Favorite Book of the Year: A Dystopian Novel, in a Day of Water Scarcity, and Dictatorship at Large

Volume 9 / 2026: Memories of Water ☆ Tea (Teemestarin kirja / Memories of Water)

Writing: Emmi Itäranta

Translation: Vikanda Lynx Philosophy Timonen

Pine: Library House 292 pages / 350 baht

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"Only things that change will exist."

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But man can exist.

Because of hope.

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A novel that tells of a future world in which resources collapse to the extent that water becomes forbidden by the state. The book doesn't tell the action-excited movie, but uses stillness, calm, and surf to run the story.

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Noria, the young heir to the tea master, bears the mission of inheriting the science of tea that requires water as her main heart, along with the secrets of the natural fountain she possesses, in the eyes of the soldiers who are watching. Reading this book is like we're sipping hot tea while there's a sandstorm outside. It's still, but it's depressing.

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The more you read it, the more the book tells us that imperfections and changes are certain, the more Noria told me after the tea house was repaired,

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Imperfection, wear and change... all of them must be given equivalent values of perfection and permanence.

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It fits the rhythm of life that we want to simplify, not to break every crack in life, but to learn to live with it.

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And there's the secret that the author compares that it's like rock-eroding water. On the surface, there may be no ripple, but what can't be said is slowly biting and swirling inside us, changing the shape of our lives.

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But what makes us feel that the book ends beautifully (in the dark) is a verse that speaks of making the right decision even knowing that there is no reward. It reinforces that in a world where everything is falling apart, the difficult choices of the day are the only way to leave a trail of meaningful life. We do not do it for anyone or for the next life, but to keep ourselves human now.

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And more importantly, standing true and great is what will make the world perfect, not because of power and dictatorship.

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It's a writing that reflects environmental, social, and political issues well, but on the other hand, it's the philosophy of living in the midst of scarcity. It's another favorite book of the year.

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When we enter the water, the water is very close to us as if it were our skin, but if we hit the water too hard, the water will break us apart.

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Don't waste your time thinking of them, Noria. They don't think of us in the slightest.

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If the water doesn't belong to anyone, what rights do you have to hide the water for yourself while every family in the village has to build an illegal water weave to survive? Is there anything different between you and the military authorities of Qian New when you do the same thing to them?

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The best legend is the kind of story we would believe.

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Something with a crack will heal on its own. There is no reason to force that crack out again.

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He believes he can possess everything, reach everything with power, but there are still things that do not allow humans to be chained. Someday I will dance on his grave, Taro. If my body is no longer here, my soul will dance instead. It is free from my bone cage.

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We'll protect my imprint so I can still know that mark when I get back, if I come back.

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Imperfection, wear and change... all of them must be given equivalent values of perfection and permanence.

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The fountain that has dried up is because of the will of the water, which we should not go to resist.

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I believe that it is possible to change only the shell of things, but to retain the core, as well as to preserve the external surface and to hollow the core.

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We don't need to please the dead, Noria.

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Breaking promises is not trivial to bear. Pampering the dead is difficult, but not repenting is more difficult.

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Secrets erode us like water erodes rocks.

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All secrets erode us like water eroding rocks. On the surface there are no ripples, but everything we can't say to anyone erodes and consumes us. Then life slowly surrounds those secrets, searching for the shapes of those secrets.

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Secrets devour relationships between people. Sometimes we believe that secrets can also form relationships. If we pass through the space of silence that the other's secrets create, we will no longer be alone there.

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Time cannot be trusted, only a few weeks can influence the beginning of eternity, and it is easy to believe blindly that nothing needs change.

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As the boundaries of life become fragile and close, we realize the desire to live.

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Of all the elements, the waters change the most; the waters are not afraid of burning or disappearing in the sky; the waters do not hesitate to fall into rain upon sharp stones, nor upon the dark ground that covers them; the waters rise above the beginning and the end upon the surface, where nothing moves; but in the silence beneath the patriarch is deepened; the waters are swarmed, and make themselves a new channel with tenderness, until the stones surrender and gradually settle round about it.

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Death is the alliance of water. Both things cannot be separated from ourselves. Because we are made of the variation of water and the proximity of death. Water does not belong to us, but to water. When the water flows through the fingers of the fur and the body, we are no different from the earth.

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Once the secluded area around the secret cracks down once, it can no longer remain completely intact; the cracks are long and wide, stretching far and branching like a network of underground roots, until it is finally impossible to tell where the cracks started and whether they will end.

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I lifted the last cylinder of water from the ground, a little weight, causing the cylinder to sparkle gently at the cylinder of water at the mouth of the metal chest, speak well to it and speak ill of it, and may shout including weeping, but the water does not flow out according to the sorrow of man; it flows at its own speed, no more slowly and no more hastened than before, within the darkness of the ground; there only the rock will hear that sound.

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"Why do you believe that if you do what you think is right, you will be in the next life or the afterlife?"

"No," I said, "I believe that difficult choices are something we have to do every day, even knowing that there is no reward.

"Why not?" he repeated.

I believe that difficult choices are something we must make every day, even knowing that there is no reward...Because without anything else, hardship is the only way to leave a meaningful trail of life.

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If you don't believe in reward, if you know that power is lost, why are you still reaping power now and doing what you know is wrong?

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I've decided to keep breathing as long as I can. I may be here, but there will be others who will carry the story to some small part of the world because of them.

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I will not give up the privacy of my life, which may be the last thing I have.

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I don't know what you want to do...But I know what I myself have to do.

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The world is ash this morning, but hope is not empty.

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