The Housekeeper and the Professor in Around the World

Aug 21, 2017 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: translated, location-japan, women-in-translation, read2017, around-the-world

Everyone and their mother read this last year for Women in Translation month (August 2016), and I remember finding my own copy at the annual literacy book sale. I set it aside for WIT month this year and was happy to pull it back out.

The housekeeper is a single parent, trying to make enough to live on, and the professor is a mathematician with a failing memory. The story is about connection and care but also MATH and anyone who knows me knows I'm a sucker for math. The professor can't remember p ...more

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Jan 19, 2011 Nazmi Yaakub rated it liked it

Shelves: sastera, novel, jepun

WATAK Profesor dalam The Housekeeper and the Professor hanya memiliki memori yang bertahan selama 80 minit sebelum ingatannya berhenti pada tahun 1975, tetapi novel yang menyelongkar persoalan hubungan kemanusiaan dan puitika matematika itu pasti tidak akan luput daripada ingatan kita.

Matematik dan baseball akan selama-lamanya menyukarkan saya tetapi ia tidak pernah mengganggu saya untuk menyusur hubungan unik yang dibina antara watak utamanya, pembantu rumah dan anaknya dengan majikannya, seora ...more

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Apr 21, 2009 Daisy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites-of-all-time, japan, baseball, math

Just breathtaking. Absolutely beautiful.
Amicable numbers, perfect numbers, abundant and deficient numbers, and more. Baseball. Tolerance. Patience. Tenderness.
This book was such a sweet surprise. I snuck off at work to finish it in little doses on my birthday. It was the nicest part of the day...
(Read my friend Chrissie's review. She says a lot of what I'd like to say.)

"You know what a factor is, don't you?"
"I think so. I'm sure I learned about them at some point...."
"For 220 is divisible by ...more

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Apr 30, 2012 mussolet rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: region-europe, country-japan, language-english, 2021-sorted, 2024-shelf-challenge

Yoko Ogawas novel "The Housekeeper + The Professor" tells the story of a woman coming to care for an elderly mathematics professor suffering from short-term memory loss.

While she has to introduce herself again every morning, she soons forms an attachment, based on him teaching her about numbers and her seeing his brilliance.
When she mentions her son, the Professor's love for children shines through and he expects her to bring him around after school or during vacations.

The love the professor h ...more

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Apr 10, 2011 Liddy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bookgroup, japan, asia, fiction-about-math

Wow. What a wonderful book. I don't quite know the best words to describe it. The relationships between the Professor and the Housekeeper and her son Root are just fabulous. Math and numbers is almost another character in the book, and all of their relationships to the numbers is equally magical and tender. ...more

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Nov 10, 2012 Rosana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: constant-reader-bookclub, 2012

It has been a long time since a book has touched me as deeply as this one. The truth is that I bought it to give to my daughter for Christmas. We recently had a discussion about “memory” and she is also intrigued by mathematics, so when I read the summary about this book, I had to buy it for her. But when the package arrived in the mail, I started browsing it… and the rest of the afternoon I could not let it go.
My daughter is probably going to read this post, so I need to reassure her that she i ...more

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