Housekeeper and the professor book club

The book is about the relationship shared by the professor, the housekeeper, and her son. The characters in the housekeeper and the professor are nameless root is only a nickname. He is a brilliant math professor with a peculiar problemever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of shortterm memory. The housekeeper comes to the professors house for the. She is an astute young housekeeper, with a tenyearold son, who is hired to care for him. Koji fujiwara is professor of mathematics at tohoku university, japan.

I happened to check out a book club copy of this novel with eleven discussion. My apologies to those in my book club who were waiting for this summary. I wish i had a teacher who taught me to enjoy mathto see the oddities and the fun. The housekeeper and the professor was the last book i read with my book club this 20152016 school year. As root and the housekeeper grow and move forward in. And every morning, as the professor and the housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them.

Every morning the housekeeper, who narrates the story, has to introduce herself and her son to the professor all over again. In the housekeeper and the professor, yoko ogawa tells an intimate story about family, the nature of memory, and the poetry of mathematics. The housekeeper and the professor yoko ogawa, 2003 eng. On monday the book group got together to discuss the housekeeper and the professor by yoko ogawa. Of all the countless things my son and i learned from. The three of them create an unconventional family with their own rhythms and traditions. It was a good book to read between books and the ladies of my group agreed that it was like a breath of fresh air. The professor loves mathematics, especially numbers. And every morning, as the professor and the housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship. While this will be a shorter book club reflection, i feel thats appropriate with the shorter length book. The housekeeper and the professor brown girl reading.

The housekeeper and the professor is a charming and enjoyable novella about eponymous professor of mathematics who due to accident years earlier suffers from peculiar form of amnesia and while he remembers everything from the past his current memory lasts only eighty minutes, and as a reminder of this fact he has fitting note pinned to his suit. Though he cannot hold memories for long his brain is like a tape that begins to erase itself every eighty minutes, the professors mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. Reading group guide the housekeeper and the professor a. It was a good book to read between books and the ladies of my group agreed. With this being an intergenerational relationship novel about a brilliant math teacher plus the intriguing memory premise, it should have been a home run for me. Imagine you are writer, developing a character with only eighty minutes of shortterm memory. He lives in a dingy tworoom apartment, and his suit jacket is covered.