What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama – Review

I’m not comfortable with that. I prefer to not talk about them in general, because I can’t lie that I liked the experience, my body is unable to do it. And there is the love letter category. The category where I want to be buried with THAT book when I die. I just want to get teleported into its world and leave me there forever. These are the kind of books that I wear on my heart proudly, openly.

What You Are Looking For Is In The Library* belongs to the third category. This is a love letter not a review. This is me saying thank you to the author and to the translator (oh, the translation was exquisite) for letting me enter into their world and just float there, like a happy, tiny capybara. There are 2 main parts of this review, the spoiler-free part and the one that goes in detail. I will highlight each section as one of these categories in the beginning of the paragraph.

The premise of the book

(No danger here, spoiler-free zone.)

The book is divided into 5 chapters, each of them concentrating on a different person’s life. Since I wish to keep it spoiler-free for this part I won’t go too much into detail who these 5 individuals are or in what part they are different from each other, but you can skip ahead to My Love Letter if you are interested in the details.

In short, the story revolves around a library situated at the Hatori Community House, where eventually all 5 characters will end up meeting the librarian Sayuri Komachi. I would like to point out that in the hardcover version each opening chapter is beautifully illustrated and gives a general atmosphere of the upcoming character.
All 5 characters end up in the library and they get a tailored recommendation based on what they are looking for, from our librarian who (hands down) was my favourite character from the novel. The chapters are short, it is easily a book that can be read in one-sitting if you can afford a quiet afternoon. The narration is in first person for each character, which made the whole reading experience ascend to a higher level in my opinion. First person narratives can be a hit or miss, I personally am not picky at all. I do like third person and first person prose the same way, but if you are someone who prefers one or the other, it’s a good thing to know about. There is also a list of the books mentioned in What You Are Looking For Is In The Library**, at the end of the book, which I’m really excited about as I’m learning Japanese.

As our characters get their book recommendations from Miss Komachi their life changes. There is self-exploration in this book, and even some book reviewers call it just simply a self-help novel, but let me just say this. It’s like stating that One Piece* is just an animation. True. But we both know that it is so much more than just a ‘cartoon’. It’s definitely a story about life and our mortal experience trying to cruise through it with a dinghy, desperately looking at the stars as guidance. If I am pushed to compare it to another book then I would say that it gave a similar experience to How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino*. Although, even like that, probably many readers would disagree with me, which is absolutely fine. I’m a sentimental reader. I like to be led by my nose when I read. I like to feel and cry or be scared, hence why I love horror books. So probably that’s why this book had such a huge impression on me. I highly recommend reading this novel when you are feeling a bit low in life. When you feel like your soul needs a little bit of food. It’s a perfect snack book.

Artist’s Corner

The Author:

Michiko Aoyama, 青山美智子 was born in 1970 in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. She worked as a journalist after graduating from university for an Australian newspaper in Sydney for two years then she moved back to Tokyo. In the capital she was working as a magazine editor before she decided to start her journey as an author. Her debut novel, Cocoa on Thursdays (木曜日にはココア) was the winner of the 2020’s Miyazaki Book Award (宮崎本大賞). Consequently, both in 2021 and in 2022 she came second with her novels What You’re Looking For Is In The Library, お探し物は図書室まで  and Red, Blue and Sketches, 赤と青とエスキース respectively at the Bookstore Awards, 本屋大賞 . Her next novel titled as Recovery Hippo** in English is planned to be published in August, 2025.

If you are interested in her other Japanese editions books, you can refer to the links below:

木曜日にはココア** (Cocoa On Thursdays)
お探し物は図書室まで** (What You Are Looking For Is In The Library)

赤と青とエスキース ** (Red,Blue and Sketches)
月の立つ林で** (In The Forest Where The Moon Stands)

リカバリー・カバヒコ** (Recovery Hippo)

月曜日の抹茶カフェ** (Monday’s Matcha Cafe)
猫のお告げは樹の下で** (Cat’s Prophecy Beneath The Tree)

鎌倉うずまき案内所** (Uzumaki Kamakura Information Centre)

ただいま神様当番** (I’m Currently On God Duty)

Many of these titles are rather pricey as not every one of them has the kindle version, so it might be worth it to wait until a used copy pops up. If any of these rough translations are horrible, that is completely my fault. Except for the titles that have official translations like, What You Are Looking For Is In The library.

The Translator:

Alison Watts beautifully translated Aoyama’s novel from Japanese to English. You can find her website here, including additional titles she was working on. She has also won many prestigious awards including the inaugural Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Prize for translating Hase Seishu’s novel titled: The Boy and the Dog.*
I have read a few beautiful translations since I’m reading Japanese fiction, but so far her work stands closest to my heart. I love her style, and the way she is handling nuanced subtle differences. Obviously, I am not an expert as I’m still learning to read in Japanese and also English is my second language, but I believe and I hope, that I can recognise and appreciate a nice translation, when I come across one. I will definitely keep my eye on her work in the future. 

If you are interested her other translations here are the titles I could find:
The Boy and the Dog by Seishu Hase*
Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Riku Onda*

The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda*

Spark By Naoki Matayoshi**
Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa*

On the Road and on The Run in Outlaw Chine by Aya Goda**

The Illustrator:

At the beginning of every chapter there is a beautiful illustration that encapsulates the character that is being introduced in the following pages.

