BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD: A TUG OF WAR WITH TIME

How many times have we been in a tug of war between our past, present, and future? Well! I have lost the count. No matter how aware we become of the present, how selfless we become of the future and how forgiving we become of our past, we always have that “I wish…”, “What if…” moments. In this journey of life, we are expected to live in the present without being regretful of the past or worried about our future but somehow, we forget the fact and get entangled in the memories or expectations. Nobody is to be blamed about it. We humans are programmed in such a manner. Having said that, the book, “Before the Coffee gets cold’ by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, is one such phenomenal book that narrates the story of the present, past, and future, weaving beautiful plots around the characters.

The book contains four stories interwoven among the characters who may appear in other stories as well but not as protagonists. This makes the book a unique read. The stories revolve around the characters who have one thing in common – either they have visited the café which is almost a century old in Tokyo or work there. The stories are so distinct that no reader may predict the plots, at least I couldn’t. The stories will sometimes make you cry, sometimes bring a smile on your face, sometimes empathize with your own personal experience while sometimes demand sympathy for the characters. It is a big bowl of varied emotions served to you. Generally, when there are multiple stories in a book, I reveal one and leave the rest to be discovered by the readers but this time I feel that even if I reveal one story, it will be an injustice to my readers as well as the author. Also, most of the times, I reveal the significance of the title of the book but this time if I do that, it will unveil a lot of things which will again ruin the experience of reading it. It is no where near to what I anticipated before reading the book.

Being all praises for this book, I can simply say that this book has been one of the best readds of this year for me for multiple reasons and I am glad that I came across this book. Also, since I listened to the audio version of it, it was even more splendid. Can I say any more about how great the book is? Go grab a copy for yourself and relish every bit of it.

Happy Reading!