Just like that, we are done with eleven months into 2024. We are waving goodbye to November and personally, what a final wave it was in the last week; I was swamped with work, more than I expected. Nevertheless, I hope the year has been great and kind to everyone. I fervently hope you have already achieved or are on track to achieving all your goals for the year. I hope your hard work gets repaid. I hope the remainder of the year will shower everyone with blessings, positive news, and good tidings. I hope it will go everyone’s way and everyone’s wishes and prayers will be answered. But before I could wave November goodbye, let me share the book titles I acquired during the month. I will be dividing my book haul into two parts. The first part features books written by East Asian writers, which are mostly new to me. Here is the first part of my November book haul.

Title: Marigold Mind Laundry
Author: Jungeun Yun
Translator (from Korean): Shanna Tan
Publisher: The Dial Press
Publishing Date: 2024 (2023)
No. of Pages: 248

Synopsis:

Born with mysterious powers she does not know how to control, young Jieun accidentally causes her family to vanish. She vows to live a million lives in search of them.

Finally, one night, she brings the Marigold Mind Laundry into existence. Its service: to remove the deepest pain from our hearts. Jieun listens while customers share their unhappy memories. As they speak, she transfers sadness onto T-shirts as stains. After a spin in the washing machine, the stains become flower petals that soar into the air, and Jieun’s customers find solace.

Five wounded souls come to Jieun for help: a frustrated young filmmaker, a spiraling social media influencer, a mother betrayed by her husband, a woman jilted by her lover, and a talented photographer who hides in the safety of a mundane job. As Jieun listens to each of their stories, she learns that the will to heal is not a rare gift, but a power we all possess – if only we are open to it.

Joyous and inspiring, Marigold Mind Laundry offers wonderment and comfort as it teaches us to tap into the magic that lives within us all.

Title: The Healing Season of Pottery
Author: Yeon Somin
Translator (from Korean): Claire Richards
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publishing Date: 2024 (2023)
No. of Pages: 262

Synopsis: 

After breaking down at the office and abruptly quitting her job, thirty-year-old Jungmin holes up in her apartment, speaking to no one for days on end. When she finally emerges, she stumbles upon a pottery studio in her neighborhood and is invited in by the mysterious workshop teacher. The smell of clay, the light filtering through the plant-filled windows, the friendly cat, and the incredible coffee the students drink awaken her senses and make her feel alive and inspired for the first time in months. As the seasons change, Jungmin slowly returns to herself and builds a new community with the other members of the studio, who are all working through their own pasts at the pottery wheel. When the holidays approach and snow piles up on the studio windowsill, Jungmin realizes how much she has changed – with her hands busy and her mind clear, she may be ready to face the memories she’s been running from and open her heart.

For fans of What You Are Looking For Is in the Library and Welcome to Hyunam-dong Bookshop, Yeon’s charming English-language debut is a testament to the joy of slowing down in a fast-paced world, and an homage to the art of ceramics and the power of friendship. Readers won’t want to leave the enchanting world of The Healing Season of Pottery after the final page.

Title: We’ll Prescribe You a Cat
Author: Syou Ishida
Translator (from Japanese): Madison Shimoda
Publisher: Berkley
Publishing Date: 2024 (2023)
No. of Pages: 297

Synopsis:

Tucked away on the fifth floor of an old building at the end of a narrow alley in Kyoto, the Nakagyō Kokoro Clinic for the Soul can be found only by people who are struggling in their lives and who genuinely need help. The mysterious clinic offers a unique treatment to those who find their way there: it prescribes cats as medication. Patients are often puzzled by this unconventional prescription, but when they “take” their cat for the recommended duration, they witness profound transformations in their lives, guided by the playful, empathetic, and occasionally challenging yet endearing cats.

Throughout these pages, the power of the human-animal bond is revealed as a disheartened businessman finds unexpected joy in physical labor, a middle-aged man struggles to stay relevant at work and home, a young girl navigates the complexities of elementary school cliques, a hardened handbag designer seeks emotional balance, and a geisha learns to move on from the memory of her lost cat. As the clinic’s patients grapple with their inner turmoil and seek resolution, their feline companions lead them toward healing, self-discovery, and newfound hope.

Title: Runaway Horses
Author: Yukio Mishima
Translator (from Japanese): Michael Gallagher
Publisher: Vingate Classics
Publishing Date: 2000 (1970)
No. of Pages: 421

Synopsis: 

Runaway Horses is the chronicle of a conspiracy, a novel about the roots and nature of Japanese fanaticism in the years that led to war – an era marked by depression, the upheaval of radical social change, political violence, and assassination.

Isao, the driven hero, is a young, engaging patriot-fanatic. His father, a corrupt and temporising spouter of nationalist pieties, instils in him the ancient samurai ethos. In its service Isao organises a violent plot against the new industrialists who he believes are usurping the Emperor’s rightful power and threatening the very integrity of Japan. As the conspiracy unfolds – and ultimately unravels – Mishima brilliantly dramatises the conflicts of a decade that saw the fabric of Japanese life torn apart.

Title: Scandal
Author: Shūsaku Endō
Translator (from Japanese): Van C. Gessel
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publishing Date: 1989 (1986)
No. of Pages: 237

Synopsis:

Involves a famous Catholic writer whose comfortable life is shattered when a drunken woman crashes a reception in his honor, claiming that he frequents the red-light district of Tokyo and that his portrait is exhibited in a gallery there. The his reputation as a writer, his marriage, and his sense of identity all are placed at risk. A psychological thriller and a literary work of art which, as it subtly peels off layers of the dark side of human nature, grips and propels the reader. (Source: Goodreads)

Title: The Flower Mat
Author: Shugoro Yamamoto
Translator (from Japanese): Mihoko Inoue and Eileen B, Hennessy
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Publishing Date: 1977 (1948)
No. of Pages: 173

Synopsis:

First published as Hanamushiro in 1948, the setting for The Flower Mat is eighteenth-century Japan, a time when families were bound together by a rigid code of honor and individual lives were of necessity valued far less than the interests of the group. It tells of a young bride, Ichi, born into such a tradition, groomed in the virtues of ideal womanhood, and finally tempered by tragedy. Her life and fate are bound up inexorably with the fortunes of her in-laws, high-ranking officials. She soon becomes aware that something is dreadfully wrong, that something is threatening her home and her peaceful way of life. Uneasy and frightened, she tries to put clues together, but her questions go unanswered. Political intrigue and sudden tragedy force her into a new and unfamiliar world. We follow Ichi as she grows from passive observer – a wife suppressing her own passions – to active agent – a woman who will risk anything for justice. Struggling for truth and justice, Ichi finds that her only weapons are her own strength and the lovely mats, decorated with delicate flowers, that she designs.