The Housekeeper and the Professor: Summary and book reviews of The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa, plus links to an excerpt from The Housekeeper and the Professor and a biography of Yoko Ogawa.

BookBrowse Awards, 2009 One of BookBrowse's Top 4 Favorite Books of 2009. 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 him. 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. 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.

BookBrowse

Ogawa's fine prose and enchanting characters easily wind their way into your heart as their simple story unfolds to give voice to complex ideas about math, love, family and memory. The Housekeeper and the Professor will make you smile, and leave you pondering its meaning long after you have finished it.  (Reviewed by Diane La Rue).

Full Review (809 words).

Media Reviews

The New Yorker - Stephen Snyder Here, despite some touching scenes, the relationship never builds to any great revelations.   ShelfAwareness - Nick DiMartino It's all exquisitely touching and impossible to read dry-eyed, an utterly masterful depiction of friendship, a warm-hearted tribute to the unexpected ways that damaged people can change our lives.   Booklist - Donna Seaman [A] mysterious, suspenseful, and radiant fable.   Kirkus Reviews Ogawa's disarming exploration of an eccentric relationship reads like a fable, one that deftly balances whimsy with heartache. Simple story, well told.   Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Ogawa...weaves a poignant tale of beauty, heart and sorrow in her exquisite new novel.   Library Journal - Victor Or This novel evokes the joy of learning, and, with its somewhat eccentric yet lovable protagonists, is a pleasure to read. Highly recommended.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated of 5 by Hans
The Beauty of Nothingness
The book has high ambitions (explain the role of memory in love, or such) resting on odd plot devices (math professor with memory loss, uneducated housekeeper and 10 year-old son getting to love professor through their fascination with numbers...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Rebecca Cox
My favorite for 2010
I just finished my favorite book this year. Even though this book is short, only 180 pages, the prose is rich and sparse with nothing wasted. It took me longer than usual to read this book. I had to stop and savor what I had read, to digest it, to...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Lynn
A wonderful story
I loved this book for its spare and loving language deep with meaning. The 3 characters were so authentic and full of compassion. The story really moved at a great pace -- I never wanted to stop reading and finished it in 2 sittings. The...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Suzanne
A short book full of kindness and love
What a beautiful tale of devotion - love given and returned. The story shows how one who shares an absolute love of a subject with others, in this case the subject is math, in all of its elegance, can spread that enthusiasm and pull others into...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Donna
Wonderful Story
I picked this book up, and didn't stop reading until I was all done! It was a wonderful, gentle story with great characters. An unlikely relationship between a brilliant professor and his housekeeper and her son leads to a beautiful friendship. The...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Eva
Surprised by the book
I wasn't sure I would enjoy this book until I picked it up and then I couldn't put it down. The characters came alive and I was suddenly drawn in and didn't want to put the book down until the end. The math discussions were intriguing and were...   Read More

...1 More Reader Reviews

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