Red Earth and Pouring Rain

This book is like entering a world where stories never end, one begets another, myths, legends, history, all intertwined.
The Red Earth and Pouring Rain is one of those books that draws you in and doesn’t let you go easily. It begins with a monkey typing (yes, seriously) to save himself from death, and from there a chain of stories unfolds: Sanjay, a 19th-century poet in India, who experiences dreams, love, betrayal, colonialism, reincarnation, myths… and at the same time, three children in America who are searching for their identity. Everything gets mixed up —religion, history, myth, reality— until you no longer know where one begins and the other ends.
It’s not boring or academic. It’s lively, full of voices, humor, sadness, and beauty. Sanjay, this sensitive 19th-century Brahmin poet who loves words and art so much, became my friend. I felt sorry for him, I admired him, and I wanted him to keep talking.
By the end, I didn’t feel like I had finished a book. I felt like I had stepped out of a huge, magical circle of storytelling, and I already missed it.
If you want something that will transport you to other times and worlds, that will make you think about what it means to tell stories to stay alive, grab it. It’s one of the most unique books I’ve ever read.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Tales from the cafe
Before your memory fades
Before We Say Goodbye 

I never thought a tiny coffee shop in Tokyo could take me on a time trip – but these books did exactly that. The rules are tough: you can go back in time, but only for as long as your coffee stays hot, and nothing – absolutely nothing – can change the present. That strictness is what makes the stories hit so hard.
What stayed with me wasn’t the time travel itself. It was how much these characters just needed to be heard. To say the things they never said. To look someone in the eye and really understand them, even if it’s only for a few minutes.
Kawaguchi writes so simply, almost bare, no fancy words, no big drama. And that’s why the emotions sneak up on you. You feel the silences, the little pauses, the things left hanging in the air. By the end of the last book, I didn’t want to leave the café. It felt like I’d spent time with real people who taught me that closure doesn’t come from fixing the past. It comes from facing it, fully, with kindness – even if it hurts a little. If you want something gentle, calm, that leaves you a bit wiser and a lot softer, start with these. You’ll finish them holding your own coffee a little tighter.
What these books really leave you with is this simple, almost painful truth: Speak to the people who matter to you – the ones who actually count in your life – while they’re still right there next to you. Say the words before the coffee gets cold. Before life moves on without them. Because regrets aren’t about what happened. They’re about what you never said.

The Trilogy About the Boy 
Heaven and Hell (Himnaríki og helvíti)
The sorrow of angels (Harrmur englanna)
The heart of man (Hjarta mannsins)

These three books hit me like nothing else in Scandinavian lit – and I love that literature already.
Stefánsson writes like the words are carved out of the Icelandic wind: dense, rhythmic, almost exhausting at times, but so full of weight that you can’t look away. The landscape is the background, and it’s alive, harsh, beautiful, fire and ice all at once. It mirrors the people fighting to survive in it.
What really got under my skin is the narration, that ‘we’ voice, collective, raw, no hiding. It’s like the whole community is speaking through one mouth, sharing the pain, the endurance, without any comfort. No easy outs.
The stories move like a storm: loss, grief, small battles every day, and it doesn’t spare you. But when it finally lets go, there’s this catharsis, hard-earned, real. You feel changed, a little lighter, a little wiser about how close heaven and hell really are in everyday life.
If you want literature that demands something from you and gives back tenfold, dive into this trilogy. It’s poetry in prose, and Iceland has never felt so close – or so unforgiving

The Horsemen (Les Cavaliers)

For anyone who has immersed themselves in the pages of The Horsemen, Joseph Kessel’s work is not just a novel, but a physical experience. Although Kessel was not Afghan, he managed to unlock the code of honor of a culture that was then unknown to the West, far from tourist romanticizations.
Buzkashi left a deep impression on me. The description of this violent, real tradition, of horsemen fighting on horseback over the carcass of an animal, is shocking, raw. It reveals endurance, pride, and the feeling of belonging more than being owned. You belong to the steppe and to a tradition that has been carved out by survival.
The novel is the story of a father and a son. Of pride pushed to the limits of self-destruction, of a legacy that seems as heavy as destiny. Tradition here is represented by the harsh, irrevocable code of honor of the nomads. There is no room for weakness or evolution. A man’s worth is measured solely by his endurance and dominance over horses and nature.
The elderly father, although he loves his son, envies his youth and his ability to achieve a glory that he himself can no longer claim. And the son, who lives in the shadow of his father, must struggle with his failure and the betrayal of family honor that makes him “unworthy” in the eyes of his own people.
Read it like an epic. That’s how I felt.