The latest addition to my website is Hiromi Kawakami‘s 三度目The (Third Love). As is usual with Kawakami, this book is about love and its many complications. Riko falls in love with the older Naa-Chan when she is two and, much later, they will marry. However, Naa-Chan has a series of relationships which naturally upsets her. When Mr. Takaoka, the former caretaker and her only friend at school reappears in her life, things change. She starts a life in her dreams, firstly as a geisha many hundred of years ago where she falls for Mr Takada, who seems to channel both MrTakaoka and the historical Prince Takaoka. She will later move further back in time, over a thousand years ago, where she is the maid-in-waiting to a princess who is married to man not unlike Naa-Chan. A character channelling Mr Takaoka/ Prince Takaoka also appears. She learns that love is complicated, both now and in the past and that the role of women and the relationship between the sexes have not got any easier.