Before The Coffee Gets Cold: read-along, pre-read discussion

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Before The Coffee Gets Cold,
by Toshikazu Kawaguchi,
translated by Geoffrey Trousselot
Picador
9/19/2019
コーヒーが冷めないうちに
was first published in 2015
Literary fiction/fantasy
Goodreads

Read-along, pre-read discussion

For several years, I have been participating in the Japanese Literature Challenge organized by Meredith at Dolce Bellezza. This year, I was planning on reading only nine Japanese classics, and then I won Before The Coffee Gets Cold at her giveaway!
I forgot how and where, but I saw that Julie Anna at Julie Anna’s Books wanted to read it as well. So I offered her to do a read-along.

We are starting our reading today, feel free to join us.
Before our first report, Julie Anna had the great idea to ask pre-read questions:

1. If you could visit this cafe and have the opportunity to time travel, what would you do?

2. Would you want to change anything?

3. What are your expectations going into this book?

4. What have you heard about this book so far?

5. Do you often read books with fantastical / magical elements?

6. How do you think the magical elements of this book will be executed?

7. From the synopsis:
In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

Whose character’s story are you most interested in learning about?

Please go visit Julie Anna’s post to see both our answers

Come this way to see our Q&A for part 1

And Part 2 Q&A is available here, on Julie Anna’s blog.

Part 3 is here

and here part 4

14 thoughts on “Before The Coffee Gets Cold: read-along, pre-read discussion”

Fun idea.

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WordsAndPeace on March 20, 2021 at 8:04 pm said:

Let me know if this is something you would enjoy doing with me down the line with another book

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- Carol on March 20, 2021 at 11:03 pm said:
  
  Yes I would but I worry that I wouldn’t keep up. I’d be especially interested in reading something in French this way.
  
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  - WordsAndPeace on March 21, 2021 at 11:05 am said:
    
    I have no problem reading just a few pages per week if you wish, I have been doing this with several students actually. I read many books at the same time, so it doesn’t bother me going slow on one. Let me know what type of French book you would like to read, and we can try to find one that we are both looking forward to reading.
    
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    - Carol on March 21, 2021 at 11:30 am said:
      
      A chapter a week is probably a good pace. I’ll contact you offline about what we might read. Thanks!
      
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    - WordsAndPeace on March 21, 2021 at 11:47 am said:
      
      Yes please, you can send me an email at emmacazabonne at g mail dot com
      
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I bought it…. You tempted me very strongly with this post but to be honest, it’s been on my radar ever since it was published so yeah, I bought it ! I’m going to see Julie’s post, thanks 🙂

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WordsAndPeace on March 20, 2021 at 7:50 pm said:

Great, that’s a good temptation!! Please add your comments if you read it these days as well

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Ah yes, I’ve seen this book getting some great reviews. Glad you picked it up for the challenge! I’d want to know more about the visitor’s last meeting with the sister. Wonder what’s that meeting going to be about.

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