Hot Chocolate on Thursday

In a small café in Tokyo, twelve guests change each other's lives without realising it.

Hot Chocolate on Thursday by Michiko Aoyama opens the Marble Cafe series and consists of twelve stories that each begin in the same Tokyo café. The first story centres on a woman who orders her usual hot chocolate, and from there it fans out to other customers and to the staff behind the counter. A walk along the river, a pan of tamagoyaki, an order someone has placed for years: each time, such an everyday gesture turns out to set something in motion for someone else. Only gradually do you see how all the threads are tied together.

Aoyama had her international breakthrough with What You Are Looking For Is in the Library and writes warmly and lightly here too, with just enough wistfulness. A Japanese novel for lovers of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and of feel-good stories in which nothing is forced. This English hardcover was translated by E. Madison Shimoda and runs to just under two hundred pages, so you will finish it in no time.