A fantastic collection and one that will resonate with readers. I thoroughly enjoyed this and would recommend it.

This book is an experimental collection of 34 short stories by author Tomoka Shibasaki.
The theme that recurs often are stories about places and people. Places that change physically over time (wars, redevelopment...) but remain the same in people's memories. In one story in particular it struck me that the character in order to remember the place, a station where a train passes from time to time, opens the windows to smell it and remember even better.
In some stories, however, we start with one person's story and a place acts as a “witness” to talk about another person's story.
Some of the stories I found boring, some with a suspenseful ending, some I didn't understand (my fault surely), with others I laughed heartily: they are cute Japanese people.
I booked this book mainly because of the cover, those cartoons reminded me of buildings and after reading the book I think it may be an interpretation, but who knows.
Last thing, go to youtube or spotify and listen to the song Kawachi Ondo.

This is a quiet yet lovely book. One the one hand, it can seem like nothing much is happening in these stories, but on the other, everything happens. There are no cinematic storylines here, but each story is the story of a life or lives--ordinary people moving through days, weeks, months, years. Time passes. There are connections and disconnections between people, people and objects, or people and places. Memories resurface. Things change. People change. Places change. Relationships change. As they do for all of us. The excellent writing is very matter-of-fact. I stopped at times to admire sentences and descriptions. For instance, one character is described as feeling like he was disconnected from his own life and leasing space in a different person's body. The stories are straightforward, but no less powerful for that.

I've not read any of Shibasaki's previous work, but I definitely want to now. In some ways, these stories reminded me a bit of the kinds of short stories Lydia Davis writes, so if you're a fan of hers, or of short stories in general, I can highly recommend this collection. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time and I'm delighted to have read it.

"A Hundred Years and a Day" accommodates a remarkable collection of 34 fractions, each capturing divergent facets of human life. Despite the compact length, these pieces bring a profoundly emotional and philosophical lens to our human experience as a whole. What stands out most is the juxtaposition of emotions and how beautifully balanced they are. These stories are infused with a sense of nostalgia and a poignant reflection, all materialized with a delicious nonchalance and equally immersive writing. "A Hundred Years and a Day" beautifully weaves the symphony of human experiences.



Thank you, NetGalley and Stone Bridge Press for the copy of this book.

Real Rating: 4.5* of five

There is a pattern I follow when reviewing short stories: I call it, for convenience, The Bryce Method after my old friend Bryce and his collection-spanning short summary followed by a very short summary and rating of the individual story habits from his blogging days.

Not going to work here.

Thirty-four stories in two hundred pages is problem one; not much between summary and spoiler. Two is these are stories that begin with something I'd call a spoiler: a summary-like paragraph set off from the text, which honestly took a half-star off my overall rating for off-puttingness. I think it's pointless, for these reasons, to use my old method as it would really add to the wall-to-wall spoilers. To avoid a close encounter with the shrieking Spoiler Stasi maniacs, allow me to review the gestalt of the collection for you.

It was fine. Nice prose, I'd say based on a long reading life with more than the usual number of translated works in many genres, quite gracefully translated. Plenty of well-woven-in clues to words that wouldn't translate. A solid, creditable job for a nice book of stories.

Does anything here do something that "pushes the short story to a new level"? No.

Does it really need to? No. Breathless copy does nothing good for this solid, well-crafted collection of short fiction mostly exploring the horrors of trying to communicate with actual other human beings in mutually satisfying connective ways. It's a collection full of fun, if weird, ways for that to fail. It has no central character or group, unlike that Ryu Murakami book I wasn't keen on that did mostly the same thing. It isn't set in one place like Pleasantville , that braided-stories novel I liked so well. In the off-kilter liminal spaces we're in for the whole collection, I'm most put in mind of the way Brian Evenson, in his uneasy style, makes the world feel. These are *not* horror, or even horror-adjacent, stories; instead, they partake of the weirdness and not-quite-ness of horror without any of the sillier trappings.

Polly Barton's ear for, say, how a wisteria vine relates to the wisteria vine it's been entwined with for goddesses only know how long, is the main vehicle for little minds like thee and me to get access to the core of longing and need in each of these very Japanese tales. Will we really know what's what? Not in my experience, and all the more fun to read because of it.

