HEARTBEATS

Jizo, protector of lost children

To continue my unplanned quest to read books with Library, Book, or Bookshop in the title, I've found two books based in Japan, both are gentle, somewhat magical realism stories. They both would be considered light reading, but they also ask questions about human existence that left me thinking about the ideas they expressed.

 I mentioned the first book in an earlier post, The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop by Takuya Asakura, which reveals the story of a bookshop that only appears in a park during cherry blossom season. The people who wander into the bookshop are helped by the owner and her cat to find a book that can help them resolve regrets left when people they were close to pass away.  The story made me think of our times during cherry blossom season when we walked through a park by the small stone statues of Jizo, protector of children who died, their red scarves covering their necks and the cherry blossom leaves slowly falling to seem like snow around them.

Heartbeat Library by Laura Imai Messina is another quiet story about tender relationships that develop because of grief and sorrow. The main character is cleaning out his mother's house after her death and finds answers to his own life in the house and in the unexpected companionship with a young neighborhood boy. Eventually they travel together to Teshima, a Japanese island that is home to the Heartbeat Library, an actual place designed by French artist, Christian Boltanski. Visitors can record their own heartbeats and listen to the hearbeats of others, a creative way to think of how we all are similar.

This juxataposition of France and Japan reminded me of our time living overseas in both countries. When we lived in Japan, we discovered that the Japanese we knew were enthralled by Louis Vuitton and Chanel. Both Japan and France had similar customs of buying a few high-end products, rather than throwaway items, and using them for years. When we were in France, every department store seemed to be celebrating Japanese culture, with furniture and clothing by Japanese designers on display. The two cultures also have similar imaginative and tender views of matters of the heart.

Once I read these two books, I picked up my book journals that I had been keeping since 1991, with notes on each book I have read. I wanted to see how many of the books were either about libraries or bookshops. I discovered a peculiar practice in my first journal. I had started at the back of the book and each page moved forward through the years. The journal itself was called the Book Lovers Journal. Inside were illustrations and photos of bookmaking, cartoons about readers, photos of bookstores and the insides of libraries, authors and their handwriting, and printing machines. In the middle of the journal I found John Dunning's The Bookman's Wake, a mystery with a central character who was a book seller, someone important in the chain between book production and readers.

Reading books to me gives me a window into someone else's thinking and of their values. A novel about a building filled with all those writers' voices seem to be a place where the heartbeats of those writers are stored.

***************

Check out the Hearbeat Library on Tehama Island, Japan:

https://benesse-artsite.jp/en/art/boltanski.html

***************

My list of books with Library, Bookshop, or Book in the Title:

Janet Charles, The Paris Library

Lisa Wingate, The Book of Lost Friends

Evie Woods, The Story Collector

Barbara Davis, Echo of Old Books

Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of AJ Fiery

Jackie Fraser, The Bookshop of Second Chances,

Amy Meyerson, The Bookshop of Yesterdays

Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

Susan Orleans, The Library Book

Kim  M. Richardson, The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek

Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

Robin Sloan,  Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Freya Simpson, The Last Chance Library

Elise Hooper, The Library of Lost Dollhouses

Shirley Abbott, The Bookmaker's Daughter

Lewis Busbee, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

Geraldine Brooks, People of the Book

David Crystal, A Little Book of Language

Christopher Beha, The Whole Five Feet

Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

***************

Window View in June 2026