On "Before the Coffee Gets Cold": A Book Review

Title: Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot)
Genre: Sci-fi

About the book...
In Japan there is small, sleepy, out of the way cafe named Funiculi Funicula that has been brewing coffee for hundreds of years. Here under very specific rules time travel is a possibility and four individuals will seek to find peace and comfort in visiting the cafe in the past and future.

What I think...
I love time travel books and this one was different than most, but definitely in a positive way.

It was quirky and humorous without being over the top and struck a nice balance between the sad and hopeful elements in the story. One aspect I really liked was that it was much more subtle in terms of the science behind the time travel, with Kawaguchi letting the the reasoning behind why the cafe works the way it does remain a mystery. 

As with any time travel novels there are rules, in this case, however, they are not your typical ones, a point I found refreshing. The primary ones are that you have to be in a specific chair in the cafe and that you must dink the cup of coffee served before it get cold. The reader is delightfully reminded of these two rules throughout the book with the presence of a ghost who occupies the particular chair for most of the day (she gets up once a day to use the restroom) because she did not remember to drink her coffee before it got cold and additionally serves as an interesting minor character in terms of multiple interactions between other characters.

The characters, interestingly given the amount of detail given in the text, aren't all that fleshed out, but, once again, this somehow works really well with the novel as a whole and makes the reasoning behind the time travel for each of the four individuals richer.

At times it has an air of a script about it, almost as though you're reading stage directions, which makes sense as Kawaguchi is a playwright (his play of the same title won the grand prize at the Suginami Drama Festival). I really don't mind this type of writing and find it a nice change of pace.

To sum it all up...
A bittersweet and quirky time travel novel that is highly enjoyable.  ♥     

On Autumnal Decorating: A Photo Post

Last year I shared my wonky pumpkins, but never got around to sharing the other two decorations I made and now I have a few more new decorations to share before we move into the more Christmas-y decor makes (forewarning, you'll be seeing some shortly!)! 

I really like decorating the mantle and with Thanksgiving being my favorite holiday, last year I went all out making an applique and a garland of acorns to add to the pumpkins, leaves, and other little glass and stuffed animals which typically grace the space.

The garland of acorns was made last year on somewhat of a whim and involved cutting out the fabric at random without any definite pattern being used. Because of this I ended up trying two different methods of making them thus resulting in some that are flat and some that are round and puffy and, while the stems are looped on all of them, some I decided to put thread loops on, which allows them to hang at different levels from the baker's twine. When I pulled them out of my autumn box again this year, I was just as equally delighted by them as I was last year!

Moving on to the bigger decorations, last year I also created a pumpkin and leaf applique to hang from the center of the mantle. This past week, I made two smaller mirror image appliques to go along with it. I'm becoming rather fond of making these and am thinking about making a few more for other holidays.

And finally, all the stuffed animal making this year resulted in the desire to make patterns for and sew a few more poly-poplin fruits and veggies. Last month I learned I do a marvelous job making square apples (I felt a bit like Dumbo blowing the wrong shape bubbles when I stuffed it) and this past weekend I sewed an ear of corn (pun very much intended). 

Wishing a very happy Thanksgiving to my US readers!

♥ ♥ ♥

On the Final Hundred Acre Wood Residents!

Well, my ongoing Winnie-the-Pooh sewing projects made using the patterns in The Pooh Craft Book started in June of last year have come to an end, as over the past three months I finished the final three!

Rabbit was completed the end of September, Winnie-the-Pooh the last weekend of October, and Tigger two days ago. 

There's not much to say about them since they were all very straightforward when it came to piecing them together. Rabbit was probably the most simplistic of the entire bunch and went together in a few hours, I left Pooh's eyebrows off and am not sure if I'll be adding them in the future, and Tigger ended up last because he was going to need the stripes painted on, which was not something I was looking forward to (painting felt is not a pleasure). The painting was actually a pretty quick process, though, since I wasn't going for precise and detailed stripes and they came out decently.

 

All in all a lovely Hundred Acre group, I would say! And now I need to find a new literary sewing project!

♥ ♥ ♥