Chakyaar Chants !!!

 Taiwan Travelogue Taiwan Travelogue is a tale of two young women in their twenties travelling across Japanese-occupied Taiwan in the late 1930s—savouring local cuisines, discovering forgotten stories, and travelling through stunning landscapes along colonial railway routes. But beneath this seemingly gentle travelogue of food, friendship and discovery, Yáng adds another layer through an ingenious metafictional device. The book presents itself as the rediscovery of a lost Japanese travelogue, supposedly written in the 1930s, subsequently translated into Mandarin and finally into English. Set in the late 1930s, the novel follows Aoyama Chizuko , a young Japanese writer who travels to Taiwan, then a Japanese colony, on a lecture tour. She is assigned Ō Chizuru , a young Taiwanese teacher, as her interpreter and travelling companion. Their journey unfolds through the island's cuisines and colonial railway network, moving across its cities, mountains and coastal landscapes and throu...

What happens when heartbreak takes you to a bookshop? For Takako, it leads to Morisaki Bookshop, a dusty second-hand store tucked away in Tokyo’s famous book district, Jimbocho. Battling heartbreak and the uncertainties of her mid-twenties, she moves in with her uncle Satoru and, slowly, begins to rebuild her life. The story itself is simple: a young woman finds new friends, discovers new writers and gradually reclaims her own narrative. But what makes this little book so soulful is the way Yagisawa captures the quiet magic of books and the people who love them. And then there is the smell of old books. That unmistakable, musty fragrance of a second-hand bookshop seems to seep through every page. As Takako begins reading, books slowly become her refuge. Reading becomes more than an escape. It becomes a way of seeing, feeling and understanding the world. “When I'm sad, I read. I can go on reading for hours. Reading quiets the turmoil I feel inside and brings me peace.” The...