Yesterday I had a booth at the "Hanakari Market" held in Tsuruta, Aomori Prefecture. I came all the way from Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture. This event had been buzzing on social media for some time and I had wanted to take part, so it was a long‑cherished opportunity to exhibit. It took about three and a half hours from Kesennuma to the venue by highway. From Friday I traveled with my wife and enjoyed Aomori on the 23rd, 24th, and 25th. On the first day we visited Hashikami, where a fellow from my Local Venture Lab cohort is active, and toured a book center and several bookstores in Hachinohe. On the second day we strolled around Oirase and Towada, then moved on to Hirosaki City to see historic buildings and sample apple pies as we walked. On the third day we ran our booth at the main event, the Hanakari Market. Despite the gloomy weather, the event was lively with many customers and vendors, and it was a lot of fun. While learning about and feeling Aomori and Tsuruta, I also sensed connections to Kesennuma through conversations with visitors. I also had a chance to speak with the organizers and heard about how the event started, the challenges they faced, and the joys involved. I want to plan a book event in Kesennuma too. The three days in Aomori were full of learning about ideas, presentation, and building a store concept. I came away inspired and want to try similar initiatives at Hamarain BOOKS.

ZINE Festival Kumamoto is a zine event held on June 19, 2027 from 11:00 to 16:00 on the 6th floor of the Kumamoto City International Center. Admission: ¥500. Information is provided on exhibitor booth details (90×45 cm, capacity limits, etc.), exhibition rules, application procedures (payment via STORES), publicity cooperation plans, and contact: [email protected].

You have been invited to Dr. Matsudo's presentation of his new invention. You arrive at the venue, the bookstore "ナゴヤブックセンター" in front of Nagoya Station, but for some reason the doctor does not appear, and only a mysterious message remains. "My newly developed novel poison gas is spreading throughout this room. You will suffer heart attacks and die within a few hours. The antidote is inside a locked safe. Now, can you survive and escape from here alive?" The room is strewn with puzzles and ciphers that appear to have been created by the doctor. Work together with your teammates to solve them and obtain the antidote from the safe. ※All participants form a single team to solve the mystery. It's fine to participate alone, and you don't need to be good at puzzles. Please feel free to join. ※The event is expected to last about one hour, but it may be shorter or longer depending on circumstances. ※This is my (Kuroda's) first attempt, so the operation may be messy. Please participate with a generous spirit.

