Shuhei Yoshihisa, "Traces of a Stroll"

Repeating, iterating, lingering, growing weary—I believe this is what makes up our work and our lives. (From the Afterword)

This book is a collection of travel essays about Paris and Rome, written by Shuhei Yoshihisa, the third-generation master of "Downbeat," a long-established jazz café in Yokohama, who daily selects records and stands at the counter. It also includes a dialogue introducing five of his favorite books. The journey begins when he reunites with a traveler from France at a jazz spot in Kyoto and promises to meet again in Paris. It traces an itinerary guided by music and literature, from the southern part of Paris, the setting for Agnès Varda's *Daguerreotypes*, and live houses in the northernmost part of the city, to Lyon, depicted in Kafu's short stories, Assisi, visited under the guidance of Weil, and Villa Adriana, where he rediscovers the words of Emperor Hadrian written by Yourcenar. The latter half of the dialogue, where he discusses his love for novels by Mieko Kawakami and Mariko Asabuki, in addition to Weil, Kafu, and Yourcenar, reveals not only the charm of each work but also Yoshihisa's literary and life views concerning "existence" and "others."
Jazz, reading, cafés, cities, and travel. Repetition, fleeting peace. While the narrative style is light, the book conveys the richness of reading books, traveling, and contemplating.