Winner of the Japan Booksellers’ Award

The Forest of Wool and Steel

Million-copy bestselling winner of the Japan Booksellers Award, chosen as the title bookshop staff most wanted to hand-sell: A feel-good, uplifting novel for fans of A WHOLE LIFE by Robert Seethaler.

Natsu Miyashita (Author) NATSU MIYASHITA was born in Fukui Prefecture on Honshu island, Japan, in 1967. She has had a lifelong passion for reading and writing and has played the piano since she was very young. THE FOREST OF WOOL AND STEEL won the influential Japan Booksellers’ Award, in which booksellers vote for the title they most enjoy to hand-sell. It has also been turned into a popular Japanese film directed by Kojiro Hashimoto and starring Kento Yamazaki. Philip Gabriel (Author, Translator) Philip Gabriel is the author of Mad Wives and Island Dreams: Shimao Toshio and the Margins of Japanese Literature and Spirit Matters: The Transcendent in Modern Japanese Literature and has translated many novels and short stories by Haruki Murakami and other modern writers. He is recipient of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature (2001) for his translation of Senji Kuroi’s Life in the Cul-de-Sac, and the 2006 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize for his translation of Murakami's Kafka on the Shore.

OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD 
''A mesmerising reading experience for all of us seeking a meaningful life' JAPAN TIMES 
 
What he experienced that day wasn’t life-changing . . . It was life-making. 
 
Tomura is startled by the hypnotic sound of a piano being tuned in his school. It seeps into his soul and transports him to the forests, dark and gleaming, that surround his beloved mountain village. From that moment, he is determined to discover more. 
 
Under the tutelage of three master piano-tuners – one humble, one jovial, one ill-tempered – Tomura embarks on his training, never straying too far from a single, unfathomable question: do I have what it takes? 
 
Set in small-town Japan, this warm and mystical story is for the lucky few who have found their calling – and for the rest of us who are still searching. It shows that the road to finding one’s purpose is a winding path, often filled with treacherous doubts and, for those who persevere, astonishing moments of revelation. 
 
Mega-bestselling winner of the Japan Booksellers Award, selected by bookshop staff as the book they most wanted to hand-sell: A tender and uplifting novel for fans of A WHOLE LIFE by Robert Seethaler. 
 
[Contains 5 exquisite hand-drawn illustrations]

Riku Onda

Philip Gabriel

A thrilling and often nail-biting depiction of music, friendship and personal demons . . . Onda beautifully conveys the transcendent power of classical music in all its emotive, psychological and visceral glory.

A pitch-perfect, vivid masterpiece. A celebration of the love and joy inherent in the act of creating and appreciating music. Honeybees and Distant Thunder contains a warm frequency that vibrates with life and soul.

NICK BRADLEY, author of THE CAT AND THE CITY

Deeply moving. The now-ness of Onda's writing left me more than once with a big, goofy grin on my face or tears on my cheeks

Expect a wave of visceral reactions ... an emotive and poetic work

The Night Circus meets Lonely Castle in the Mirror in this multi-award-winning Japanese bestseller, available finally in an English translation by Philip Gabriel, a translator of Murakami 
 
- AN FT BEST SUMMER READ 2023 
- OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD IN JAPAN 
- WINNER OF THE NAOKI PRIZE AND THE JAPAN BOOKSELLERS' AWARD 
- A MAJOR MOVIE RELEASE IN JAPAN 
 
'A thrilling and often nail-biting depiction of music, friendship, and personal demons' OBSERVER 
'Propulsive and poetic' KIRKUS 
______________________ 
 
Welcome to a magical world of music, friendship and rivalry ... 
 
In a small coastal town just a stone's throw from Tokyo, a prestigious piano competition is underway. Over the course of two feverish weeks, three friends will experience some of the most joyous - and painful - moments of their lives. 
 
Aya was a piano genius, until she ran away from the stage and vanished; will the tall and talented Makun bring her back? 
Or will it be child of nature, Jin, a pianist without a piano, who carries the sound of his father's bees wherever he goes? 
 
Each of them will break the rules, awe their fans and push themselves to the brink. But at what cost? 
 
Tender, cruel, compelling, HONEYBEES AND DISTANT THUNDER is the unflinching story of love, courage and rivalry. Most of all, it shows how three young people reconcile with the highs and lows of what it means to truly be a friend. 
_____________ 
 
Japanese readers love HONEYBEES AND DISTANT THUNDER: 
- 'The novel is a masterpiece' 5 stars*****' 
- 'Each contestant was wonderfully drawn, and I felt very moved' 5 stars***** 
- 'I felt like I was right there, and there were scenes that brought me to tears' 5 stars***** 
- 'This is a beyond a reading experience. It felt like some sixth sense was at work. Wonderful' 5 stars*****

Philip Gabriel

Books by Philip Gabriel

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