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Similar to books like Before the coffee gets cold and What you are looking for is in the library. The Kamogawa diner is a restaurant with a difference. There is no sign and no reviews, but they can find your food. People coming to the agency are looking to recreate a dish from their past, and the agency can make it happen!

I enjoyed it overall but I would have preferred there to be more details about the actual investigating.

#BookSpin

This book gave me Before the Coffee Gets Cold vibes, without the sci-fi touch to it. People come to the Kamogawa Detective Agency, which is also a cafe, looking to have a favorite dish recreated. These dishes have memories attached to them for the cafe‘s clients, who usually end up learning something from their visits. It‘s a quiet book and a quick read.

This was fine. It just wasn‘t really the cute mystery I was hoping for. I was a bit bored. It is short and the cover is adorable. 3⭐️

One of my new favorite books! I found this book touching and beautiful, but I can see where maybe some of the translation didn‘t catch the nuance for people who aren‘t Japanese/very familiar with Japanese culture.
A retired detective runs a restaurant with his daughter. They also run a special agency that will recreate a meal based on people‘s memories.
5/5 read this for lovely descriptions of food and the power it has to change people.

Found this in search of #Camplitsy nominees. It‘s also this month‘s #bookspin.

Despite the title, this is not a crime story. People go to this restaurant to find that one special meal from their life. It felt very japanese. I liked the pace and found the detuction fascinating. I would have enjoyed it even more if I knew more about japanese food.

Manazuru was the last of Hiromi Kawakami's books (that have been translated into English) that I hadn't read -- until Under the Eye of the Big Bird comes out in September. This one was quieter than some of her others. The fantastical parts weren't as colorful as in Dragon Palace or People from my Neighborhood. The pace was on the slow side, but once I got into it, I found it to be a gripping rumination on grief and memory.

Cute and cozy but wish there was a little more underlying story between the short stories

Dewey‘s 24-Hour Readathon is about to begin! It‘s my 32nd consecutive ‘thon (which: whoa) and I‘m all set to kick it off with another chapter from THE KAMOGAWA FOOD DETECTIVES. It‘s lovely so far; a little bit like MIDNIGHT DINER in how it uses particular dishes to unravel the mysteries behind people‘s lives, but without the show‘s underlying grit. #deweysapril2024

Written in the 1940s about the lives of the 4 well to-do Makioka sisters this had all the elements of translated Japanese fiction I enjoy; the gentle style, the formality with which people address each other, the need for rules, politeness and order. And yet, this was just so incredibly slow. Even the drama unfolds painfully slowly. At first I settled into the pace, but around 300 pages in I was getting impatient and it was a struggle to finish.