エスプレッソラブ・「小説」・タカツ

http://espressolove.tk

Status: Undergoing Edits and Agent Queries

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks for reading! I wish I could head to every profile and leave a thank you note; you all mean so much to me. Hearing from readers that it had impacted their lives, left impressions on their hearts and inspired fascinating challenging dialogue or new revelations about the world is truly a blessing and honour. I hope the journey will speak to you and inspire you too.

Feel free to share, leave comments and vote on chapters to let me know where you're at with the read! :) See last pages for news, announcements, links, bonus content, multimedia, reader response section, next steps, etc.

The novel begins on the next part/section/chapter.

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[ Dystopian / Philosophical / Magical-Realism / Literary / Romance ]

In Tokyo, where the System siphons thought, emotions & memories, a literature student meets a clairvoyant girl and they embark on an escape from mindless agents, dream worlds and reality itself, in a soul-searching journey for love, for identity and what it means to be human. But all that remains is a peculiar coffee shop order.

The novel examines the human condition, the nature of perception, our socio-political system, capitalist and consumer culture, incorporating paranoiac conspiracy theories, surreal cosmic visions, circular symbolism and shifting parallel worlds, with profound discussions of coffee, art, literature and music.

"They say your order reveals the depths of your being."

Sometimes the small things in life, are the start to something bigger.

Sometimes it is all that's left, to remind us of who we are.

"System is Everything."

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"An interesting 'vapoury' style that seems to hover off world at times...haunting and strange (which is good)...sense of terror in the core here... You're on to something different, striking." - B.W. Powe, York University Professor of English, author of "A Tremendous Canada of Light", "A Climate Charged", "Outage", "The Unsaid Passing", and "Marshall McLuhan & Northrop Frye: Apocalypse & Alchemy"

"Offers acute, almost painful observations of the minutiae of life, if life took place in a Murakami snow-globe." - Review on IndieReader Insiders

"Struck me to the very core of my being..."

"Intellectually challenging..." - SaraWolfe

"Very interesting concept of reality... Thought provoking.." - hsavage

"Like a seven course meal full of spice and illumination... One does not listen to a classical piece to get to its ending. No. It is the ride, the moment by moment...a genuine Masamune among stories." - ghosty, Textnovel author

"I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me!" - Calicokidd

"The contextual familiarity of the story speaks profoundly to the modern-day reader. Espresso Love is the perfect combination of the old and the new, an analysis of the human condition in today's inhuman living conditions...the pacing is stellar. A tale of this kind requires a slow and steady take-off, before commencing aerial manoeuvres of any sort." - NeonNebulae, Wattpad author, poet

"This novel has definitely taught me alot about myself, and the world around me. That we are apart of something much greater than ourselves...I'm looking at life from a new perspective, a brighter one. Thank you, Takatsu, for this journey." - JaiCampbell9

"Espresso Love is highly intelligent and worthwhile reading...profound and multi-layered." - Tantra Bensko, published award-winning author, UCLA professor

"You write with a purpose... I can't even articulate how thrilled I am...like someone who hasn't had sex in a long time, and they do, and then they start crying." - etherealgirl232

"I am awestruck at the philosophical stance of your writing. Your writing is akin to that of Murakami in its surrealist execution." - ShaneOltingir

"The world Takatsu has created opens to the deeper awareness of another, the draw of another." - Mary  L Tabor, Wattpad and published author, essayist, professor

"You weave wonders with your words, Takatsu, and I have been turned to a whole new way of thinking because of you." - KlausAnwhistle

"It's not a regular thing to find a piece of work that oozes sophistication and embodies literature and art."  - LeftToFly

"It was both personable and philosophical. A rare breed of good story and thought provoking ideas... A virtual standing ovation would not be enough to incapsulate the absolute awe I have of you and love I have for your work." - WindAndFlame

"The deep connection to literature mingles with the abstract theories of time. Psychology meets the supernatural... Amazing work." - natsaninja, Wattpad author, Corner Booth

