The Cat Who Saved Books

“Books have tremendous power”

“This world throws all kinds of obstacles at us, we are forced to ensure so much that is absurd. Our best weapon for fighting all the pain and trouble in the world isn’t logic or violence. It’s humour.”

What a cute and fun read. I adored Tiger, who was amusingly sarcastic and to the point. He was clearly intelligent and well-read, the perfect kitty. For some reason I imagined him with the voice of Patton Oswalt. I note that some reviewers described him as rude or obnoxious, but he’s a cat, he’s meant to be slightly snooty!

Tiger appeared at precisely the right time for Rintaro. His life had been derailed by the death of his grandfather and he was struggling. Tiger showed Rintaro that he had show more the strength, courage and conviction needed to get his life back on track. With Tiger’s help, Rinatro was able to focus on the teachings of his grandfather and their shared love of books without falling apart over his death. Touching and philosophical, with a magical kitty twist, the perfect rainy afternoon read. show less

And we're back with another cozy Japanese story. I think I'm going to hit all of them by the time the year ends (don't quote me on that though).

It's wild to believe that this book was originally published in 2017 because it deals with extremely relevant topics in the book world: overconsumption, Generative AI, and the loss of books. As I was going through the little side quests Rintaro has to go on, I kept thinking 'yes, exactly.'

You may read this and point out how simplistic the ideas are, but why is that a bad thing? I don't believe Natsukawa was attempting to solve our book problems with this story, rather bringing light to them. We can't deny that our world is shifting; commodifying books to an extreme extent, people out there show more putting classics into ChatGPT and asking AI to summarize it for them, loosing our critical thinking skills and refusing to read challenging books. And yes, this book points out that sometimes going too far in the opposite direction is also bad, but at the end of the day if you love books you should be fighting to preserve them; the good, the bad, the exciting, the escapism, and the classics.

Books show us empathy and empathy makes us better people. show less

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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Suddenly the cat spoke.

“Books have a soul.”

Its beautiful eyes seemed to capture the light of the stars and they, too, twinkled in the darkness.

“A book that sits on a shelf is nothing but a bundle of paper. Unless it is opened, a book possessing great power or an epic story is mere scraps of paper. But a book that has been cherished and loved, filled with human thoughts, has been endowed with a soul.”

“A soul?”

“That’s right,” replied the cat emphatically.

WHAT'S THE CAT WHO SAVED BOOKS ABOUT?
Rintaro Natsuki, a high school student, finds himself the proprietor of a used bookstore after the death of his grandfather/guardian. It's a bit too much for him to show more handle—and he's going to have to move, anyway—so he plans to close it.

But before he gets that far, a cat appears in the store and starts talking to him. Not just talking to him, but telling Rintaro that he needs to accompany the cat to go rescue books. On the one hand, it's ridiculous for the teen to follow the cat into a mysterious and strange reality to do this. But also...I sort of figure that if a cat starts talking to you, you tend to follow along with whatever nonsense it's telling you.

The pair go off on a short series of adventures to...well, save books from people who aren't treating them the right way (another reason to go along with the cat). This is hard to explain in a satisfactory way, at least in my reckoning. It makes utter sense when you see it in action.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
There are a few pages from the translator at the end of the book, describing some of the choices made. I found it fascinating—and would've gladly read another 15+ pages about it. But it's probably good we didn't get all of that—leave a little mystery to her craft, right?

But what I learned about the Japanese language—and a little bit about the culture—it just made me want to learn more.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT THE CAT WHO SAVED BOOKS?

In the local doctor’s opinion, he’d most probably suffered a heart attack and died quickly.

“He passed away peacefully.”

If you combined the kanji character for “go” with the one for “live,” you got a strange-looking word meaning “to pass away.” Somehow seeing this word was what had shaken Rintaro the most; it struck him as out of place.

Okay, so I don’t want to say much about this book because it’s really one of those that you have to find your way through and experience.

But I do want to say a little. The magic system makes no sense. I don’t understand why Rintaro gets recruited. I don't understand his aunt’s role in anything, or how Rintaro actually accomplishes anything, what happens to the books he and the cat save, or the brevity of their campaign. The encounters with the people they’re saving books from are entirely too short and are all anticlimactic. I probably have more to say along those lines, but you get the gist. Basically, Sosuke Natsukawa needs someone like Gareth Brown, R.F. Kuang, or Peng Shepherd to come in, expand on his ideas and fill in all the stuff that would make this make sense and cohere.