Today we had two events: one at 1:00 PM and another at 7:00 PM. The 1:00 event was the second Reading Otaku Talk with Henri Ohara and Ruko. Since it started relatively early, I arrived after 11:00 to set up the second-floor venue, but to my surprise a participant was already here. They bought Henri Ohara's and Ruko's zines, and even my zine. They said they learned about the event via social media from Hamamatsu. I'm grateful. The two did a reading-talk where they introduced books and zines they’d recently enjoyed, and talked about reading goods they use — for example, sticky page labels. I was surprised to hear from attendees that many of them put sticky notes in books while reading: rereading books, copying out lines they liked — there are many ways to enjoy a physical book. Ohara is someone who rereads the same book many times, while Ruko reads a lot — about 40 books a month — so she rarely rereads. Ruko buys only around five books a month; the other roughly 35 she borrows from libraries, and if new releases are hard to borrow she reads them at book cafés. She said she’s read almost everything at her local library, so she’s registered at nearby city libraries as well to borrow more. The evening event started at 7:00 PM: a reading group hosted by mystery novelist Kenji Kuroda. The book of the theme was Keigo Higashino's Shiratori to Koumori (The Swan and the Bat). Kuroda mentioned that when he was young he used to hang out with Keigo Higashino, and that episode is written about in Higashino's essay collection. Because The Swan and the Bat was recently adapted into a film, some participants had also seen the movie and we discussed differences between the book and the film. Between and during the two events I was manning the first-floor register. A young man came in and bought a tanka collection; when I spoke to him he said he writes tanka and that someone at a tanka gathering had recommended our shop, so he came in. I hope he’ll join our tanka gatherings too. Around 3:00 PM a party of eight from the Nagoya Gengyūkai came by — they were using Cafe River — apparently they had been handing out informational tissues near Nagoya Station on October 22 for International Stuttering Awareness Day, and after finishing they came by for tea. It was great to see them again this year; they remembered us from last year. They gave us many of the leftover tissues they had distributed, so I put them in front of the register. In the late afternoon a young woman came in to say hello. She had a free paper she produces in the second-floor free-paper corner, and that led to her being invited to today's event “Hen'ai Yoriai” held at Nishiki 2-chome 7-ban — she had come from Tokyo for it. While talking we discovered we had a mutual acquaintance and the conversation about work really took off. Her free paper is called Geinin Shinbun (Comedian Newspaper). It's published once a year and has been running for more than ten years. She had once made a zine compiling back issues and said she had one or two copies left, so I decided to stock them. I'm looking forward to receiving them. Just before closing, right when the 7:00 reading group was starting, two young women came in. I thought they might be looking for a café, so it was unusual that they came to a bookstore. They were traveling from Tokyo — childhood classmates since kindergarten — and had been touring Mie Prefecture by car; they had returned to a hotel near Nagoya Station and stopped by because they saw a bookstore. They bought a tanka collection. They said they’ll go to Higashiyama Zoo tomorrow. I told them there is a long-established bookstore nearby called ON READING; I hope they go. After they left I locked the door to go upstairs to prepare the second floor, but they returned and when I asked why they said, “We want to eat tebasaki (chicken wings); could you tell us a place?” So I recommended Furaibo nearby. I mentioned how to eat them, too — I wonder if they tried them.

Autumn is gradually arriving and it's getting cooler. When that happens I always suddenly can't decide what to wear — every year it's the same. At a change of seasons I usually can't remember what I wore last fall to work. I could check my closet and see right away, but it still takes time to recall the outfits. This year in particular is a problem: I've gained over 10 kg compared with last autumn. The shirts I wore last year in size L have become tight, and I'm going to have to move up to LL or XL. About ten years ago I was wearing M shirts, so it's a huge difference. If I don't get even a little closer to that shape, more clothes will become unwearable. The suits I used to wear in my publishing days are already put away and unused. True, I hardly have occasions to wear them now, so that's fine, but it's a shame. It was one of those mornings when it suddenly got cold and choosing clothes was a real hassle. Well, for my current job it's better to dress casually for customer service. There weren't many customers today either, but Ms. Kotobuki from the Tokai Yuri History Research Association stopped by to deliver some items. She was unusually wearing a suit, so I thought she might be on a sales call, but she said she was returning from giving a lecture at a high-end hotel. No wonder she's getting more and more well known. After that, a tall man came in by himself carrying a book by Noriko Ibaraki and went to the register. When I asked, he said he was a newspaper reporter from Tokyo covering old buildings — it looked like a piece on old, 'shibu' buildings. In the evening two college-age boys came in — it's rare for our bookstore to get customers who aren't regulars from Café River. After browsing various books, they bought an architecture zine, "Hosokagai-ku no Susume." When I asked, they said they make zines; one of them had just made a novel zine and showed me one of the two copies he had produced. It's bunko size with a cover already on it and looks very professional — you wouldn't think it was his first. When I asked if he'd liked books since childhood, he said he actually disliked them, but in the past two years he'd become hooked on novels and decided to try writing himself. The trigger was Tadashi Ota's "Nagoya Station West Cafe Utrillo series"! He loves coffee shops. His pen name is Mio Noguchi, and he posts on Kakuyomu, so please check him out. Of the two sample copies he made this time, he gave one to his grandmother as a present — what a good grandson. I told him we'd carry it in our shop, and he said he'd make additional copies for the October Shizuoka ZINE Fest and might share some with us. I only skimmed it (it looks like the full text is on Kakuyomu, so I'll read it there), but his writing is very good and the story seems interesting. The setting is Nagoya, so it's a perfect fit for our shop. When I mentioned Zindies, he registered right away — young people are fast! Link to Mio Noguchi on Kakuyomu: https://kakuyomu.jp/users/com5151 Just before closing, a regular customer who works at a government office brought a colleague by before heading to a drinking party. There were people from Tokyo, and they found our shop concept interesting. I handed out information about upcoming events and some newly made business cards. It was another fun day.

