{"product_id":"mina-s-matchbox-book-yoko-ogawa-9780593313411","title":"Mina's Matchbox","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom the award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe Memory Police\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Housekeeper and the Professor\u003c\/i\u003e, a hypnotic novel about an affluent Japanese family navigating buried secrets, and their young house guest who uncovers them.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"A story of first enchantments and last gasps...Effervescent.\" --\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"A transfixing coming of age tale.\" --\u003ci\u003eTIME\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"One of the literary events of the year.\" --\u003ci\u003eParade\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt's family. Tomoko's aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home--and handsome foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company--are symbols of that status. The seventeen rooms are filled with German-made furnishings; there are sprawling gardens and even an old zoo where the family's pygmy hippopotamus resides. The family is just as beguiling as their mansion--Tomoko's dignified and devoted aunt, her German great-aunt, and her dashing, charming uncle, who confidently sits as the family's patriarch. At the center of the family is Tomoko's cousin Mina, a precocious, asthmatic girl of thirteen who draws Tomoko into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In this elegant jewel box of a book, Yoko Ogawa invites us to witness a powerful and formative interlude in Tomoko's life. Behind the family's sophistication are complications that Tomoko struggles to understand--her uncle's mysterious absences, her great-aunt's experience of the Second World War, her aunt's misery. Rich with the magic and mystery of youthful experience, \u003ci\u003eMina's Matchbox\u003c\/i\u003e is an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time--and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51864945623313,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51864945885457,"sku":"CIN0593313410G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52496523591953,"sku":"NIN9780593313411","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ LIKE_NEW \/ SBYB","offer_id":52890363986193,"sku":"CIN0593313410LN","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780593313411.jpg?v=1753967784","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/products\/mina-s-matchbox-book-yoko-ogawa-9780593313411","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}