Name: The Housekeeper and the Professor
Rating: 4.179945054945055 (182 reviews)
ISBN: 9781444801767

Yōko Ogawa

He is a maths professor with a peculiar problem - ever since a head injury 17 years ago, he has lived with only 80 minutes of short-term memory. She is a housekeeper with a ten-year-old son, who is entrusted to take care of him. Each morning, as they are reintroduced to one another, a strange relationship blossoms between them.

The Housekeeper and the Professor

VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS - five masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions. Each morning, the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to one another. The Professor may not remember what he had for breakfast, but his mind is still alive with elegant mathematical equations from the past. He devises clever maths riddles - based on her shoe size or her birthday - and the numbers reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her ten-year-old son. With each new equation, the three lost souls forge an affection more mysterious than imaginary numbers, and a bond that runs deeper than memory.

Vintage Classics Japanese Series

martian1138

He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problem--ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory. She is an astute young Housekeeper--with a ten-year-old son--who is hired to care for the Professor. And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them. Though he cannot hold memories for long (his brain is like a tape that begins to erase itself every eighty minutes), the Professor's mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. And the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor is capable of discovering connections between the simplest of quantities--like the Housekeeper's shoe size--and the universe at large, drawing their lives ever closer and more profoundly together, even as his memory slips away. Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family.

A Novel

short and sweet read, great approach to math, docked a star for some things being left unexplained (for how straightforward the book and story are, wished some things were fleshed out more)

Ianna Chia

Maureen

“He had a special feeling for what he called the 'correct miscalculation,' for he believed that mistakes were often as revealing as the right answers."

***

Utterly wholesome. I fell in love with the book the moment I laid my eyes on its cover. I'm glad the story didn't disappoint! Also, it's been a while since a book made me cry 🥺 A slow-burn read, but it's what makes the relationships special. The premise is interesting and there weren't any plot holes. Reading through the various math problems was quite difficult since I hate math, but Ogawa did a great job of smoothly incorporating it into her story. 

This is one of those books that will touch your heart ♥️

first of all, i really loved how the maths were written. it makes one view mathematics from a different perspective. the applications of maths (what we are learning today) makes one really despise the subject, not knowing the basics and nature of maths or numbers themselves are fascinating. i swear, the professor is the best professor we'll never have. 

storywise, i love everyone. i adore their relationship dynamics so much. i always melt when the professor talks and teaches root, root's attachment to the professor, and how the professor had such an impact on both root and the housekeeper. It was just so soft and comforting.

my only problem is, i think, the balance between the story and the maths. though, i really love math, and i love reading about them, in this case, i feel like, the maths overlaps the story (or maybe it's just me, OR maybe that's really the author's purpose). i'm also not really a fan of the baseball reference. the mystery about the professor and the sister-in-law was also not  resolved. i'm also not sure if i like the ending. 

overall, it was a very good book. i adore and love it so much

first of all, i really loved how the maths were written. it makes one view mathematics from a different perspective. the applications of maths (what we are learning today) makes one really despise the subject, not knowing the basics and nature of maths or numbers themselves are fascinating. i swear, the professor is the best professor we'll never have. 

storywise, i love everyone. i adore their relationship dynamics so much. i always melt when the professor talks and teaches root, root's attachment to the professor, and how the professor had such an impact on both root and the housekeeper. It was just so soft and comforting.

my only problem is, i think, the balance between the story and the maths. though, i really love math, and i love reading about them, in this case, i feel like, the maths overlaps the story (or maybe it's just me, OR maybe that's really the author's purpose). i'm also not really a fan of the baseball reference. the mystery about the professor and the sister-in-law was also not  resolved. i'm also not sure if i like the ending. 

overall, it was a very good book. i adore and love it so much

lauren

amari

Ziggy

Cait🪼

absolutely heartwarming - I never thought I would feel so connected to numbers. This book proves why Yoko Ogawa is one of my favourite authors of all time

A gentle and light hearted read. Perfect for a weekend. 

Ali Angco

y✦

✦ 1-day read
✦ who knew such pretty words can come out of math?
✦ lacks depth but i didnt mind
✦ gentle, charming daytime read that will warm u up 🌸

erika s

Hannah Lee

3.75/5

if 50 first dates was about math and wholesome platonic familial love

A very sweet and beautiful story.I liked the hole atmosphere and the relationship between characters.the stories such as this shows us the beauty of life and humanity.

Shidehdeishidi

altlovesbooks

This was an adorably sweet story about a housekeeper tending the house for a mathematics professor who has memory issues. Every 90 minutes, he forgets everything and has to start again with remembering who people are and his own mental situation. The one constant he has is his love and knowledge of mathematics, and it is through this that the housekeeper and his son come to make lifelong friends with this unique individual. 

Because the professor uses mathematics to make sense of uncomfortable situations, there's a lot of mathematics discussion about amicable numbers, prime numbers, etc. But even if you don't know much math (or like much math, like me), you don't need to in order to enjoy this book. Baseball also comes up a lot, and while I know nothing about Japanese teams or players, I still felt right there with them when at the baseball game. 

I really enjoyed this sweet book that follows their friendship from meeting (over and over again) all throughout the Professor's life. Rather than end on a sad note, the book remains lighthearted, upbeat, hopeful throughout, which I really appreciated.

Faith Ho 

this is quite different from novels ive read recently, perhaps because the beauty is in the deceptive simplicity of it. it's founded on a simple premise: a mathematics professor whose memory resets every eighty minutes, his housekeeper, and her son. it's in the in-between that a heartwarming and bittersweet story develops. i love the writing and the restrained simplicity in it, which at the same time evokes a sense of wonder, especially in the reflections on, well, math (philosophical, in a very elegant way). ("zero [...] makes nonexistent exist.")

the story's strength draws on small moments of interaction: the professor's care for the son, the professor looking at the housekeeper cooking, the housekeeper trying out math problems. the world is small, limited to the three of them, and that contrast between the portrayal of that miniscule slice of the world and the reflection on the abstract universality of the universe through math is quite simply, beautiful. 

"i needed the sense that this invisible world was somehow propping up the visible one, that this one, true pine extended infinitely, without width or area, confidently piercing through the shadows." 

part of me wonders if id appreciate it more if i liked math more - but i think the wonder is in that it can inspire amazement in someone who hasn't seen that wonder before. i don't think the point is for me to love math now (i am still 100% going to cry over my differentiation problems) - but a glimpse into this field, math as taking a peek of "God's notebook". the beauty of something so abstract, and yet fundamental(ly "true"); something so integral, and yet invisible, in our world. 

"the mathematical order is beautiful precisely because it has no effect on the real world. [...] the only goal is to discover the truth."

The Housekeeper and the Professor

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