Book Recommendation: Letters from the Ginza Shihodo Stationery Shop

Hi Readers! For those of you have been enjoying my recommendations on healing fiction, here’s one more! I had this on my TBR since a long time. And, after my last few reads, I wanted something wholesome, so I finally picked this book, and I was not disappointed!

~~GOODREADS DESCRIPTION~~

For lovers of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, a new book about the beauty of humble objects, the power of writing, and reconnecting with those you have lost.

Write your story, heal your heart . . .

Hidden away in a corner of the Ginza neighbourhood is a venerable stationery shop. To venture inside is to find everything your stationery-loving heart desires, from the most delicate paper to fountain pens that fit exactly to the shape of your hand to gorgeously coloured inks. The shop owner intuits your every need, inviting you to take a seat at a small wooden table on the top floor, where you’ll find the words flowing, helping you unlock repressed memories, secret longings and your own mysteries.

To this shop comes a young company employee, uncertain in his career and needing a connection back to his past; the hostess of an elegant club; the vice-captain of a high-school archery team, an ageing businessman and a formerly homeless sushi chef. With impeccable manners and a warm demeanor, the shop owner helps each of them with more than just their stationery needs.

~~THOUGHTS~~

As someone who loves stationery and Japanese healing fiction novels and wholesome stories, I was very keen to read this book! Though it’s more of a dormant obsession, I love investing in different kinds of diaries, pens, sketch pens, brushes, post-it notes, bookmarks and the like. But, since books take up a sizable amount in the budget, I keep my stationery obsession under control. After reading this book though, I couldn’t help but have that urge to visit a stationery shop!

Letters from the Ginza Shihodo Stationery Shop is a short book consisting of five stories revolving around five customers all of whom visit the shop for various needs. We have a young man who wants advice on fountain pens to write a letter to his grandmother. We have a working woman wanting to buy the same organizers that her mentor gave her when she first met her. We have a high school girl and boy who are vice-captain and captains who keep records of their kyudo practice in notebooks that spanned more than ten volumes. We have a romantic story of a young man mailing postcards to a young woman from various cities and countries he travelled before they got married. And, we have a chef who wrote the tiniest of observations in memo pads because that’s how his mentor groomed him at the start of his career.

The descriptions of the ease of a fountain pen gliding on the paper or of the different sounds that varieties of papers make or the comfort of a leather chair where you sit to write were all a sweet touch. But these elements were merely supporting actors. At the heart of each story is a letter that the customer writes. On the first floor of the Stationery shop, there awaits a desk and a chair where they sit and reflect and then finally write a letter. The sentimental combinations of the reflections themselves paired with the contents of the letters make the reading experience simply wonderful.

In all the stories we realize the power that letter writing can have, both on the writer and the reader. Gratitude comes across so lovingly, regret comes across so honestly, kinship comes across so easily, honesty comes across so formally, love comes across so meaningfully! I have rated Letters from the Ginza Shihodo Stationery Shop by Kenji Ueda, translated by Emily Balistrieri at 4/5 stars!

Until next time,