"The words seem like they're dancing across the page and magically coming alive. It is not simply reading - it is an unparalleled experience that engages the reader to the fullest extent!" - Joanna Tam

"Breathtaking in measure, Takatsu weaves themes of systematization with love and self discovery into such delicate balance that everything on a page cannot be digested without swooning over the beautiful diction and prose." - Junn Park, fabrication, Textnovel author

"I am envious of your ability to convey such rich concepts and evoke such clear images and feelings." - robertdallas

"Surprisingly bittersweet, like a good cup of coffee. It really makes you think and question the reality around us." - Mamie Wren, Textnovel author

stakatsu.com/elreviews for reviews by teachers, published authors and young readers alike.

Records: SCIENCE FICTION #1 / SPIRITUAL #3 / MYSTERY/THRILLER #10, Watty's Award Winner 2014, Featured on Wattpad, IndieReader and TV series @DIGonUSA

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REFERENCES/ALLUSIONS/INFLUENCES OF THE NOVEL:

- Blakeian imaginative consciousness, multiplicity and imagination; Dantesque Beatrician movement; Kafka paranoia vision; Psychologist Carl Jung's Collective Unconscious theories; Platonic Views on Love and the abstract ideal; Freud's Superego, Ego & Id; George Berkeley's subjective idealism; Hegel's Absolute Mind; etc.

- George Orwell's 1984; Franz Kafka's The Trial; Haruki Murakami's 1Q84, Kafka on the Shore, Wind Up Bird Chronicle; Aldous Huxley's Brave New World; Don DeLillo's Mao II, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland; Natsume Soseki's I Am A Cat; Banana Yoshimoto's The Lake; Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange; Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji; Kazuo Ishiguro's An Artist of the Floating World; T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"; Baudelaire's "L'homme et la Mer"; Ezra Pound's "In A Station of the Metro"; W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming"; Shakespeare; Pablo Neruda; Jack Kerouac; Hayao Miyazaki

- Karl Marx's Criticism of Capitalism, Lewis Mumford's The City in History, John Berger's Ways of Seeing

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MUSICAL REFERENCES/MENTIONS IN THE NOVEL:

Soundscape/Playlist available here >> http://tiny.cc/espmusic

Nirvana - "Turnaround", Simon & Garfunkel - "Sound of Silence", Lisa Ono - "Volare", Paganini - "Violin Concerto No. 4", Chopin - "Nocturne No. 1", Mendelssohn - "Hebrides Overture (Fingal's Cave)", Pablo de Sarasate - "Jota Aragonese (Op. 27)", Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Bohren & der Club of Gore - "Kleiner Finger" and various, Jason Mraz - "Freedom Song", Maroon 5 - "Sunday Morning", Bob Dylan - "Desolation Row", Van Morrison, John Mayer, SUM41, SCANDAL, ONE OK ROCK, Flumpool, Yuzu

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Join the revolution and grab Shizuka's signature Starbucks order! Send in your pictures and comments! >> http://tiny.cc/espdrink

RATE the novel on Goodreads!

Find it via http://goodreads.com/takatsu

LIKE THE FB PAGE!

http://facebook.com/espressolove

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Other Works by Takatsu

Harbinger's Child - Interstellar space opera sci-fi, philosophy and spiritual journey

Of Forests and Clocks and Dreams - Now published and available on retail networks, collection of literary stories, philosophy, poetry, artwork and more

Nights in TOKYO - A travel memoir full of sentiment and music

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I am also privileged to be part of a special test program Wattpad designed to help support authors so we can keep our work available for free here; so every now and then - it won't be too often - you may see an ad. If you'd kindly and briefly view it or press close/skip as it provides, and continue reading the story after, it would help me and all Wattpad authors a lot. Do let me know if there are any technical glitches. Sorry for the interruption and thanks!

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Copyright © 2013 - 2016 by TAKATSU

All rights reserved. This literary work or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, distributed or used in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations for non-commercial educational purposes with full credit and source information given.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are actual research, references, and accurate details intended to be used fictitiously and objectively. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.