Dinner at the Night Library was such a cosy read to me. The premise made promises and it delivered! Whilst it was a bit slow paced, it felt real to me and I grew to care about the characters and the library. The pace was perfect for me within this type of book, actually understanding how the characters are feeling.

The found family aspect of this book between all the characters who have found themselves working within The Night Library was great. You could tell how much each character cared for books and felt like this library was their safe space.

Whilst most of the book was told from the perspective of Otoha Higuchi, the newest employee of the library, the rare change in perspective from different employees allowed us to see how other people, who have been there longer, view the library. This added a level of depth I hadn't been expecting but loved nonetheless.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review <3

Dinner at the Night Library by Hika Harada (translation by Philip Gabriel)

"We're these books' servants, aren’t we?" Masako said, and everyone smiled wryly. "Well, that's the right stance for us librarians.  To be books' servants."

A quiet novel set in a library that only opens at night, where books and meals are intertwined. Chef Mr. Kinoshita prepares literary-inspired dinners, each dish steeped in references to authors and works, and the library itself houses the personal collections of deceased authors, their books and treasures donated after death, making the space both an archive of literary history and a living tribute to the writers who once loved them. Even though the references lean heavily on Japanese authors, the reverence and curiosity with which the characters share their literary passions will strike a chord with any reader who has felt moved by art.

The story is primarily narrated by Otaha, an observant and compassionate voice whose curiosity gently guides the reader through the Night Library. Alongside her, we glimpse the perspectives of other staff members, each with their own complicated relationship with books.  Such as Minami, unsure whether her love of reading is genuine or shaped by family expectations, and Masako, who fears admitting that her passion for literature has dimmed. These shifting viewpoints add depth and texture, revealing how literature reflects human struggles, doubts, and longings.

What shines most here is the novel’s tender meditation on regret, family duty, slowing down, and rediscovering joy. There are hints of mystery and adventure woven through, but the heart of the story remains rooted in the warm, reflective atmosphere of the library.

I loved the concept and the beautifully drawn characters, though at times the pacing felt a little uneven. Still, this was a thoughtful and rewarding read, and one I would recommend to readers who enjoy reflective, bookish fiction with a cosy but meaningful heart.

Thank you immensely to @scribneruk and @netgalley for the early copy in exchange for my honest review

I had high hopes for this one but the plot in itself is quite plain and the translation didn't help either.

A delight to read. Otaha Higuchi works in a bookstore, it is not an ideal job as it is badly paid and the manager is irritating, but all she has ever wanted is to work with books. One day she receives a message online from Seven Rainbows offering her a job at the Night Library in the outskirts of Tokyo. The pay is better and she would have accommodation included. The Night Library takes the book collections of authors following their deaths, catalogues them and makes them available in the library.
A really good read.

Otaha has always wanted to work with books so she can't resist the online message to join the eclectic team at the Night Library. A rare collection of books from famous authors across genres.

This is the cosiest of cosy translated fiction. Almost nothing happens in fact, but it's a book about people who love books and I'm here for that. I love the characters she meets at the library, and how the book is structured to give each of them their own moment and backstory.

I felt like I was really rooting for Otaha and loved to see her build a found family at the library.

I liked this book, but didn't love it. It does offer something different to most of the whimsical Japanese books that are so popular right now but I'm not 100% certain that the vague air of mystery worked. As someone who's worked in bookshops and libraries I did want more of the processes behind the library explained and I definitely wanted to spend more time with the peripheral characters.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK for this eCopy to review.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this eCopy to review.

I didn’t expect a night-shift library to feel like home, but Dinner at the Night Library did just that. Hika Harada has crafted a whimsical, quietly profound novel that celebrates books, food, and the strange, beautiful ways people find each other.

📚 Plot Summary
Set on the outskirts of Tokyo, the Night Library is no ordinary place. Open only from 7 p.m. to midnight, it houses a unique collection: books written by deceased authors, displayed like sacred relics. Nothing can be borrowed, only admired. Into this literary sanctuary steps Otoha Higuchi, a young woman bruised by the publishing world and unsure of her next chapter.

Recruited by a mysterious owner, Otoha joins a staff of fellow book lovers, former librarians, booksellers, and literary misfits each carrying their own quiet heartbreaks. Every night, they gather in the library café for dinners inspired by the books on the shelves. These meals become rituals of comfort, connection, and healing.

But when strange events threaten the library’s future, Otoha and her colleagues must confront what the library truly means to them and what they’re willing to do to protect it.

🍜 What I Loved
The Atmosphere: The Night Library is a dreamscape part museum, part sanctuary. Harada’s descriptions are lush and immersive, making you wish such a place existed.

The Found Family: Otoha’s bond with her coworkers is the heart of the novel. Their shared love of books and food creates a sense of belonging that’s deeply moving.

Literary Meals: Each dinner is a tribute to literature, and the way Harada ties food to memory and meaning is simply gorgeous.

Themes of Resilience and Reinvention: This is a story about starting over, about finding purpose in unexpected places, and about the quiet power of community.

🌟 Final Thoughts
Dinner at the Night Library is a gentle, bookish balm for anyone who’s ever felt lost and found solace in stories. It’s perfect for fans of What You Are Looking For Is in the Library or Before the Coffee Gets Cold. If you believe in the magic of books and the comfort of a shared meal, this novel will feel like a warm hug.

There's a lot of these books coming out of Asia to Western audiences and they're really sweet. I liked this one overall as it was so cosy.

A strange night library with an unknown owner, that stores book collections from famous authors who have passed away, and employs people via Twitter/social media.

We follow the characters and their previous employments and how they ended up working in the library... and also how they become closer to one another.

They have dinner at night, which are dishes inspired from books.

