Anything about coffee seems to get our attention - certainly mine. I wonder why coffee is always associated with dates and romantic meetings whereas tea (chai) is to do with friends and informal hangouts. I guess it has something to do with marketing. Anyway the story has been written by the author in Japanese and translated into English by Geoffrey Trousselot.
The premise of the story is that if we could go back into our past and change something we always wanted to what would it be, who would we meet. So there is a cafe in Tokyo where there is a seat which is occupied by a ghost and which is vacated by her when she goes to the toilet during which time one can sit in her place and order coffee which transports you to the place and time you want to visit. The conditions are many but suffice to know that whatever you do in the past during this visit will not change the present and you must come back before the coffee gets cold. So there are many who believe in this urban legend and come to meet someone from the past - four precisely. One to find out if her lover will return, one to give a letter to his wife about his growing Alzheimer's condition, one who wants to meet her sister who died and another to meet a daughter she never met.
The premise is interesting. The writing style with so many details is not really the kind I enjoy so much. I realised Murakami does the same thing to me - distracts me with a lot of details that I forget the main story. But obviously its a personal opinion because the book is a global bestseller.
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