Here’s the thing, though. And this is important.

I do not care about any of that. Not a lick of it. It doesn’t matter—and this is a conversation I had with myself at least a half-a-dozen times while reading the book, and I always came to the same conclusion. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I loved what it said about reading, books in general, the writing of them, the importance of them, the kinds of books to be produced and why. I enjoyed the book, it warmed my heart and made me smile. There was sweetness, there was whimsy, and it just didn’t matter that none of it made sense. It’s entirely possible that addressing my issues would’ve ruined the book—it almost certainly would ruin it.

Go, grab it, and bring a warm glow to your inner bibliophile. It's a gem. show less

An introverted teen lives with his grandfather above their modest but cozy used bookshop. When the grandfather dies, RIntaro finds it difficult to come to terms with the idea of leaving behind the shop and its books to live with an aunt he barely knows. Meanwhile, a strange talking cat comes to visit the shop and takes Rintaro on magical quests to rescue books from people who are mistreating them, and Rintaro discovers along the way that he just may need rescuing, too.

I can't praise this one enough. Quiet and cozy, just like the bookshop detailed in its pages, this story is one that speaks to the heart of any book lover. The tagline could be: Zen and the Art of Enjoying a Simple Life of Friendship and Reading. Do yourself a favor and show more read it. Nowish. show less

Rintaro Natsuki is a high school junior that was raised by his grandfather. Everything is different now as Rintaro has inherited his grandpa's secondhand bookshop. It is the place where Rintaro feels most himself, a safe place, a place of comfort. It's hard to think of leaving the bookshop forever. It's hard to think of moving to live with an aunt he'd never met until his grandpa died. Rintaro should be going to school but that seems ridiculous when he's leaving soon. But before he leaves, a ginger tabby cat with jade eyes appears and in a deep voice tells Rintaro that his help is needed as books have been imprisoned. So begins an odyssey visiting 4 labyrinths that will forever change Rintaro's life.

I read this book over the course of show more 24 hours. It is a book expressing a young man's loss, a young man's grief, and his realization of the meaning of lessons taught to him by his grandpa and the legacy of his inheritance. It is a story of moving beyond one's grief through compassion received and friendship.

Some may believe this is a book merely for young adults as Rintaro is a student in high school and may even mimic the talking cat. I believe it is so much more. I believe it is a courageous book that expresses some of the changes in society, the circulation of misinformation, and the desire by some for control of what is read.

I wish this book could be required reading by every individual that is contributing to the censorship of libraries, and the challenges to books in schools and prisons. I also wish this book could be required reading by every person that is making those decisions based on various societal pressures. If only wishing could make it so.

I highly recommend this extraordinary book. I also encourage readers to take the time to read "A Note from the Translator" and "A Note from the Illustrator" as these notes reflect the thoughtfulness of their work that have added to the meaningful reading experience. show less

A fun, little tale about a boy coming out of his shell and the power of a good book. If I have one criticism, it's that the book treats books as things that just are, like books sprung into the world fully formed independent of the author, and not as a things that were birthed from a specific person's mind through care and effort. Authors may as well not exist; for all the book engages with the passion of readers for books, it ignores the people behind the books, who also have passion and who are also readers.

A compelling fantasy account of the value of books. A teenaged boy is led by a talking cat to encounter four metaphorical embodiments of sundry relationships with books: The one who hordes books for their social value; the one who would reduce all books to their informational essences; the one who regards books for their economic value. These opponents all secretly love books, and so it is no difficult to lead them to cease their harmful ways. But the last encounter is with a disgruntled book who has become bitter by the way people today misuse books and for their shallow relationships with books that, in turn, deprive them of their soul. FYI: although never said, it is clear that this book is intended to be the Bible, so her comments show more should be read in that context. The author clearly grasps the core value/power of books, and presents the argument in a wonderfully engaging manner.

This discourse should be read in combination with The Dark Library by Cyrille Martinez, which similarly describes how those charged to protect books can actually do them great harm, in this case by replacing the book with digital alternatives.

In style, this book reminds one of The Little Prince and his own encounters with archetypes on his journey through the little planets. But the first book to come to my mind was Jane Langton's Hall Family Chronicles, especially The Diamond in the Window and The Swing in the Summerhouse. Here we also see children encountering serial and increasingly more difficult challenges of a philosophical and esoteric nature. show less