One for the holiday suitcase
Vogue.co.uk
Charming
- Cathy Rentzenbrink, Stylist.co.uk
The ever-readable, ebulliently-imaginative Japanese novelist burst the four small walls of Nakano-san's bric-a-brac shop with this tale of unusual, unrelated but inextricably intertwined characters
Monocle
The delightful nature of the story comes from the magic of the ordinary and the everyday goings on in the shop owned by the enigmatic Mr Nakano
i paper
Subtle, graceful, wise and threaded on a quirky humour, this exploration of the connections and disconnections between people kept me smiling long after the last page
- Julia Rochester, author, The House at the Edge of the World
The Nakano Thrift Shop is really a love story, albeit a very offbeat one... A gentle book, full of charm [and] radiating leftfield charisma
- Anna Fielding, Emerald Street
Kawakami is one of Japan's most popular contemporary novelists and, thanks to the Allison Markin Powell's translation, we get to enjoy this meandering and innocent novel... A tenderly handled mystery and a fractured love story. Delightful
- Rachel Howdle, Press Association
A charming read from the bestselling Japanese author Hiromi Kawakami
Good Housekeeping
Hitomi takes in her town's characters and dramas - and finds love - from behind the cash register.
Grazia
Highly enjoyable and surprisingly accessible. Significant praise should be given to Allison Markin Powell's excellent work in translating the book
Sleepless Editor
A novel about identity, loneliness and about non-conformism. With Kawakami's writing raising questions about sex and identity it is no surprise that her novels are so popular in structured, and often formal, Japan. This is a great novel and a highly accessible introduction to Japanese fiction.
Words Shortlist
Written in quietly understated prose infused with a gentle humour, Kawakami's novel is an absolute delight. The four principal characters are wonderfully driven - eccentric, idiosyncratic and thoroughly engaging. [...] I loved it - a welcome antidote to the twenty-four-hour misery cycle that is our news at the moment, and a reminder that joy can be found in the most prosaic of lives.
A Life in Books