The literary world seems to be afloat with cosy books about cafes and libraries from The Cinnamon Bun Bookstore to Before The Coffee Gets Cold and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. It’s a style that’s clearly having its moment and resonating with readers on a global scale. Dinner at the Night Library, published in Japan in 2023, is a title that will please readers of the above books but also offers plenty of its own treats. Now released in English, translated by Philip Gabriel, it is destined to grace bookstores across the country.
We follow the titular Library, which opens its doors from the afternoon to early morning and houses books from deceased writers, both their own works and those they had collected over the years. This is an already intriguing premise; it’s made even more so by the mysterious owner whom none of the staff seem to have met or know anything about.
We mostly follow Otoha, the newest member of staff at the store, who had previously worked in a busy bookshop in a station. She receives an unusual offer to work at The Night Library, offering a small wage but bed and board. There are first-person sections dedicated to the other members of staff as well, helping to flesh out their stories.
There are many peculiarities about the library; the food served in the canteen is derived from the books in their collection, with a world-class chef and barista recreating recipes from the likes of Anne of Green Gables and Japanese literature.
While there are overarching throughlines, the story is mostly broken into vignettes, including an acclaimed author visiting the collection of a rival being housed in the library, a scandal surrounding missing books and the sister of a reclusive deceased author wanting their collection housed at the library. Each of these stories is compelling in its own way, and there are fun treats for literary fans to spot the nods to works old and new. Interactions between the staff, like meal times and watching films together, including multiple adaptations of Little Women, add a sense of charm and personality.
Dinner at the Night Library is a light and easy read, but one that offers readers plenty of fun and unique quirks. It will, of course, please fans of the likes of Before The Coffee Gets Cold, but it is far from simply a knockoff and people who haven’t read similar titles may end up besotted by the unique world created and its delicious recipes.
Words by Chris Connor
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