Before the Coffee Gets Cold
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4.0 • 588 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
*NOW AN LA TIMES BESTSELLER*
*AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER*
The first book in the five million-copy bestselling magical realism series
If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet?
In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee—the chance to travel back in time.
Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.
Prepare to meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the cafe’s time-travelling offer in order to:
confront the man who left them receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by Alzheimer's see their sister one last time, and meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.
Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s internationally bestselling novel explores the age-old question: What would you change if you could travel back in time?
Meet more wonderful characters in the rest of the captivating Before the Coffee Gets Cold series: Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Book 1) Tales from the Cafe (Book 2) Before Your Memory Fades (Book 3) Before We Say Goodbye (Book 4) Before We Forget Kindness (Book 5) Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Boxed Set (Books 1-3)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Japanese playwright Kawaguchi's evocative English-language debut is set in a tiny Tokyo caf where time travel is possible. In four connected tales, lovers and family members take turns sitting in the chair that allows a person to travel back in time for only as long as it takes a single cup of coffee to cool. In "Husband and Wife," a nurse goes back in time to visit her husband before his Alzheimer's erased her from his memory; in "The Sisters," a woman visits her younger sister, who died in an accident while trying to visit her, to apologize for not seeing her. Kawaguchi's characters embark on lo-fi, emotional journeys unburdened by the technicalities often found in time travel fiction notably, they are unable to change the present. The characters learn, though, that even though people don't return to a changed present, they return "with a changed heart." Kawaguchi's tender look at the beauty of passing things, adapted from one of his plays, makes for an affecting, deeply immersive journey into the desire to hold onto the past. This wondrous tale will move readers.
Customer Reviews
Thoughtful and touching
A few easily tied together stories of life challenges facing the character, with a touch of time travel. Life situations that many can relate to. A fairly quick read. I enjoyed it and shed a few tears, too.
Enjoyable and reflective read!
What I loved most about the book was not so much the time travelling, but the way the author highlights the importance of conversations through the different characters. Initially, they all hold back what they truly want to say, or refrain from speaking because of emotions such as anger or irritation. When they are given the chance to go back, they approach those conversations differently. It felt like a reminder to me of how much time we spend in our own heads thinking about what to say or what not to say, when sometimes all we need to do is speak honestly when the opportunity arises. We never know whether we will be given another chance.
You’ve been warned…..
Do not read this in public if you don’t like crying in front of others!! Such a well-written story dealing with “what-ifs” and “regrets”. A great read!!!