The Lantern of Lost Memories

Paperback, 198 pages

English, Japanese language

Published September 2024 by Picador.

ISBN:: 978-1-0350-2364-6

(2 reviews)

Imagine waking up in a cosy photo studio in the mountains, between this world and the next. A kind man hands you a hot drink and a stack of photographs, one from every day of your life. There are hundreds, even thousands of them. They capture your best days and your worst, memories you treasure and those you try to forget. And then there are the rest, those in-between days that we didn't know were leading to the great highs and lows. Then, you are asked to pick one photograph from each year to be placed in a beautiful Japanese lantern, to be set spinning so that your life will flash before your eyes before you move on. This is the task set for each guest who arrives in Hirasaka's photo studio. Like our most thumbed-over photos, our favourite memories can be tarnished in time too, so Hirasaka guides the …

Imagine waking up in a cosy photo studio in the mountains, between this world and the next. A kind man hands you a hot drink and a stack of photographs, one from every day of your life. There are hundreds, even thousands of them. They capture your best days and your worst, memories you treasure and those you try to forget. And then there are the rest, those in-between days that we didn't know were leading to the great highs and lows. Then, you are asked to pick one photograph from each year to be placed in a beautiful Japanese lantern, to be set spinning so that your life will flash before your eyes before you move on. This is the task set for each guest who arrives in Hirasaka's photo studio. Like our most thumbed-over photos, our favourite memories can be tarnished in time too, so Hirasaka guides the guests back in time to relive one special day over again, to take a fresh photo and find peace.

6 editions

Taylor Drew reviewed 人生写真館の奇跡 by Sanaka Hiiragi

Cozy but it's sad

4 stars

I think this is a pretty run of the Mill cozy book in terms of writing, but something that I think is a little bit different than the other cozy books I've read recently is that there were less stories and also that the main story of the book is actually inspired and partially based on something that really happened.

I think a lot of these books stick with a similar formula of having a kind of base location and then different characters come in every chapter and there's a little bit of connectedness, but they can also just be read as completely separate stories. This book is the same, but instead of having four or five different stories, it only has three. Not only are there only three, but they aren't really balanced in length at all. The first story takes up like half the book and then the …

I think this is a pretty run of the Mill cozy book in terms of writing, but something that I think is a little bit different than the other cozy books I've read recently is that there were less stories and also that the main story of the book is actually inspired and partially based on something that really happened.

I think a lot of these books stick with a similar formula of having a kind of base location and then different characters come in every chapter and there's a little bit of connectedness, but they can also just be read as completely separate stories. This book is the same, but instead of having four or five different stories, it only has three. Not only are there only three, but they aren't really balanced in length at all. The first story takes up like half the book and then the second one is about 2/3 that length and then the last one is pretty short.

It was almost comforting in a way actually though that there were less stories, though that does make it more difficult to get through one in a short period of time when it comes to the first story.

Overall a solid cozy book, but I think a bit sadder than some of the others that I've read. There are several instances of child abuse described in the latter half of the book, so just be warned.

Clare

rated it

February 24