
If Cats Disappeared from the World
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Brian Nishii
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By:
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Genki Kawamura
About this listen
"Brian Nishii narrates this imaginative tale set in Japan about the complexities of death, life, and cats...A brief, charming parable." —AudioFile Magazine
The international phenomenon that has sold more than a million copies in Japan, If Cats Disappeared from the World is a funny, heartwarming, and profound meditation on the meaning of life.
The postman’s days are numbered. Estranged from his family, living alone with only his cat, Cabbage, to keep him company, he was unprepared for the doctor’s diagnosis that he has only months to live. But before he can tackle his bucket list, the Devil appears to make him an offer: In exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, our narrator will get one extra day of life. And so begins a very bizarre week....
With each object that disappears, the postman reflects on the life he’s lived, his joys and regrets, and the people he’s loved and lost.
Genki Kawamura’s timeless tale is a moving story of loss and reconciliation, of one man’s journey to discover what really matters most in life.
©2012; 2019 Text copyright Genki Kawamura; Translation copyright Eric Selland (P)2019 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"At first, If Cats Disappeared from the World feels as light and puzzling as a fairy tale, but then, steadily, chapter by chapter - using nothing more than conversation, memory, and a winning narrator's searching, sensitive thought experiments - it raises its cosmic stakes higher than any thriller. Like a padding cat or the shadow of death, Genki Kawamura's book snuck up on me; the next thing I knew, I was crying." (Robin Sloan, New York Times best-selling author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough)
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Story
What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is able to sense exactly what each visitor to her library is searching for and provide just the book recommendation to help them find it. A restless retail assistant looks to gain new skills, a mother tries to overcome demotion at work after maternity leave, a conscientious accountant yearns to open an antique store, a recently retired salaryman searches for newfound purpose. In Komachi’s unique book recommendations they will find just what they need to achieve their dreams.
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The power of honesty and an open mind
- By ili pika on 09-10-23
By: Michiko Aoyama
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I Am a Cat
- By: Soseki Natsume, Aiko Ito - translator, Graeme Wilson - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 21 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Soseki Natsume's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the foolishness of upper-middle class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him. A classic of Japanese literature, I Am a Cat is one of Soseki's best-known novels. Considered by many as the greatest writer in modern Japanese history, Soseki's I Am a Cat is a classic novel sure to be enjoyed for years to come.
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Great performance!
- By mz on 04-03-20
By: Soseki Natsume, and others
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The Cat Who Saved Books
- A Novel
- By: Sosuke Natsukawa
- Narrated by: Kevin Shen
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Bookish high school student Rintaro Natsuki is about to close the secondhand bookstore he inherited from his beloved bookworm grandfather. Then, a talking cat appears with an unusual request. The feline asks for — or rather, demands — the teenager’s help in saving books with him. The world is full of lonely books left unread and unloved, and the cat and Rintaro must liberate them from their neglectful owners.
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Transports you to fantastical realities…
- By Uriel Dana on 01-16-22
By: Sosuke Natsukawa
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Yeonnam-Dong’s Smiley Laundromat
- A Novel
- By: Kim Jiyun, Shanna Tan - translator
- Narrated by: Winson Ting
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Situated at the heart of a rapidly gentrifying district of Seoul, the Yeonnam-dong Smiley Laundromat is a place where the extraordinary stories of ordinary residents unfold. It is already a haven of tranquility and reflection for locals, but when someone leaves a notebook behind, the laundromat becomes a place that brings people together. One by one, customers start jotting down candid diary entries, opening their hearts and inviting acts of kindness from neighbors who were once just faces in the crowd.
By: Kim Jiyun, and others
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Second-Chance Cats
- True Stories of the Cats We Rescue and the Cats Who Rescue Us
- By: Callie Smith Grant
- Narrated by: Emily Ellet, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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This heartwarming collection includes more than 30 true, contemporary stories told by a variety of writers, including Melody Carlson, Lauraine Snelling, and Kristin Billerbeck. Each feel-good story involves cat rescue, some in a typical way and others in surprising - even miraculous - ways. Sometimes the question becomes: Really, who rescued whom?
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Second Chance Cats
- By Kim M. Brownell on 06-13-21
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Scattered All Over the Earth
- By: Yoko Tawada, Margaret Mitsutani - translator
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to the not-too-distant future: Japan, having vanished from the face of the earth, is now remembered as "the land of sushi." Hiruko, its former citizen and a climate refugee herself, has a job teaching immigrant children in Denmark with her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian): "homemade language. no country to stay in. three countries I experienced. insufficient space in brain. so made new language. homemade language."
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The whispering narrator is too hard to hear
- By robin helman on 07-29-24
By: Yoko Tawada, and others
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The Healing Season of Pottery
- By: Yeon Somin, Clare Richards
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Burned out by her TV news writing job, Jungmin leaves in an attempt to salvage her life. When she stumbles upon a mysterious pottery studio, she feels immediately at home. The warmth, the smell of clay, and the incredible coffee awaken her senses and make her feel alive for the first time in months. Over the coming year, season by season, pot by pot, Jungmin returns to herself and builds unexpected friendships with the other members of the studio, who are all working through their own trials at the pottery wheel.
