Japan flag Romance books from Japan

Recommended romance books (11)
Travel the world without leaving your chair. If you are into romance here are some romance books from Japan for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.

1.

Go For It, Nakamura!! by Syundei EN

Rating: 3 (2 votes)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
Nakamura loves a boy in his class--now he just has to keep himself together! Nakamura is a shy boy who falls in love at first sight with another boy--his dreamy high school classmate Hirose. But there's a problem: they haven’t met yet. And Nakamura is a total klutz who might bungle things before they even begin! In this endearing Boy’s Love comedy about the trials of high school, follow Nakamura’s hilarious attempts to cling to happiness.



4.

Masks by Fumiko Enchi EN

Rating: 2 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
Published for the first time in the UK, one of Japan's greatest modern female writers Ibuki loves widow Yasuko who is young, charming and sparkling with intelligence as well as beauty. His friend, Mikamé, desires her too but that is not the difficulty. What troubles Ibuki is the curious bond that has grown between Yasuko and her mother-in-law, Mieko, a handsome, cultivated yet jealous woman in her fifties, who is manipulating the relationship between Yasuko and the two men who love her.

5.

Naomi by Junichiro Tanizaki EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
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

6.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro EN

Rating: 4 (10 votes)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
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

7.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami EN

Rating: 4 (20 votes)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.

8.

Pădurea norvegiană by Haruki Murakami RO

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
Romanul Pădurea norvegiană, care-și împrumută titlul de la un hit al formației Beatles, Norwegian Wood, are ca fond atmosfera social-politică agitată a anilor '60. Narațiunea opune acestui laitmotiv dur momente de o intimitate emoțională răscolitoare. Povestea lui Toru Watanabe urmăreste firul implicațiilor psihologice născute din dragostea imposibilă pentru iubita prietenului mort. Totul se petrece pe fundalul unor episoade marcate la tot pasul de scene erotice în camere sordide de cămin studențesc, de afișe și de discuri cu Jim Morrison, Miles Davis sau Bach, de lecturi d... continue

9.

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami EN

Rating: 4 (2 votes)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
Tsukiko is in her late thirties and living alone when one night she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, Sensei, in a bar. After this initial encounter, the pair continue to meet occasionally to share food and drink sake and come to develop a hesitant intimacy which tilts awkwardly into love.

10.

The Cat Proposed by Dento Hayane EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
Matoi Souta is an overworked office worker tired of his life. Then, on his way home from a long day of work one day, he decides to watch a traditional Japanese play. But something strange happens. He could have sworn he saw one of the actors has cat ears. It turns out that the man is actually a bakeneko -- a shapeshifting cat from Japanese folklore. And then, the cat speaks: "From now on, you will be my spouse."