Zindies Editorial Meeting Vol.0 has ended. Thank you to everyone who joined! It turned out to be about 90% casual chat, but the remaining 10% went like this: (1) Topics around the ZINE scene are interesting from any angle, so we'd definitely like to stream them next time. (2) A sibling service of Zindies called refeel.day (@refeel.day), which turns diary entries directly into ZINEs, has produced a real-life ZINE test copy, so we showed it off. There was also a sample of a book with an ISBN made with the same system, and just having a cover design plus an obi (paper band) gave it an overwhelming "book" feel — that was an eye-opener. (3) We're making a "WHOLE ZINE CATALOG (aiming to be one) ZINE" that lists authors and works featured on Zindies, and people from the team have been taking copies to bookstores to promote them. Production costs are so high that after showing them off they had to take them back, but an idea came up: instead of bookstores, let customers see them there and order ZINEs from that display. One of the pieces inside, "Souda, Yokado ni Ikou." by Umi Amamiya, really resonated with a staff member from Hokkaido, and later we received a message saying "I bought it—", which was moving. (4) Even among the Alpha generation there are people who don't know about ZINEs, but once explained they understand. (5) Someone from the Alpha generation complimented our design! (So happy) (6) Regardless of author or reader, a ZINE show-and-tell would be fun. Since it was Vol.0 we started relaxed, but it looks like we can gradually show more personality, so I'm looking forward to next week. 😊

Tanka poet Kyoko Toda will join us for a fun tanka gathering while we enjoy Christmas cake. Tuesday, December 22, 6:30 PM–8:00 PM. Venue: Kissa River (ナゴヤブックセンター) Capacity: 7 participants Participation fee: ¥1,000 plus one drink If you would like to participate, please email one tanka (free composition) by Tuesday, December 15 to [email protected] (Fujisaka).

A zine (doujinshi) event held in Sendai. Exhibitor booths measure 90 cm wide × 60 cm deep; exhibitors are required to assist with setup, registration, and takedown as part of event operations. There are exhibitor plans including a social media (SNS) promotion-cooperation plan, and photos taken at the venue may be posted on social media and other platforms.

Today I received a message that the business cards I ordered from Canva were ready, so I stopped by the pickup location, ACCEA Cafe, in front of Nagoya Station (Meieki) before coming to the shop. It's like a Kinko's–style store with a small cafe area attached. The place felt a bit cluttered, and although I tried the cafe, it was a little dark and cramped, so it wasn't very comfortable. The self-serve cafe I saw in the news (surprisingly run by a Nagoya company) seemed brighter and nicer. Being able to have things printed and pick them up with no shipping fee is very convenient. I'll keep using it. The flyers I had ordered from Printpac arrived at my home, so I brought them to the shop and folded them for distribution, but unfortunately I messed up the page imposition. I'll correct that next time. I should be more careful — falling into the habit of doing things sloppily is not good, but at my age I guess it's hard to change. The shop was quiet again today. I registered the newly arrived books, took photos and posted the arrivals on social media, and also announced an upcoming event. I wish we could get a few more participants. Lately I've been acutely aware of my lack of reach and have been wondering what to do about it. I also rearranged the display table to accommodate the weekend event and today's new books. In the evening a man came in, browsed the shelves slowly, and then bought a lot of ZINEs. He was someone who had visited about a year ago; when I talked with him I found out he was someone I had met at a meeting of the committee drafting Nagakute's lifelong learning plan. Come to think of it, I wonder what happened with Nagakute's lifelong learning plan. I had to stop attending the meetings halfway through because of poor health, so I felt bad about that. Still, since the municipal library and the community cultural center collaborated on exhibitions and events, perhaps I was able to be of some help in that regard. After talking about Nagakute, our conversation somehow turned to ankake spaghetti restaurants, and he told me about several places. I learned there's a famous shop within walking distance of my home or workplace, so I'll try to visit if I get the chance. I'm not great with peppery food, but maybe it's fate to try it again after more than ten years.

