A book club book that I wanted to like, but ultimately couldn’t finish. It’s a collection of five short stories, each set in the same district of Tokyo. In each, an unhappy person is given just the right book by a librarian and is able to take the first step in turning their life around. I read the first two stories and got a few pages into the third before realizing that I wasn’t enjoying it enough to finish, and put it down in favour of stuff that’s more to my taste. In the first story, a young woman working in a department store lacks ambition. The librarian gives her a children’s book that helps her take the step forward to doing literally anything. (In this case, teaching herself to cook.) In the second story, an accountant with a dream of opening an antiques shop (but is too scared to pursue it) is given a horticulture book and a community newsletter that points him in the direction of “parallel careers,” and he decides to open the antiques shop with his girlfriend. I’d just started the third story – about a mother who got pushed out of the career she wanted when she gave birth to her son – and honestly I didn’t care enough to keep reading. I’m sure some people would find this book charming and inspiring. I found it boring. I like my fiction to be more speculative than grounded, and with stakes closer to “can they save the world” rather than “can they open their bakery.” So, not for me, but maybe for someone else.