Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Book Review: "Before the Coffee Gets Cold" by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

What would you change if you could travel back in time?⁣

⁣ I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this in bookstores. I’ve always wondered whether it was worthy of all the attention, but I never actually knew what it was about. Once I saw there was an element of time travel in the plot, I decided to take the plunge.⁣

⁣ There is a cafe called Funiculi Funicula located in a back alley in Tokyo. The cafe isn’t much to look at, but somehow it’s been serving coffee for more than 100 years. What’s the secret to its success? In addition to coffee, the cafe serves up a chance for people to travel back in time.⁣

⁣ Of course, there are a lot of rules to time travel. Some make complete sense and some seem unfair, but the cafe’s employees don’t have any flexibility. Above all, the trip back in time has to be short—travelers need to return to the cafe before the coffee gets cold.⁣

⁣ This book follows four different sets of travelers as they seek to revisit a point in their past. Essentially it’s like four interconnected short stories, but there’s a lot of repetition, because the rules have to be explained every time. I was hoping this would be a bit more inspirational for me, but I’m still intrigued by the concept of getting to travel back into your past. ⁣

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