Read Around Asia Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Asia.
Best books from Asia (1423)
731.
More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa EN
JapanDescription:
In this charming and emotionally resonant follow up to the internationally bestselling Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Satoshi Yagisawa paints a poignant and thoughtful portrait of life, love, and how much books and bookstores mean to the people who love them. Set again in the beloved Japanese bookshop and nearby coffee shop in the Jimbochi neighborhood of Toyko, More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop deepens the relationship between Takako, her uncle Satoru , and the people in their lives. A new cast of heartwarming regulars have appeared in the shop, including an old man who wears the same ragged... continue
732.
The House of Nire by Morio Kita EN
Description:
The House of Nire will come as a surprise to readers who expect a Japanese novel to be a mixture of gloom and sensitivity. This one is unashamedly comic, and its view of human life derives from a warm curiosity that accepts the world as it is and wastes no time complaining about it. Readers will feel themselves in the company of somebody who understands with intelligence, judges with generosity, and often, sometimes uproariously, laughs and enjoys. The book relates the history of the Nire family from the end of the First World War to the end of the Second. We meet Kiichiro Nire, founder not on... continue
733.
Ghosts by Morio Kita EN
Description:
A pattern on a carpet; a red cocktail cherry; hide-and-seek in the dark; gravestones; a waterfall; a silver butterfly; a sister's death; a botched drawing; the sound of a flute.... Ghosts is a novel about the quest for a lost childhood, of which only fragments like these remain. Memory is focused like a magnifying glass on these clues to one man's past. Small, commonplace things are thus enhanced, and even simple events--relaxing in a bath, or flying a kite, or being unable to whistle--take on the same kind of aura that more dramatic ones have. In trying to remember, the narrator lea... continue
734.
The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata EN
Description:
Whether this subtle and brooding novel deserves to rank alongside Snow Country and Thousand Cranes as one of Kawabata's major works is debatable, but it contains all the Nobel laureate's most striking characteristics - acute esthetic sensibility, preoccupation with the clash between old and new, pervasive melancholy and a story line suggestive of a Zen brush-and-ink painting where what is omitted is as important as what is included. Set in Kyoto, the Japanese city most symbolic of tradition, the story centers on a young woman, Chieko, who having been brought up to think her parents s... continue
735.
Record of a Night too Brief by Hiromi Kawakami EN
Description:
Akutagawa Prize-winning stories about unsettling loss and romance from one of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary writers—for fans of Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto In a dreamlike adventure, one woman travels through an apparently unending night with a porcelain girlfriend, mist-monsters and villainous monkeys; a sister mourns her invisible brother whom only she can still see, while the rest of her family welcome his would-be wife into their home; and an accident with a snake leads a shop girl to discover the snake-families everyone else seems to be concealing. Sensual, yearning, and fi... continue
736.
Parade: A Folktale by Hiromi Kawakami EN
Description:
"A parable about memory, mythic characters, and confessional regrets . . . An ethereal, resonating literary gift" (Booklist, starred review) from the internationally bestselling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo. "On a summer afternoon, Tsukiko and her former high school teacher have prepared and eaten somen noodles together. “Tell me a story from long ago,” Sensei says. “I wasn’t alive long ago,” Tsukiko says, “but should I tell you a story from when I was little?” “Please do,” Sensei replies, and so Tsukiko tells him that, when she was a child, she awakened one day to find something with a ... continue
737.
The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami EN
Description:
Over the course of his life, Mr Nishino falls hopelessly in love again and again. One woman is a colleague, another a chance encounter; one is the girlfriend of a classmate, another the best friend of Nishino's latest conquest. Some are entranced by Nishino, others care more for their freedom, their children (or their cats). As we come to learn of the torments, desires and delights of each woman, a portrait emerges of a complicated man whose great capacity for love may well be the cause of his downfall.
738.
Dragon Palace by Hiromi Kawakami EN
Description:
Hiromi Kawakamiis well known for her many novels and microfiction in translation, and Dragon Palace is her first story collection to be published in English. These eight stories are masterpieces of metamorphosis and transformation, infused with Kawakami's unique brand of humor and beauty. Moles, octopuses, and hippopotamuses interact with humans in a revelatory dance.
739.
Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki EN
Description:
Winner of the Akutagawa Prize A sharp, photo-realistic novella of memory and thwarted hope set in modern-day Tokyo—an “unflinching . . . powerful” showcase of the best in contemporary Japanese literature (Shelf Awareness) Divorced and cut off from his family, Taro lives alone in one of the few occupied apartments in his block, a block that is to be torn down as soon as the remaining tenants leave. Since the death of his father, Taro keeps to himself, but is soon drawn into an unusual relationship with the woman upstairs, Nishi, as she passes on the strange tale of the sky-blue house next door.... continue