Before Your Memory Fades (Before the Coffee Gets Cold) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Before Your Memory Fades

What would you do if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to see again—maybe for one last time?

On the hillside of Mount Hakodate in northern Japan, Café Donna Donna is fabled for its spectacular views overlooking Hakodate port. But it offers something far more precious: the extraordinary, inexplicable power to journey through time. From Toshikazu Kawaguchi, the bestselling author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Tales from the Cafe, comes another deeply moving story of lost souls seeking a second chance, a last conversation, or the words they never managed to speak.

Among familiar faces, readers meet new visitors to the café: the daughter who resents her dead parents for leaving her orphaned; the comedian aching for his beloved and the dreams they shared; the younger sister whose grief has consumed her entirely; the young man who realises his love for his childhood friend has come far too late. Each comes to the café seeking what time has stolen—redemption, closure, connection, or simply the chance to say goodbye.

Featuring Kawaguchi's signature wistful storytelling and gentle wisdom, Before Your Memory Fades is brimming with heart and emotion. At 256 pages, it's a tender meditation on regret, time, love, and the precious moments we can never reclaim—yet somehow, in this magical place, might still be possible. Part of the million-copy bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold series.