What You Are Looking For Is in the Library (by Michiko Aoyama, translated by Alison Watts)

This was one of my top picks from the ToB longlist and I was happy to see it make the shortlist.  It is billed as a novel but reads as interlocking short vignettes about people who go to a library and get magically recommended the perfect book by a mysterious librarian.

The only thing I didn't enjoy was that the librarian was described as so big it was shocking to people, and the narrators compared her to everything from Baymax to a giant panda to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Every time we started a new vignette I was bracing myself for the description of this woman.

Apart from that, I adored the characters, each and every one. Each vignette was delightful and I loved that the resolutions to their problems were realistic and represented that tiny shift in consciousness that is very Joycean.  I always love the matter-of-fact, minutia-laden style of Japanese authors.  Just as delightful as I anticipated.