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A lovely surprise
- By Sharon on 02-24-25
By: Yeon Somin, and others
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How to Argue with a Cat
- A Human's Guide to the Art of Persuasion
- By: Jay Heinrichs
- Narrated by: Jay Heinrichs
- Length: 2 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Cats are skilled manipulators who can talk you into just about anything without a single word. They can get you to drop whatever you're doing and play with them. They can make you serve their dinner way ahead of schedule. They can get you to sit down right this instant and provide a lap. On the other hand, try getting a cat to do what you want.... While it's hard, persuading a cat is possible. And after that, persuading humans becomes a breeze, and that is what you will learn in this audiobook.
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Hilarious and informational
- By Kelly D. on 08-01-18
By: Jay Heinrichs
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The Kamogawa Food Detectives
- A Kamogawa Food Detectives Novel, Book 1
- By: Hisashi Kashiwai, Jesse Kirkwood - translator
- Narrated by: Hanako Footman
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that's not the main reason customers stop by. The father-daughter duo are 'food detectives'. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories—dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility.
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Combines two of my favorite things
- By Anonymous on 03-25-24
By: Hisashi Kashiwai, and others
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The Secret Society of Success
- Stop Chasing the Spotlight and Learn to Enjoy Your Work (and Life) Again
- By: Tim Schurrer, Donald Miller
- Narrated by: Tim Schurrer
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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There’s a message getting a lot of airtime these days. It says to be successful, you have to step into the spotlight, climb the ladder, become the boss, or chase whatever version of success that’s been dangled in front of you.
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This book helped me reframe a career transition
- By Jeff on 06-13-22
By: Tim Schurrer, and others
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Before the Coffee Gets Cold: A Toshikazu Kawaguchi Book Set
- By: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- Narrated by: Arina Ii, Kevin Shen
- Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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What would you do if you could travel back in time? Discover the internationally bestselling novels of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, now a worldwide phenomenon and BookTok sensation, in this special new book set. Step inside Tokyo’s whimsical Café Funiculi Funicula and travel back in time with a cast of unforgettable characters.
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very profound, lost in translation?
- By Ashlyn C. on 10-06-23
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Heaven
- A Novel
- By: Mieko Kawakami
- Narrated by: Scott Keiji Takeda
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Hailed as a bold foray into new literary territory, Kawakami’s novel is told in the voice of a 14-year-old student subjected to relentless torment for having a lazy eye. Instead of resisting, the boy chooses to suffer in complete resignation. The only person who understands what he is going through is a female classmate who suffers similar treatment at the hands of her tormenters.
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Great listen
- By Anthony on 07-30-21
By: Mieko Kawakami
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Almond
- A Novel
- By: Won-pyung Sohn
- Narrated by: Greg Chun
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Yunjae was born with a brain condition called alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends - the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that - but his devoted mother and grandmother aren’t fazed by his condition. Their little home above his mother’s used bookstore is decorated with colorful Post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say "thank you", and when to laugh. Yunjae grows up content, even happy, with his small family in this quiet, peaceful space.
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So many quotes to choose from...
- By Lori G. on 01-31-22
By: Won-pyung Sohn
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Mornings Without Mii
- By: Mayumi Inaba
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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On a cool summer evening in 1977, Mayumi Inaba hears a forlorn cry carried by the breeze of Tokyo’s Tamagawa River. She follows the sound to find a newborn kitten, just the size of her palm, dangling from a fence, abandoned. Overcome by tender affection, she takes the cat back to the small apartment she shares with her husband and christens her Mii, and so begins an ineffable bond.
By: Mayumi Inaba
What listeners say about If Cats Disappeared from the World
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- R. Daniels
- 10-25-20
A great story
What a lovely story of one man’s discovery of the true worth of life- quality vs quantity!!
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- Ann A
- 12-30-21
A Sad Tale
Getting bad health news can turn out to be good for everyone we have ever loved.
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- M Quesnel
- 02-06-23
Good Story
A lot of life lessons in one book. A good book to open the door to reflection.
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- Karen Sharkey
- 05-20-23
It dragged on in some spots but I enjoyed it
Loved the thought provoking story line. I love cats and the title captured my imagination. I enjoyed listening to this imaginative tale.
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- Jeremy Bush
- 04-11-25
great book
This book was recommended by the podcast Books, Cats, & Snacks. loved the book!
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- sandisue
- 03-11-21
it's a nice story but...
Some good parts and ideas but mostly basic in the writing and story details. A clumsy attempt at being profound that comes across more corny than anything else.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Dawn Childress
- 09-02-20
Very touching
If I was to read this book I wouldn’t have put it down just like I couldn’t stop listening to it through Audible the descriptions of the people &
the places and his memories were so vivid I can see it in my mind it was great I thoroughly enjoyed it
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- Jami
- 04-25-22
Unique Premise
I am finding that I tend to enjoy books by Japanese authors and this was no exception. This is a short book that drew me in with its unique premise. I also loved the author’s idea of the cat’s voice.
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- Bj Crookshank
- 03-07-24
We all wonder if our life makes a difference. Until death was imminent it was not a question.
The idea of gaining a day for removal of something from the world was uniquely presented. On day one it was a shock, but quickly was not his choice by day two. Cabbage helped him go full circle in his life so peace and tranquility would remain and he knew the value of his Dads quiet life and his own.
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- Erin Smith
- 05-12-23
It was ok
Good message and different. I hated using one credit for 4 hours though. Overall it good and at least it didn’t drag on
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