Thirteen-year-old Nanami Kosaki loves reading and devours the titles available at her local library on visits there with her father.

She discovers that all her favourite books, classic novels in English and French literature, are disappearing. A mysterious man in a grey suit might have some answers.

But Nanami then meets a talking cat and he offers to help her find out what is going on.

As with the other Japanese novels I've read, there's magic and mystique as the characters embark on their quest, and there are lots of truisms and philosophical comments along the way.

It was rather a lovely read while urging us to think about the consequences of burning, or banning, books and the power of great literature.