The Illustrator for the english edition was Rohan Daniel Eason and I highly recommend checking out his other illustrations because they are just absolutely dead drop gorgeous. He mostly does black and white ink line works. His client list includes big names like Harry Potter, Penguin Random House or UNICEF just to mention a fraction of it.

Titles I could find on Bookshop.org with his illustrations:
The Hollow Woods: Storytelling Card Game*
Benice: An Adventure of Love and Friendship*
Three Tales*

My Love Letter

(SPOILER ALERT!!)

I don’t know why, but there are specific types of books that just speak to my soul. I don’t know, if it’s my inner child having a tantrum rage, or the quiet depressed side of me, but there is something about books like What You Are Looking For Is In The Library that just heals me a little bit every time. Similarly, I had the same experience with The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-mi Hwang* or How Do You live? By Genzaburo Yoshino. The gentle wisdom that encapsulates these books, and that huge power of emotions that is hurling in the background of these stories is what makes me so happy about reading them. Maybe even inspiring me to pick up the pen one day. I am incredibly grateful for these artists for sharing their beautiful world with me.

What You Are Looking For Is In The Library has 5 distinctive characters. 

We have Tomoka who is a 21-year-old, working as a womenswear sales assistant. She is rather aimless as to what to do with her life, and also lacking a perceivable amount of self-confidence. She is certain that, she has no talent in anything, which only strengthens her indecisiveness as to which way to go in life. I think many of us are struggling with at least a certain aspect of what Tomoka is facing. Especially, when you are having a demanding job and you can’t seem to relax even when you are not working. You end up being in this trapped world, where your brain is constantly in a haze, a thick fog, and nothing seems to make sense. Aoyama very smartly put Tomoka’s character first, since most of us can relate to her in a certain way or form. She ends up in the library by happenstance, as she signs up at her local Community Hall for a computer science course, in order to train herself, and to possibly find an office job. There, in the library we get introduced to two additional characters: Nozomi Morinaga who is a young apprentice, and Sayuri Komachi the librarian. Miss Komachi is the one who gives each character her own book recommendations, on top of what they are looking for. Or should I say, what they are Really Looking For, and it does make the reader wonder what it is actually looking for? What would be my answer to her if she were to ask me?

As a bonus she also hands out everyone a little charm, a felted figurine from her collection that she is tirelessly working on. As the story goes on we get introduced to more characters, like Ryo who is 35 years old, hard-working accounting employee of a furniture manufacturer company. Dreaming about opening his own antique shop, but scared to lose the certainty of his office job. I loved how Aoyama’s answer was not to leave the job behind but actually try to find a golden route where he could do both, little by little as a double career. I probably resonated the most with his character, just because, I juggle multiple paths at the same time, and I know how hard it is to make it work but it’s definitely something that exists.

We also have Natsumi, who is a 40-year-old magazine editor who has been at the top of her career, sacrificing and working tirelessly until she becomes pregnant. Not very hard to imagine what happens after this, they move her to a less demanding position, and someone else takes her spot. Anyone would have been fuming at thins, and again, Aoyama is showing amazing empathy skills as Natsumi instead of giving in her rage she tries to understand the point of view of others. She realises that indeed she can’t juggle both having a child, and being in a fast-paced position, or at least not always. Furthermore, the colleague who took her position might not be living in a world where everything is perfect either. We all end up looking sometimes at the other, and wishing we could have that opportunity or situation, but at the end of the day, that person is probably doing the same with someone else. Or even with us, we just don’t know about it. And there is power and peace in realising this.

We also have Hiroya, who is a 30-year-old illustrator who is unemployed at the beginning. I loved his character as it showed, how hard it is for people who are highly artistic to do jobs that are considered to be normal in most cases. There was a point when Aoyama described this as your body physically refusing to take you to your workplace. And I could feel that in my bones. He ends up working in the Community Centre which I thought just made perfect sense.

Finally, we have Masao who is 65-year-old and retired. He was working for a confectionery company in the sales department and now he doesn’t know what to do in his free time. He ends up signing up for a go lesson at the community centre and hence enters the library. He falls in love with poetry, which was a beautiful way to end this book.

There are many little details that are connected together, which brought tears to my eyes. How the teacher who taught Tomoka is actually the wife of Mr. Masao, or how the cookie box that our lovely librarian holds so close to her heart, is the same confectionary company that Mr. Masao was working at all his life. How the girl sitting beside Tomoka at the computer course, is actually the girlfriend of Ryo and so on. Every time when there was a little connection my heart ached. Because we are all connected. I mentioned that I am a sentimental reader so it’s not that surprising that this had me in a chokehold. There is so much more to talk about. I haven’t even mentioned anything about Komachi our mysterious librarian but even a review with a spoiler has to end somewhere.

What’s Next…

I fell in love with Michiko Aoyama’s work so much so, that I already ordered one of her earliest work 木曜日にはココア**. I’m a bit terrified how I’m going to manage with reading her prose in Japanese, but I need to start somewhere.

As usual I have put all the books that I could find on bookshop.org* into a list down below, so make sure to check it out!
P.S.: If you are an author and would like me to read your book, feel free to reach out to me on my socials or drop me an email at no************@***il.com with Books as the subject, in case it ends up in my spam folder. I’m always on the hunt for amazing stories. If you want to stay up to date with the latest thoughts and reviews, sign up for NOLITETHOUGHTS‘ newsletter at the bottom of this post.