Topic: 'ZINE Talk'\n\nZindies Editorial Meeting is a gathering of people who make Zindies, held in a corner of a bookstore or a café. Although it's called a "meeting," some sessions end up as casual conversation. There's almost no agenda, but there will probably be seats.\n\nAt the editorial meeting we do things like:\n\n- Talk about and make decisions regarding various aspects of Zindies. If you'd like to collaborate on something, please come.\n- Get advice on how to create and distribute zines. If you want to make one but don't know how, bring that interest; if you're already making them, bring your proud copy.\n\nYou don't have to speak — it's fine to just come and watch people making Zindies. You can arrive or leave partway through without any problem. People who come may call themselves members of the Zindies editorial team from that day (a small perk).\n\nYou can drop in without a reservation, but if you think you can come, please click the "Join" button — the organizers will be happy.

Today was Wednesday and my day off. It was surprisingly hot — around 30°C. In the afternoon I went to the pool wearing a short-sleeve shirt and shorts. As expected, there wasn’t anyone else dressed like that; most people were already in autumn clothes. I guess they must have been feeling hot, too. The store's printer finally stopped cooperating, so I couldn't print flyers for events anymore. I was wavering about what to do — distributing flyers might not be very effective, and paper and printer ink cost quite a bit — so instead of printing each flyer myself I decided to use Zindies’ “Upcoming Events” PDF feature to make a single A4 double-sided event flyer, which seemed cheaper. Right at that timing, though, the printer completely stopped working. I had no choice but to outsource the printing. I tried using a well-known service called Printpack, but my skills were a bit lacking so I had trouble submitting the files. After a few tries I finally managed to get the print order accepted, and it should arrive soon. I’m both curious and a little nervous about how it will turn out. Since it's inexpensive, I figured it's better for my peace of mind than fighting with the printer. If I absolutely need single sheets, I’ll print them at home with my cheap printer and bring them to the shop. While I was at it, I wanted to put QR codes on my business cards linking to Zindies’ store info and event page, so this time I made the cards in Canva as I always do. It’s really convenient — design in Canva and click the print button to submit the files directly. They also accept detailed correction instructions, so failures are rare (although the first time I printed, part of the QR code ended up obscured on the back and I didn’t notice before printing). The shipping to my home is a bit more expensive than Printpack, though. If that’s a problem, I can pick them up at an ACCEA Cafe for free shipping and they’ll usually be ready the next day. The café is near Meieki (Nagoya Station area), so I should be able to pick them up before work. As I was writing this, I actually got an email saying they’re ready! I’ll go pick them up tomorrow. 200 double-sided color cards for 800 yen. On the back I included a blurb and purchase information for the zine "This Library Is More Than Just Borrowing Books." I don’t have much sense for design, which is a shame. I’ll hand them out to people I meet.

