To join the club, subscribe for free below to access club chats on the Substack app, where you can message your thoughts while you read! Plus, I send you weekly prompts to get us chatting about the book. Comment, have fun, and share the book club with a friend!
My announcement is a few days into December, but we still have time to read this slim novel, Sweet Bean Paste, for the holiday season! We’ve been reading a few heavy books lately, so I chose a heartwarming story for our next read. When checking out the prose to see if it’s a good fit for us, I was hooked within the first few pages. As soon as I met the quirky elderly woman character, Tokue, I knew I was in love! This is what I want to be reading for a cozy, but still meaningful, holiday.
Details:
Literary fiction, 224 pages, published in 2017
“I'm in story heaven with this book.” Cecelia Ahern, author of P.S. I Love You
A charming tale of friendship, love and loneliness in contemporary Japan. Sentaro has failed. He has a criminal record, drinks too much, and his dream of becoming a writer is just a distant memory. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days in a tiny confectionery shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with sweet bean paste.
But everything is about to change.
Into his life comes Tokue, an elderly woman with disfigured hands and a troubled past. Tokue makes the best sweet bean paste Sentaro has ever tasted. She begins to teach him her craft, but as their friendship flourishes, social pressures become impossible to escape and Tokue’s dark secret is revealed, with devastating consequences.
Sweet Bean Paste is a moving novel about the burden of the past and the redemptive power of friendship. Translated into English for the first time, Durian Sukegawa’s beautiful prose is capturing hearts all over the world.
Grab your copies, in any form you wish, and let’s read baby!
I’ll see you in my chat (in the Substack app!) to discuss this book while we read during December!! Yay! Who’s in? Let me know in the comments.
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December book club pick! Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa!
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To join the club, subscribe for free below to access club chats on the Substack app, where you can message your thoughts while you read! Plus, I send you weekly prompts to get us chatting about the book. Comment, have fun, and share the book club with a friend!
Our December pick is Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa!
How I chose it:
My announcement is a few days into December, but we still have time to read this slim novel, Sweet Bean Paste, for the holiday season! We’ve been reading a few heavy books lately, so I chose a heartwarming story for our next read. When checking out the prose to see if it’s a good fit for us, I was hooked within the first few pages. As soon as I met the quirky elderly woman character, Tokue, I knew I was in love! This is what I want to be reading for a cozy, but still meaningful, holiday.
Details:
Literary fiction, 224 pages, published in 2017
“I'm in story heaven with this book.” Cecelia Ahern, author of P.S. I Love You
A charming tale of friendship, love and loneliness in contemporary Japan.
Sentaro has failed. He has a criminal record, drinks too much, and his dream of becoming a writer is just a distant memory. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days in a tiny confectionery shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with sweet bean paste.
But everything is about to change.
Into his life comes Tokue, an elderly woman with disfigured hands and a troubled past. Tokue makes the best sweet bean paste Sentaro has ever tasted. She begins to teach him her craft, but as their friendship flourishes, social pressures become impossible to escape and Tokue’s dark secret is revealed, with devastating consequences.
Sweet Bean Paste is a moving novel about the burden of the past and the redemptive power of friendship. Translated into English for the first time, Durian Sukegawa’s beautiful prose is capturing hearts all over the world.
Grab your copies, in any form you wish, and let’s read baby!
I’ll see you in my chat (in the Substack app!) to discuss this book while we read during December!! Yay! Who’s in? Let me know in the comments.
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See you soon and read like mad! 🤭