DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Tales from the Cafe

Toshikazu Kawaguchi author Geoffrey Trousselot translator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Pan Macmillan

Published:17th Sep '20

Should be back in stock very soon

Tales from the Cafe cover

The second novel from the author of the phenomenon, Before the Coffee Gets Cold: more tales from Cafe Funiculi Funicula, where customers may travel back in time - if they obey the rules.

The second novel from the author of the phenomenon, Before the Coffee Gets Cold: more tales from Cafe Funiculi Funicula, where customers may travel back in time – if they obey the rules. For fans of The Guest Cat and If Cats Disappeared from the World.

The million-copy bestselling series.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s heartwarming Tales from the Cafe, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, explores the age-old question: what would you do if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?


In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time . . .

From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold comes a story of four new customers each of whom is hoping to take advantage of Cafe Funiculi Funicula's time-travelling offer. Among some faces that will be familiar to readers, we will be introduced to:

The man who goes back to see his best friend who died 22 years ago
The son who was unable to attend his own mother’s funeral
The man who travelled to see the girl who he could not marry
The old detective who never gave his wife that gift . . .


This beautiful tale tells the story of people who must face up to their past, in order to move on with their lives.

Continue the heartwarming storytelling with Before Your Memory Fades, Before We Say Goodbye and Before We Forget Kindness - all out now!

' Heartwarming, whimsical . . . offering comfort at a time when the world seems off-kilter and chaotic' * The New York Times *

ISBN: 9781529050868

Dimensions: 197mm x 132mm x 14mm

Weight: 154g

208 pages