There's also a mystery we follow, which explores security issues within the library.

I'm hoping there will be a follow up after this book (I believe it's a triology)...

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK for this copy.

2.5 stars

I have made my love for Japanese fiction very clear, and with this one focussed on books, I thought it would be a winner, but sadly it wasn't.

It's not the smoothest translation I've ever read. Now, the extent of the Japanese I know is the numbers 1-5, which I learned when I was about 8 years old, and so this isn't a comment on how accurate the translation is, only that it's a bit clunky to read and difficult to lose yourself in.

It is very thin on plot, which I don't particularly mind as long as there are characters good enough to focus on, but again they were quite thin too.

It is a very easy book to read, not overly complicated or busy, and nothing much happens. It's quite flat, but a gentle read that will pass a few hours.

I'm used to Japanese fiction being quite whimsical and magical - which I know is a generalisation - but that's what I was expecting and it didn't come.

It was a pleasant read but not one I'd hurry to recommend. I did consider DNF-ing it on several occasions but because there wasn't anything obviously bad about it, I kept reading in the hope that something would happen, but it didn't.

The premise was interesting but it failed in its execution.

1.75⭐️

U can tell that the author truly loves books from the very beginning

The overall story is very boring there doesn’t seem to be any point to the story and feels very monotonous

I feel like the characters weren’t very fleshed out and we didn’t get to see much of their personalities they all seemed quite bland

Some of the writing was quite heavy handed instead of letting the reader think for themselves it kind of shoved what was meant In ur face

DNF. I've come to realise translated fiction is hit and miss for me and unfortunately the translation in this comes across as robotic, making it a jarring read.

As always, definitely a me problem.

Thank you for the ARC.

Otoha finds himself being invited to work in a library.
She alongside other employees experience weird events at nights in the library.
They have dinners and discover themselves in the process.
What I liked a lot was the heads up to the existing literature and the setting.
An enjoyable, cosy read.

I loved this book. It had such a cosy, relaxing atmosphere and was filled with interesting characters.
I've read a lot of books that fall into this genre of cosy/healing Japanese or Korean books, and I fall in love with them every time, and this book was no exception.
It had me hooked from page one right through to the end.
A wonderful read for when you want to slow down.
4.5/5

Time for yet another Japanese healing novel. As the genre is quite rigid and formulaic, whether you like this or not would be largely determined by whether you like reading healing novels. Dinner at the Night Library features quite a few genre staples - a quirky place/business premise, a cast of characters who make it their home, an episodic structure and a stress on (comfort) food as a conceptual core of the individual episodes. No cats this time, though. The protagonist, a recent English literature graduate, is tired of working in a chain bookshop near her parents' place in provincial Japan, and gets a job at a weird night library, a place where writers bequeath their personal book collections. In a series of chapters built around literary-inspired meals served in the library cafeteria, we get to know the other library employees and their personal woes.

Dinner offers just about enough variety to stand out among other healing novels. First of all, Otoha Higuchi, the protagonist, is not going through any sort of a major crisis. She had already decided not to take part in the Japanese corporate rat race, and made peace with earning less money but getting to work with books. She was just moderately bored in the uninspiring bookshop she used to work for. The episodic chapters are not structured around quirky visitors to the library who need the magic of books to resolve their archetypical issues (looking at you, What You Are Looking For Is in the Library). Instead, the core characters of the individual chapters are all employees of the library, and the novel examines the lives of people professionally connected to books, from professional civic librarians to second-hand bookshop owners, in granular detail, discussing various issues of librarianship, information management and economics of the book business. As someone who loves books and different aspects of the 'book world', I enjoyed the narrower scope and specificity of this approach. The discussions of actual books and writers provide a mix of real and fictional writers and their novels.

I enjoyed reading the book, but I was rarely in a hurry to pick it up. The overall narrative is practically non-existent, and the characters and their stories are not very engaging. There is nothing particularly distinctive about the prose, either.

Overall, an enjoyable subject matter and a somewhat refreshing take on a stale genre.

Our protagonist Otaha is a new employee at a quirky library - one that only collects the collections of deceased authors. The story is about the first few months of Otaha's experience working at the library - meeting her colleagues, encountering some quirky customers, and discovering the secret behind the owner.

I finished it quite quickly - there was something charming and disarming about the writing. There wasn't much drama, tension, or, frankly, anything remotely negative. The story flowed smoothly, and it was interesting to see where the author was taking it.

That being said, the experience overall was a bit hollow. While the initial concept is intriguing, the author did a poor job of developing the characters, making the mystery of the library's owner richer, or creating a coherent storyline that tied enough of the subplots together. As it stands, there were just too many diversions from the main storyline (the stories of some, but not all, of the other employees), the mystery became a proper mystery only in the last few "episodes" of the book (and didn't really make me care enough), and the characters remained rather banal. The supposed peak was supposed to come with the story of the library's manager and his relationship to the proprietor - but it just wasn't interesting or exciting. This is why, for me, it was a nice enough read, but it left me with literally nothing.

A pleasant enough waste of time. It's a miss, from my perspective.

I thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Otaha Higuchi has been desperate to work with books as a career all her life. So much so, that she endured a miserable period working at a chain book store before receiving a mysterious offer from the unknown owner of the Night Library, thanks to her bookish blog.

After accepting the offer largely on faith, Otaha arrives at a nondescript building tucked away in a Tokyo suburb to find a most unusual workplace, with a chef who provides delicious daily dinners, an eccentric cast of coworkers, and very odd working hours.

She also discovers a found family of sorts, a magical library that deals with the personal collections donated by authors, and what would have been her dream job, except that she had not dreamed of something so unusual!

A charming, gently told story that will appeal to booklovers everywhere, this gets 3.5 stars.