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let the light in by louis hill & jenny downham

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How to Train Your Dragon (2025) - Posters

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So I've just started reading this book and two chapters in, I'm already glued to the story.

It's about a fictional convenience store called "Tenderness" (as you see on the cover above), which is like a blend of Japanese convenience stores LAWSON and Family Mart.

It feels like a relaxing slice of life jdrama which introduces you to the various characters working and visiting the store, and the life happenings and the shenanigans they get caught up in.

While the store is fictional, the location is real, it's at Mojiko Retro in Kitakyushu of Kyushu, which is near Fukuoka. As the book title says, the store is by the sea, which is Sea of Japan, facing Busan (Korea).

Not sure if the characters are the same for every chapter or show different ones each chapter, but so far there are three characters I find interesting. Shiba, Tsugi and Mitsuri.

Shiba is the store manager who is described to be very good looking and charming that it draws wild crowd of screaming women craving for his attention, which is hilarious like an anime.

Tsugi is the mysterious resident's "handyman" who looks shady with his messy hair and beard, driving around his mini van with junks on it, who solves everyone's problems when the situation calls for it.

Mitsuri is the married woman who works part time at the store and finds Shiba and Tsugi intriguing (not in a romantic way), wondering why one is so charming and why one is so mysterious.

If they were to make a live adaptation jdrama, I imagine it would be like Call Me Chihiro. And Kasumi Arimura easily comes for the role of Mitsuri, with Tomoya Nakamura as Shiba and Go Ayano as Tsugi.

Interestingly, Kasumi Arimura and Tomoya Nakamura acted together in Ishiko and Haneo, where they have a sibling like chemistry, with their endless bantering and her poking her nose into everything.

Tomoya Nakamura also acted as a convenience store chain director in A Warmed Up Love.

Go Ayano's role in Tokyo Swindlers also convinced me he's perfect as Tsugi, whom, Mitsuri described as not bad looking if it wasn't for his messy hair and beard, and gloomy looking outlook.

EDITED

Read another chapter which revolves around four students, whose characters and personalities reminds me of Great Teacher Onizuka Remake.

Mizuki, the leader of the girls group in school who is an overachiever and expect others to be like her (both students and teachers) or follow her at least. She reminds me of Haruna Kawaguchi's character.

Azusa, Mizuki's close friend. She's not as "smart" and "bold" as Mizuki and seen by other girls as Mizuki's shadows, following everything she says even when she has a heart of her own to follow. She reminds me of Yua Shinkawa's character.

Kanako, the one who always snitch on other girls to get in a better position with Mizuki, and probably see Azusa as a threat, wanting to get rid of her so she could take her place. She reminds me of Honda Tsubasa's character.

Nyatu, the outcast who is the unpopular girl in class with her own family problems that becomes the target of Mizuki and her gang. Azusa wants to befriend her but don't dare out of fear of Mizuki. She reminds me of Mariya Nishiuchi's character.

So far the book feels like a number of jdramas that I have watched, bundled into one and I love it!

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Mirabilis by Anni Kytömäki

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Päivä jona Nils Vik kuoli by Frode Grytten

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Your Presence Is Mandatory Sasha Vasilyuk

Hardcover | 336 pages 6 × 9 in. (15.2 × 22.9 cm)

Published Winter 2024 by Bloomsbury Publishing

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(🔊 on) Patriot, Alexei Navalny's memoir, is available as an audiobook read by Matthew Goode.

A stunning and poignant account beautifully narrated 🧡

Here is a little extract - Alexei wakes up from a coma after having been poisoned and he remembers his wife pulling him through.

"But I will tell you what I do remember. Perhaps, actually, it can’t even be properly described as a remembering. It is more a collection of my very first sensations and emotions. It was so important to me, though, that it is now forever imprinted in my brain. I am lying there. I have already been brought out of the coma, but can’t recognize anybody and don’t understand what is happening. I can’t speak and don’t know what speaking is. My sole pastime is to be waiting for Her to come. Who She is I am uncertain. Neither do I even know what She looks like. If I manage to make out something with my unfocusing eyes, I’m unable to remember the picture. But She is different, that much is clear to me. So I just lie there and wait for Her. She comes and is the main person in the room. She straightens my pillow and makes it very comfortable. She doesn’t have a low, sympathizing voice but speaks cheerfully and laughs. She is telling me something. When She is near, my idiotic hallucinations retreat. It feels very good when She is there. Then She goes away and I feel sad, and wait for Her again. I don’t for a moment doubt there is a scientific explanation for this. Like, you know, I was apprehending the tone of my wife’s voice, my brain secreted dopamine, and I began to feel better. Each visit became literally therapeutic, and the effect of waiting for her enhanced the dopamine reinforcement. But no matter how impressive the scientific and medical explanation sounds, I now know for sure, simply from my own experience, that love heals and brings you back to life. Yulia, you saved me, and may this be included in the neurobiology textbooks."

This made me cry hot tears 🥺🥺

The audiobook is available on several platforms. More info ➡️ https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/445409/patriot-by-navalny-alexei/9781529943788

📷 My edit from Audible audiobook (Penguin Books). MG photograph by Uli Webber.

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Kiovan korva by Andrei Kurkov

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“Eyes, of course, can be deceived by darkness, instead of seeing everything clearly, they may fill in what they haven’t quite caught. But people are used to believing their own eyes, even if they are half-blind, even if what lies before them is obscured by nature or by smoke.”

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Andrey Kurkov, Grey Bees (translated by Boris Dralyuk)

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“Memories really do sweeten life, even when you haven’t got any sugar.”

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Andrey Kurkov, Grey Bees (translated by Boris Dralyuk)

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"Yes, people are worse than bees, he concluded."

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100 Litraa sahtia

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Lehmä synnyttää yöllä

Pajtim Statovci

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Il ladro di quederni

Gianni Solla

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Ocean Vuong / On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

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Title: Death and the Penguin | Author: Andrey Kurkov | Publisher: Vintage (2002)