10/21 (Wed) Today I distributed a press release via PRtimes. I posted because I wanted people outside Kesennuma City and across Japan to learn about Marain BOOKS and our activities. I would be happy if not only those who currently live in Kesennuma but also people who are connected to Kesennuma could get involved from afar and keep Kesennuma in their thoughts. We have a corner in our shop called "Kesennuma: 100 People’s Bookshelves." Through books, I want to show what kinds of books people in Kesennuma read, what they feel, and how they live now. Kesennuma City is famous for sanma (Pacific saury) and katsuo (bonito), but this project started to focus on the people of Kesennuma so that people can feel the city more personally. Compared with big cities, rural areas are often thought to have nothing, but richness doesn’t come simply from goods and services in a visible economy — it comes from feeling connections with people. I moved back as a U-turn migrant two years ago, and I feel connections I couldn’t feel in Nagoya, where I lived for seven years. When the Kesennuma 100 books are gathered, we’re planning to create a first issue. A magazine filled with 100 active people from Kesennuma would be compelling. This also connects to last year’s My Plan at Numa University, RoundAbout "Creating a magazine that delivers Kesennuma’s cool," and I’m able to do what I want to do. I’m grateful for an environment where I can take small challenges, for the people and systems that support those challenges, and for the chance to express myself locally in Kesennuma. Now that I’m 30, I strongly want not only to take in information but to put things out and help liven up Kesennuma.

It's very quiet in the shop today, unlike last week when Beniko's photo exhibition was held. On a normal day the register is used for only about three customers. We've returned to that everyday rhythm. Now that Beniko's photo exhibition has ended, I purchased a few copies each of the photobook "Beniko's Color-Town Travelogue, Vol. 3" and the series "Beniko's Color-Town Travelogue" that had been on display and for sale. Beniko kindly gave an autograph in one of the photobooks. Today I leisurely registered the purchases and put them into plastic sleeves. Customers trickled in. A couple from Berlin, Germany visiting Nagoya stopped by asking for English books, but unfortunately we don't carry any. Maybe I'll go to the International Center and pick up any multilingual Nagoya guide pamphlets they might have. Just after three, a former colleague from the library where I used to work came by. It's been a while—she looks more energetic than when we last met. We chatted a lot over tea at Cafe River. While we were talking she rummaged through her bag and took out a small folded booklet to show me. To my surprise, it was a folded booklet with many tanka printed in tiny type on copy paper. She had composed more than sixty tanka. I was amazed she had written so many. She also joined a nighttime uta-kai. I told her I'd buy the booklet and sell it in the shop, but she refused, saying she was embarrassed. I hope she'll let me sell it someday. In the evening we had the "Ekinishi Small Tanka Gathering" led by our regular customer and poet Chiharu. It was a modest meeting, but we were able to take time for careful critiques of tanka, which was both educational and very enjoyable. At the end, Chiharu passionately told everyone, "Buying and reading tanka collections carefully is a good way to study tanka." Indeed. Everyone, buy tanka collections and read them!

The three zines we'll be selling at Literary Flea Market Tokyo 43 are complete! Now it's just preparations for the day. This time we're participating under the circle name Asa & Velvet. Yuriko Abe will be joining me. Yuriko Abe will be participating with a photography book that pays homage to the works of nihonga painter Ryuko Kawabata. We'll be standing side by side at the event, so please stop by. (By the way, we both have bleached hair. Mine is white blonde.)

Today is my day off. I'm preparing the presentation slides for a lecture scheduled at the library in Kameyama, Mie Prefecture on November 3. Since my time as a librarian I gave several talks to librarians and people involved with libraries, so I thought about reusing the slides I made back then, but it's been a year and a half since I left my job as a librarian, so I wondered whether it would be appropriate to use the old slides unchanged. I wasn't sure what to do, so I decided to have AI — which is all the rage right now — generate some ideas. I fed it the slides I'd used before and the zine 'This Library Is More Than Just a Place to Borrow Books' in full. I also had it incorporate Kameyama City's policies and information about the newly renovated Kameyama City Library, and asked it to create a slide structure. I gave it many instructions (apparently called prompts), and giving prompts is very difficult. I even found myself thinking that the recent craze for 'verbalizing' things might be driven by prompts. Gradually the slides started to take shape. My previous slides tended to plaster event flyers from the Shidami and Moriyama libraries all over the slides as if to say, 'Look how great this is.' But that approach consumes time explaining the flyers, so I'm not confident my main points were getting across to the audience. I don't have anyone nearby to consult, and the AI ended up acting like a colleague or subordinate, which feels a bit strange, but I thought that creating slides with a different perspective provided by AI might be better than making them purely self-centered. I finished the slides and left them alone for a while, but as the lecture day approached I reread them and found expressions and a structure that felt off, so today I decided to revise them so they read more like my own words. I cut some slides, added new ones, and changed wording to version-up the slides. For now I'll leave them alone again for a bit. Event information is here: https://www.city.kameyama.mie.jp/library/article/2026093000015/

