Time Travel | Book Chatter

Before the Coffee Gets Cold
By Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Hanover Square Press, 9781335430991, November 2020, 272 pp.

The Short of It:

Grab a coffee and enjoy.

The Rest of It:

Everyone has heard of this book and the books that follow it. I was SO late to the party with this one even though I’ve owned a copy for a very long time. I finally got to it late one night.

In a small, basement cafe, there is one seat that can transport you to the past or future, but only once and only if the strictest rules are followed.

This story consists of a very small cast of characters all in one setting, the cafe itself. The owners of the cafe do what they can to guide each person as they seek time travel, but they can’t really explain how it came about, only that it works from one specific seat and has to happen before their coffee gets cold.

That’s right. The entire process has to happen before their coffee gets cold. It’s just a brief moment to visit a specific time period and no matter what they do, it can never change the present. So why bother?

Each person who chooses to sit in that seat has their own reasons for doing so. Mostly for closure but even with the rules, they still hope to correct something in the present. Like saving someone from certain death.

It’s a bittersweet story. These characters long for their loved ones and feel the full weight of their decision to go back or forward.

I really enjoyed this simply told tale. I’ve already added the next book to my shelf. We could all use some feel good books right about now.

Source: Borrowed
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Sea of Tranquility
By Emily St. John Mandel
Knopf, 9780593321447, April 2022, 272pp.

The Short of It:

Reading Mandel guarantees exploratory thought processes.

The Rest of It:

Summing this story up is not easy. It’s a little bit of everything. There’s space exploration in the form of airships to other worlds, time travel, very interesting characters who float between this world and the next. Really, the story asks the question, what if what we are living in is a simulation? A carefully constructed “reality” that is anything but real?

Sounds wild, right? It is and it’s fascinating the way Mandel takes these characters through different time periods. As with most time travel stories, changes made anywhere within the continuum impact things down the line. Mandel softly tiptoes around this as her characters are warned over and over again what the end result will be. And in the midst of all of this, one of those time periods involves a pandemic.

I really enjoyed this short novel. It provided so much food for thought and was really well done. If you loved Station Eleven, you will appreciate this story as well.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
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