When I finished this read I had to sit a minute and look into my emotional reactor core to see what this bolus of new fuel was doing. I'm impressed that the way Author Shibasaki and her able translator, Polly Barton, never once threw a sucker punch. These stories deliver their intensely meant, unshielded radioactivity to you direct. It's not fussy; it's not overwrought; it's the high-quality story-ore, direct to your well-shielded reactor core to be processed.

I gave it a half-star less than perfect because, in some cases, the oddball opening paragraphs say too much even for me. That's hard to do!

I always enjoy short stories as they allow you to finish a section of the book with ut feeling the need to move on — Unfortunately many of these short stories left me wanting more development and expansion . I think if you are Japanese or have experience/ knowledge of living in Japan you will be able to appreciate the first half of the book more — the second half of the book seemed easy to follow for any knowledge level. I personally enjoyed the second half of the books stories as they had an air of mystery to them, if you like quick, quiet, thought-provoking fiction that lingers in the mind, this collection is a must-read.


Thanks to Netgalley and Stone Bridge Press | MONKEY for this ARC. This is my honest review.

2.5 stars.
The first thing that caught my attention was its wonderful title. I liked the cover too. Then, the fact that it was a translation.
It's a collection of 34 (too many stories for a collection) eccentric but well written short stories. Eccentric because the stories don't have any significant plot or even a proper arc. Minimal (read no) dialogues, no character development. Didn't really work for me because I like stories with proper arcs and significant storytelling. Not for me but you can pick it for its neat writing.

3.5 stars rounded up.

A Hundred Years and a Day is a collection of 34 short stories written by Tomoka Shibasaki and translated by Polly Barton. It is being published on February 25, 2025.

This collection of loosely connected short stories is woven together with several common threads: nostalgia, a search for identity and community, and a slight speculative element. At a point in one of the stories, Japanese fiction is described as where "reality blends with the world of dreams" and this is an apt description of the collection as a whole.

There are several unusual elements present here too. Many of the short stories do not have a title but are instead numbered and start with a bolded description. As the title suggests, the stories jump around a lot in time, so it takes a while to determine where in time each story is situated. Many characters are also referred to by physical or other descriptions rather than names, so that took some time to get used to as well.

These stories will leave the reader with a lot to think about. Many questions are posed and few answers given, so I would recommend this collection to those who appreciate Japanese fiction and are okay with ambiguity, nostalgia and an undercurrent of anxiety.

Thank you to Stone Bridge Press via NetGalley for making this collection available for early review. All opinions are my own.

A Hundred Years and a Day by Tomoka Shibasaki is a cozy read. It’s a book of 34 short stories with no main theme among them. Each story has its own meaning and some of them, possibly due to translation, were harder to appreciate and harder to keep my interest than others. It’s of no fault of the translator, she did incredible. It’s just that sometimes things from one language don’t quite carry over to another and offer the same effect.

I appreciate the talents of Tomoka Shibasaki but I believe that a few things got “lost in translation” and that if the stories were read in the native language in which it was written then it would have been a more enjoyable book, in my opinion. The stories seem to just end…just like that. And for some of these that ended that way, I was left wanting more, I felt cheated.

This is a nice read overall and includes some relatable situations. It offers a quick fix if you want to get in a quick story.

I received a digital ARC in return for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley & Stone Bridge Press for offering the opportunity.

a collection of 34 short stories that explore human connection in an ever-changing world??? count. me. in.
these stories feel both intimate and vast, capturing fleeting moments between people and the places they inhabit.

Shibasaki has a gift for making the ordinary feel profound. Whether it’s women temporarily sharing a house during wartime, a man hopping between rooftop apartments, or an old ramen shop standing resilient while everything around it disappears, her characters exist in a state of quiet flux. their lives intersect, separate, and leave behind traces of meaning that linger long after the last page. the writing is sharp and restrained, almost journalistic in its clarity, yet filled with subtle allegory. there's a sense of detachment, but not coldness—more like watching lives unfold through a hazy window. she doesn’t spell things out; instead, she trusts the reader to sit with the ambiguity. some stories hint at societal shifts, like war, urban redevelopment, or technological progress, but never in a heavy-handed way.

what stands out to me??? the atmosphere—melancholic yet strangely comforting. it captures the bittersweet nature of change, the way people and places evolve, disappear, or endure. these are stories that make you pause and reflect, not because they deliver grand resolutions, but because they don’t. if love quiet, thought-provoking fiction that lingers in the mind, this collection is a must-read. the author proves once again why she’s one of the most compelling voices in contemporary literature.