10/19 (Mon) A regular customer wearing a corduroy shirt in a maple-leaf color dropped by. It was even colder in Kesennuma today, and he had a hoodie over his shirt. He bought a bundle of books again, mainly suspense novels. I feel like his visits are becoming more frequent. Thank you, as always. He told me some of his high school exploits. It made me realize how different the Showa era and the Reiwa era can be. He looked back fondly on his three years of high school and seemed proud. An older customer who had seen Kesennuma City's cable network commercial also came in. I'm truly glad that local elderly people learned about the shop and came by. In areas with limited transportation, I want to create community spaces across many generations through books. I hope to work with mobile bookstores and pop-up bookshops to reach those who usually can't get around. I want to visit nursing-care facilities and retirement homes to bring the pleasure of shopping, time for reading, and the conversations that come from books. I hope Kesennuma will become a place where people can encounter books all over town and be known as a "book town." I'll continue testing ideas little by little and try to spread them.

Every Thursday from 6:00 to 8:00 PM, we've decided to hold a gathering called the Zindies Editorial Meeting at Stoa'S, a book café in Jiyugaoka. I have known the owner, Mr. Yamazaki, for a long time, and he had mentioned opening the shop before; it finally opened in September. We thought it would be fun to do something together, and when I heard that someone else holds a regular weekly gathering on a specific weekday, I suggested trying something similar with Zindies and he readily agreed. The day is Thursday. The core time is 6:00–8:00 PM. We haven't set anything too strict for the content; basically it's casual conversation about ZINEs. That said, I felt it would be hard to gather people without a theme, so I named the meet-up Editorial Meeting and decided to propose some kind of topic each week. The first session is on October 22. As Vol.0 the title will be something like Thinking about the Zindies Editorial Meeting. I'd like to treat it as a pre-open session and see what we can do with the space. Holding it weekly is also meant to make people remember "Thursday" so they can drop in when they feel like it. Even so, if you come alone you might just have a drink and leave, so we'd be happy if you stopped by simply to liven the place up. Rather than being strictly about Zindies, I hope we can chat about ZINEs, try out ideas that come up, and have fun. Please feel free to drop in.

