Before The Coffee Gets Cold (before The Coffee Gets Cold Book 1)

By (author) Kawaguchi, Toshikazu; Translated by Trousselot, Geoffrey
Short description/annotation:
A beautiful, moving story about a small Japanese cafe that offers its visitors the chance to travel back in time. For fans of The Guest Cat and If Cats Disappeared from the World.
Description:

The cosy, heartwarming first book in the multi-million copy bestselling series.

What would you do if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time? Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold, translated from Japanese, explores this age-old question . . .

In a cosy back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

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
- meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat. They cannot leave the cafe. And finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

‘This book broke my heart, took the pieces, and put them back together in a messy and beautiful way. . . '' - well.read.woman on Instagram

Continue the beautifully moving storytelling with Tales from the Cafe, Before Your Memory Fades, Before We Say Goodbye, Before We Forget Kindness and Before I knew I loved you.

Review quote:
Heartwarming, whimsical . . . offering comfort at a time when the world seems off-kilter and chaotic
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A moving meditation on second chances
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Wonderful introspective examination of grief and regret
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The perfect accompaniment for your dreary commute
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This wondrous tale...an affecting, deeply immersive journey
Biographical note:
Toshikazu Kawaguchi was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1971. He formerly produced, directed and wrote for the theatrical group Sonic Snail. As a playwright, his works include COUPLE, Sunset Song and Family Time. The novel Before the Coffee Gets Cold is adapted from a 1110 Productions play by Kawaguchi, which won the 10th Suginami Drama Festival grand prize. It was followed by Tales from the cafe, Before your memory fades, Before we say goodbye, Before we forget kindness and Before I knew I loved you.
Promotional headline:
A beautiful, moving story about a small Japanese café that offers its visitors the chance to travel back in time, to find an answer to the question: what would you change if you could go back?