The Cat Who Saved Books, Sosuke Natsukawa (2021)
Book Request:
From bristlythistle
I'm hoping to get some recs of books that have Studio Ghibli vibes. Coziness, magical worlds, brave characters, eccentric old witches, whimsy, and so on.
Bibbit's Quick Rec.
The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa, translated by Louise Heal Kawai is for anyone. It is however, especially for everyone having a bad day.
A pair of high-schoolers, one reckoning with the loss of his grandfather, are confronted by a tabby cat. The cat appears in the grandfather's used book store and demands it's inheritor (a reclusive boy named Rintaro) help him save books.
Though Rintaro doesn't know what that means, he agrees and is whisked into a labyrinth of books and magic. Natsukawa clears the highest bar of fantasy fiction, constructing a world that makes perfect sense while following no measurable or quantifiable logic.
It feels like magic, and inside that magic lurks danger without evil. Rintaro and his friend Sayo must overcome what faces them with empathy and a healthy appreciation for books.
Natsukawa's own love of books is foundational to the project. A doctor whose first book (Translated in the afterword as God's own medicine) turned him into a national phenomenon, Natsukawa infuses each page with the joy of reading. This is a book about books. A book about the value of reading and how to find that within a world that seems to have less time for it each day.
The Cat Who Saved Books is, like Psalm For The Wild Bult, the kind of book that nourishes the reader.
Natsukawa, translated with astonishing care and precision by Louise Heal Kawai, manages to do all of this without once admonishing the reader or those who can't find time or energy to read. This is after all a work that proclaims "Books teach us how to care about others."
/Bibbit
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