Today was Sunday and the shop is normally closed, but because Beniko's photo exhibition was on in the gallery on the second floor, we opened. It was the final day of Beniko's exhibition. When the gallery opened, customers arrived one after another and went up to the second floor. There seemed to be a lot of single male visitors today. Some were first-time visitors, others were coming for the second or third time. I was at the cash register in the bookstore on the first floor, so I was watching the second floor on the security camera, and within half an hour of opening the place was already bustling with many customers. Kotobuki from the Tokai Yuri History Research Association also came by. Today Kotobuki was with a friend who studies brothels in Shizuoka. Of course this person also appeared to be an old acquaintance of Beniko and of President Watanabe of Kastori Shobo. Also, President Watanabe's family came from Tokyo—they had come to help with the teardown. The president's wife seemed to know everyone. They all looked like fellow researchers of pleasure quarters. A man who had been coming almost every day from out of prefecture turned out to be from Shizuoka, and everyone really seemed very close. A group of about five visitors also seemed to be from outside the prefecture. One of them bought a zine and spoke to me. They were all from Tokyo—perhaps members running a shared bookstore. They are currently near Sengawa Station but said they will move to Soshigaya-Okura. They are all Beniko fans and apparently organize group tours to see her exhibitions. Beniko's fans are truly enthusiastic. Because the gallery closed at 5:00 PM today, the event was two hours shorter than usual. After 3:00 PM the number of customers increased again. It seemed everyone was going to greet Beniko once more. Some people returned to buy merchandise that had been sold out, but it was sold out again. What a pity. However, Beniko will send the item later to that customer's home with her autograph. That's good. Customers kept coming until just before the 5:00 PM closing. Our president came to the store to attend the teardown, so I handed things over. I said goodbye to Beniko and to President Watanabe of Kastori Shobo and his family, and asked them again to hold another exhibition. At this exhibition, visitors not only came for Beniko's photos but also bought many books at the bookstore on the first floor. This is the first gallery event that has boosted book sales this much. Beniko's fans seem to love books. There are many familiar faces now! It makes me very sad to think that from tomorrow I won't be able to see such passionate customers anymore. I strongly felt that we need to stock the store in a way that will bring these customers back even after Beniko's exhibition ends.

Today I took a day off from the bookstore and went to Shiojiri City. "Everyone's Cancer Classroom" is a program I worked on when I was a librarian — creating places for cancer education in libraries. It started about six years ago at Shidami Library in Moriyama Ward, Nagoya, and not long after it began to be held at the municipal library in Enpark, Shiojiri City, Nagano Prefecture. Later, Nagoya City Moriyama Library, which is also in Moriyama Ward like Shidami Library, began hosting the program on alternating months with Shidami. This initiative is run in collaboration with libraries by Kanako Hikoda, who organizes the Cancer Philosophy Outpatient Medical Café "Shachihoko Memorial." "Everyone's Cancer Classroom" is held once a month at either Shidami or Moriyama Library. As of this month (October 2026), it has reached its 55th session. I was involved with "Everyone's Cancer Classroom" from the start until I retired from the library last March. The program exists and continues because of Kanako Hikoda's passion. She has many colleagues and supporters; among them is Hiromi Oguchi, who runs a peer-support group in Shiojiri called "Cancer Support Omusubi." Oguchi came all the way from Shiojiri to the first session in Shidami, and afterward spoke passionately about wanting to bring "Everyone's Cancer Classroom" to Shiojiri. I gave her the Shidami Library event flyer and encouraged her to propose it to the wonderful Enpark library in Shiojiri. Thanks to Oguchi's efforts, "Everyone's Cancer Classroom @ the Library" was first approved as a trial program at Shiojiri Library and from the following fiscal year began to be held regularly. There are essays by Oguchi and Hikoda about the project in the ZINE "This Library Is Not Just for Borrowing Books," so please have a look: https://sheepsheepbooks.stores.jp/items/693c12d9029af1c7671e372a There was a reason I visited the Shiojiri session after such a long time. Last November I was invited by the staff of the Minamisoma City Library in Fukushima Prefecture to talk to their staff about the initiatives at Shidami and Moriyama libraries. At that time I asked the Minamisoma librarians not to just listen and let it end there — since I had come all the way from Nagoya, I urged them to definitely turn it into something concrete. I half-expected nothing would come of it, but to my surprise I heard this fiscal year the Minamisoma City Library decided to hold "Everyone's Cancer Classroom" as well. The Minamisoma librarians planned to visit Shiojiri's session to observe as part of their preparation for hosting the program. When I heard that, of course I couldn't not go from Nagoya to Shiojiri. I wasn't a librarian anymore and hesitated at first about participating, but in the end I shamelessly decided to show up. Information about Enpark Shiojiri Library's "Wholehearted Cancer Classroom" is here: https://www.instagram.com/p/Dei-1JGk7JG/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&rpxt=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ== So, I plan to visit Minamisoma City Library again on Sunday, March 14 next year.