A review by bookwoods
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama

4.0

This is a Japanese collection of interconnected short stories centering a library with a cat on the cover, which means that I needed to buy it the second I saw it. The stories are about individuals in different phases of life, each looking for some kind of change in their occupation. This leads them to the library in search of books on a certain topic, but the librarian recommends books that have nothing to do with the subject. Yet it’s these random books that end up having significance in the characters’ lives. I got the impression that these books are classics in Japan, and I think it would have enhanced the reading experience to have known about them in advance. Nonetheless, I found this to be a lovely collection, though I wanted to know more about the librarian, and preferably something that has nothing to do with her size (she is described time and time again as an exceptionally large woman, which is lazy writing and a little problematic as well).