{"product_id":"minas-matchbox-1","title":"Mina's Matchbox","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom the award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe Memory Police \u003c\/i\u003eand \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. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A story of first enchantments and last gasps...Effervescent.\" --\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A transfixing coming of age tale.\" --\u003ci\u003eTIME\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"One of the literary events of the year.\" --\u003ci\u003eParade\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 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":"Stephen B Snyder, Yoko Ogawa","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46799333818604,"sku":"9780593313411","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Library Binding - Large Print","offer_id":46799333851372,"sku":"9781420519808","price":55.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0684\/1791\/3068\/files\/9780593313411.jpg?v=1757222152","url":"https:\/\/allstora.com\/products\/minas-matchbox-1","provider":"Allstora","version":"1.0","type":"link"}