A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hwawoldang by Lee Onhwa

January 20, 2026

Although the cover of A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hwawoldang by Lee Onhwa is beautiful, I didn’t sink into this translation from the Korean as I often do with these books. It wasn’t the fault of the translator, Slin Jung. I think it was the presence of...

The Blanket Cats by Kiyoshi Shigematsu

February 19, 2025

What a sad, interesting book. The Blanket Cats by Kiyoshi Shigematsu is translated into English by Jesse Kirkwood, who also translated The Full Moon Coffee Shop, among other books. While the blanket cats themselves are the only link between seven stories, each of the...

A Harmless Lie by Sara Blaedel

March 20, 2022

Sometimes, I have troubles with translations, and wonder if it’s the author or the translator. I didn’t have that problem with Sara Blaedel’s A Harmless Lie, translated by Mark Kline. The voices of troubled women seemed perfect in this riveting...

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa

January 23, 2022

If you love books, physically as well as for the contents, you might want to pick up Sosuke Natsukawa’s The Cat Who Saved Books. If you’re like me, and appreciate all the little tidbits, I’d suggest you skip to the end of the book before reading it....

The Lost Manuscript by Cathy Bonidan

February 07, 2021

Who do you give credit to when a novel in translation is beautiful and moving? Did I read Cathy Bonidan’s The Lost Manuscript? How much input did the translator, Emma Ramadan, have? I’ll never know, but kudos to both of them for the feelings this...