NABC Store Manager's Diary — October 3, 2026 (Sat)

After September's long rains, October has arrived with consistently nice weather as if the wet spell were a lie. Customers finally seem able to go out, and today feels like a busy day at the shop. When I came in for my afternoon shift, some ZINEs had already sold in the morning — off to a good start. The one that sold was AZ's 'Nagoya Bookstore Tour: Northwest Area Edition.' It's a long seller at our store. Perfect for this season. A customer from Iwakura stopped by. The last time I saw them was when we had drinks with members of the Iwakura Library Study Group at a kushikatsu place in front of Nakamura Park a little while ago. She came to drop off two books her mother had written. Her mother apparently worked on social issues in Nakamura-ku; they're local history materials for Nakamura Ward. The daughter herself had recently read the first volume of Tadashi Ota's 'Cafe Utrillo, West of Nagoya Station' and loved it, so she bought volumes 2 through 6 all at once. Thank you very much. A young man came in carrying lots of tanka books to the register and asked, "Do you remember me?" Huh? It turned out to be the high school student who previously bought Haru Mizumachi's 'Lightly Sparkling Tanka'! He'd gotten a bit more grown-up; when I asked, he said he's now a university student living in Yokohama. He'd come to buy Mizumachi Haru's new book 'Only Those Who Cried Alone on the Way Home Feel the Moonlight's Warm Glow,' but our shop is due to stock it next week, so I was very sorry. I told him it would probably be available at bookstores in Yokohama; he said he often returns to Nagoya and will come again. I was moved (tears). He bought a lot of poetry collections. His university doesn't have a tanka club, so I suggested he start one himself.