![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Cat-Books.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nA cat. Books. What more do you want you want?<\/p>\n
Well, what you get in this novel, first published in English four years ago, is a bildungsroman<\/em>: a coming-of-age tale with a \u00a0cat as a guide. Teenager Rintaro Natsuki has just inherited his Grandfather\u2019s eclectic used book store. Brought up by his grandfather, Rintaro is a hikikomori,\u00a0<\/em>or one who has removed himself from society. In other words, a teenage book nerd. Into his life strides a talking tabby cat named Tiger, who says peremptorily that Rintaro must help him save books.<\/p>\n In the company of Rintaro\u2019s only friend, Sayo, Rintaro and Tiger \u00a0embark on a series of adventures. The trio does so without ever really leaving the bookstore, because the rear wall dissolves into a blue light, and they descend into labyrinths. These lengthy halls lead them to people who are mistreating books in ways that are memes for current publication malpractice \u2014 only publishing bestsellers, cutting the prose into pieces, etc. Tiger leads Rintaro into meeting each of these challenges, and our hikikomori\u00a0<\/em>grows in stature each time he does. \u00a0When he has to meet the last \u201cmaster\u201d in a labyrinth.\u00a0 he must do so by himself, sans cat, sans Sayo. He meets the challenge. of course, and when he returns to the bookshop, he knows he has the capacity to be the owner of Natsuke Books.<\/p>\n This is a classic tale, peppered with references to great texts, many of them Western classics. A pleasant short read, it is perhaps best aimed at an audience consisting of the hero\u2019s peers \u2014 hikikomori.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Need a change of pace? Bob Moyer reviews a novel that is probably unlike anything you’ve read in a long time. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer THE CAT WHO SAVED BOOKS. By Sosuke Natsukawa. Translated by Louise Heal Kawai. Harpervia. 208 pages. \u00a0$15.19, paperback. A cat. Books. What more do you want you want? Well, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1444],"tags":[32,47,1445],"class_list":["post-3313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary-literary-fiction","category-japanese-fiction","tag-fantasy","tag-japanese-fiction","tag-the-cat-who-saved-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3315,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3313\/revisions\/3315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}