choice. Through an imagined corporate surrogacy program, the novel explores how women's bodies can become part of a system that places different expectations on women depending on their social roles. While some women are encouraged to pursue their careers without putting their ambitions aside, for others taking on the physical demands of pregnancy might seem like the best (or only) option.
This raises an important question: How much freedom do women really have when society shapes their choices about motherhood? … continued
Article by Amani Altwam
Our Most Anticipated Books of 2027
2027 is on its way, and as usual, we've picked out our most anticipated upcoming releases.
So grab your calendar and start preordering, planning book club discussions, and doing some anticipating of your own. The list below includes exciting contemporary fiction, exquisite historical fiction, topical and suspenseful mysteries and thrillers, speculative strangeness, and nonfiction for deep enjoyment and reflection. … continued
2026 Booker Prize Winners
The Booker Prize, open to authors writing in English whose work is published in the UK, is one of the world’s most popular and significant literary awards. This year’s winner, M. John Harrison’s The End of Everything, takes its place alongside the winner of the International Booker (for translations, awarded in May), Shuang-zi Yang’s Taiwan Travelogue.
See our Awards page for more on these titles, and our community forum Booker discussion thread for what books made the longlist and shortlist.
Wordplay
Solve our Wordplay puzzle to reveal a well-known expression, and be entered to win a one-year membership to BookBrowse!
"T, T, S P"
Click for the answer to the last Wordplay (M to M E), and a detailed breakdown of its meaning and history.
Want to play even more word games? Try our daily book trivia and see if you can get to the top of the leaderboard.
