Books from Japan
231 popular japanese books
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
The target of the Read Around The World Challenge is to read at least one book written by an author from each and every country in the world.
All books that are listed here as part of the "Read Around Asia Challenge" were written by authors from Japan.
Find a great book for the next part of your reading journey around the world from this book list. The following popular books have been recommended so far.
91.
Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami EN
Description:
A boy is obsessed with a woman who sells sandwiches. He goes to the supermarket almost every day, just so he can look at her face. She is beautiful to him, and he calls her "Ms Ice Sandwich", and endlessly draws her portrait
92.
Murakami T : The T-Shirts I Love by Haruki Murakami EN
Description:
The international literary icon opens his eclectic closet: Here are photographs of Murakami’s extensive and personal T-shirt collection, accompanied by essays that reveal a side of the writer rarely seen by the public. Many of Haruki Murakami's fans know about his massive vinyl record collection (10,000 albums!) and his obsession with running, but few have heard about a more intimate passion: his T-shirt collecting. In Murakami T, the famously reclusive novelist shows us his T-shirts—from concert shirts to never-worn whiskey-themed Ts, and from beloved bookstore swag to the shirt that inspired... continue
93.
My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura EN
Description:
What transforms a person into a killer? Can it be something as small as a suggestion? Turn this page, and you may forfeit your entire life. With My Annihilation, Fuminori Nakamura, master of literary noir, has constructed a puzzle box of a narrative in the form of a confessional diary that implicates its reader in a heinous crime. Delving relentlessly into the darkest corners of human consciousness, My Annihilation interrogates the unspeakable thoughts all humans share that can be monstrous when brought to life, revealing with disturbing honesty the psychological motives of a killer.
94.
My Neighbor Totoro: The Novel by Tsugiko Kubo EN
Description:
One of Studio Ghibli’s most beloved classics, Totoro celebrates its 25th anniversary! The beloved animation classic by legendary Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki, My Neighbor Totoro, is now a novel. This edition features original illustrations by Miyazaki himself, accompanying a story by veteran children’s author Tsugiko Kubo. Eleven-year-old Satsuki and her sassy little sister Mei have moved to the country to be closer to their ailing mother. Soon, in the woods behind their spooky old house, Satsuki and Mei discover a forest spirit named Totoro. When Mei goes missing, it’s up to Satsuki ... continue
95.
Description:
In N.P., Banana Yoshimoto's enchanting novel of uncanny subtlety, style, magic, and mystery, a celebrated Japanese writer has committed suicide, leaving behind a collection of stories written in English. But the book, itself titled N.P., may never be published in his native Japan: each translator who takes up the ninety-eighth story chooses death too-including Kazami Kano's boyfriend, Shoji. Haunted by Shoji's death, Kazami is inexorably drawn to three young people whose lives are intimately bound to the late writer and his work. Over the course of an astonishing summer, she will discover the ... continue
96.
Description:
A powerful story of passion and friendship, the nature of love and the taboos surrounding it. N.P. is the last collection of stories by a celebrated Japanese writer, written in English while she was living in Boston.
98.
Naomi by Junichiro Tanizaki EN
Description:
A hilarious story of one man’s obsession and a brilliant reckoning of a nation’s cultural confusion—from a master Japanese novelist. When twenty-eight-year-old Joji first lays eyes upon the teenage waitress Naomi, he is instantly smitten by her exotic, almost Western appearance. Determined to transform her into the perfect wife and to whisk her away from the seamy underbelly of post-World War I Tokyo, Joji adopts and ultimately marries Naomi, paying for English and music lessons that promise to mold her into his ideal companion. But as she grows older, Joji discovers that Naomi is far from the... continue
99.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro EN
Description:
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • From the acclaimed, bestselling author of The Remains of the Day comes “a Gothic tour de force" (The New York Times) with an extraordinary twist—a moving, suspenseful, beautifully atmospheric modern classic. As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time... continue
100.
Night on the Galactic Railroad & Other Stories from Ihatov by Kenji Miyazawa EN
Description:
Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) is one of Japan's most beloved writers and poets, known particularly for his sensitive and symbolist children's fiction. This volume collects stories which focus on Miyazawa's love of space and his use of the galaxy as a metaphor for the concepts of purity, self-sacrifice and faith which were near and dear to his heart. "The Nighthawk Star" follows an lowly bird as he struggles to transform himself into something greater, a constellation in the night sky; "Signal & Signal-less" depicts a pair of star-crossed train signals who dream of eloping to the moon; and "Night ... continue