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Before Your Memory Fades: A Novel Spiral-Bound | November 15, 2022

Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Rebinding by Spiralverse™

★★★☆☆+ from 10,001 to 50,000 ratings

$25.38 - Free Shipping

The latest novel in the international bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, following four new customers in a little Tokyo café where customers can travel back in time.

The third novel in the international bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, following four new customers in a cafe where customers can travel back in time.

On the hillside of Mount Hakodate in northern Japan, Cafe Donna Donna is fabled for its dazzling views of Hakodate port. But that’s not all. Like the charming Tokyo cafe Funiculi Funicula, Cafe Donna Donna offers its customers the extraordinary experience of travelling through time.

From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Tales from the Cafe comes another story of four new customers, each of whom is hoping to take advantage of the cafe's time-travelling offer. Among some familiar faces from Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s previous novels, readers will also be introduced to:

  • A daughter who begrudges her deceased parents for leaving her orphaned
  • A comedian who aches for his beloved and their shared dreams
  • A younger sister whose grief has become all-consuming
  • A young man who realizes his love for his childhood friend too late

Translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot and featuring signature heart-warming characters and wistful storytelling, in Before Your Memory Fades, Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?

Meet more wonderful characters in the next captivating novel in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, Before We Say Goodbye, releasing November 14, 2023!

Read the rest of the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series: 
  • Before the Coffee Gets Cold
  • Tales from the Cafe

Publisher: HarperCollins
Original Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 320 pages
ISBN-10: 133542928X
Item Weight: 0.7 lbs
Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.0 x 7.4 inches
Customer Reviews: 3 out of 5 stars 10,001 to 50,000 ratings
Praise for the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series
 
"Endearing." —New York Times Book Review
 
"Heartwarming, quirky, and wistful." —Huffpost
 
"The narrative is deeply moving." —Chicago Review of Books
 
"Kawaguchi…has a surprising, unerring ability to find lasting emotional resonance. Interwoven into what initially feels like a whimsical escape are existential conundrums of love and loss, family and freedom, life and death." —Christian Science Monitor
 
"This charmingly magical novel is about discovering happiness despite the pasts that we desperately want to revisit." —The Harvard Crimson
 
“Kawaguchi has found a unique way to manipulate such a commonly used trope as time travel and has captured the power of joy as a legacy.” —Library Journal
 
“The book’s resonating charm provides lasting emotional balm.” —Booklist

Praise for Before Your Memory Fades
 
“Kawaguchi’s comforting and thought-provoking book is perfect reading for cold winter nights.”—Library Journal
"[A] mosaic novel... Readers looking for a nudge to live life to its fullest will find one here.”—Publishers Weekly
TOSHIKAZU KAWAGUCHI was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1971. He has produced, directed and written for the theatrical group Sonic Snail. As a playwright, his works include COUPLE, Sunset Song and family time. His play Before the Coffee Gets Cold won the grand prize at the Suginami Drama Festival. This is his debut as an author. Before the Coffee Gets Cold has become an international bestseller and has been adapted for the screen in Japan.