4.5 stars!

Good collection of short stories, most are mildly entertaining. The stories I particularly take a liking: 7, 8, 15, 17, 27, 28, and 29.
I think it's fascinating how we get these glimpses into one's life, someone before, and after them; how some things change and others stay the same no matter how much time has passed.
Here are brief descriptions of my favorites;
7. The character doesn't dwell too much, simply follows the flow of life.
8. Discuss economy plays an important part in our life.
‪“If you've got no money then you can't do anything, wherever you go. Wherever you go, it's the same.”
15. Relatable, how we just drift apart from some people without any fight.. the only reason being life happens.
‪“Sometimes they'd recall a particular movie that they've seen together in that cinema. At those times, they'd want to talk with someone about what they'd seen, but would have the feeling nobody would get what they were trying to say, apart from the person they'd been to the cinema with, so they didn't say anything.” ‬
17. How we see a piece of someone's life through stuff they once owned. Wondering what attracted them to this object we are currently drawn into as we stumble upon it in a secondhand store.
27. The realization that the very place we are standing on didn't always exist, and may be gone.
‪‪“Would even this small coastal country─where ever more high-rise buildings were being built, and where the sight of soil beneath one's foot had disappeared long ago─be returned do desert someday in the distant future?” ‬
28. Wintry vibes. I like this one most of all.
A boy having a conversation with his friend on their way home days before his disappearance, and this friend thought of something that seems foreboding.
‪“Looking at the fallen snow sparkling blue-white at their feet despite the darkness of the sky, from which fresh snow fell ceaselessly, the fourth-floor kid wondered if in fact those two words, scary and beautiful, meant the same thing.”
29. One of the characters saying ‪“I feel like a ghost is less scary than someone with bad intentions." in response to horror gossip, commenting how creepy old guys' obsession with Japanese young girls in school uniform.

A collection of short stories each depicting a slice of daily life in Japan. Each story follows a different set of character and were really short - shorter than your average short story.

I feel like Japanese short story collections typically follow some sort of theme and there’s a centralized setting each of the stories take place in (i.e. What You Are Looking For Is In The Library, Before The Coffee Gets Cold, etc) but this collection felt very random, even the chapter titles are random (My love for daikon was so great that when I found myself living in a part of the world where it wasn’t commonly grown, I decided to try growing it myself; I ended up serving daikon dishes to my neighbors, and even making up a kid’s story about daikon... this is a real chapter…chapter 6 to be exact).

I thought it was alright - a quick and easy read to get through and I enjoy reading about mundane, daily life stories. Some times I thought the writing was a bit dull though, but not sure if it’s the writing itself or the translation. Perhaps this book would also benefit from having a cat on the cover like all other Japanese translated books?? i don’t know!

The story I liked the most was: Standing outside a small house, three junior high students who were skipping school look toward the nearby train station; ten years later.

I received an arc of this book via NetGalley in exchange for a review!!!

34 short stories describing daily life of mostly Japanese protagonists, most (if not all) highlighting the theme of "life goes on", and the futility of struggling against it. None of the stories stand out as such, and nothing here is out of the ordinary, but, taken together, they convey a certain sense of "Japanese-ness" that is often elusive elsewhere. The pared down writing style helps with this a lot - most characters and places don't have names, and the time of writing is rarely made clear. The reader has to focus on the events in each story, and their deterministic conclusion.

I started reading the book dreading it, frankly, given the reviews online. However, as I went from story to story I couldn't help but be drawn by the atmospheric writing, and the world the author creates through it. In this world, while individual events can be sad, and specific situations bleak, the minute one steps back and looks at it all from afar, "life goes on". There is something optimistic, beautiful, and powerful in such a narrative - things go on, and, yes, life can be hard and confusing, but time erodes much of the sharpness of events, leaving just the perpetuity of being. The more the stories progress the more the meta narrative gains shape and becomes increasingly philosophically poignant.

I also absolutely loved the story titles - each representing its own microcosm, and, often, more powerful and to-the-point than the stories they precede.

The author, however, can come across as trying too hard to tell a broader story, and misses making the stories themselves be engaging. In other words - while I loved the broader context of the collection, most stories, in their own individual rights, failed to impress.

Highly recommended to short story lovers (even if it is just to see what one can make of a well planned collection), and lovers of Japanese literature and culture more broadly.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.