The Housekeeper and the Professor

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
Translated by Stephen Snyder
Published: 2003 Translated:2009, Picador
Pages: 180
I bought this book from my local bookstore.

I have been looking at this book for a few months now (I'll admit mostly because it has a beautiful cover) and so I jumped at the chance to get it for 60% off. The book is about a once genius math professor who suffered an accident which restricted his short term memory to only eighty minutes at a time. The plot revolves around the housekeeper hired to care for him and her young son.

This book started slow for me, although the prose was beautiful from the start. Math and baseball haven't always been my favorite subjects, and those are two things that the professor really cares about. However, by the end I found myself captivated and genuinely moved. Ogawa really succeeded in creating realistic characters that I think we can all relate to.

This is a short, simple book; yet I found myself thinking about it for days afterward. It really is worth a read and I think I will keep this one to reread later. Highly recommended!