“Precious Bane

Oct 21, 2023 | nytimes.com | Gregory Cowles |Lorrie Moore |Mary Webb |“Precious Bane

Dear readers,Has a book ever brought you closer to another person, or come between you? That’s a question we routinely ask writers in our By the Book interviews, and it’s one that the Japanese novelist Banana Yoshimoto recently answered in a way near to my heart: “Books are very important and precious to me,” she said, “so I had a very difficult time as a child when people wouldn’t return the books they had borrowed.”Banana, I feel you.