Read Around Asia Challenge

Read at least one book by an author from each country in Asia.

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Best books from Asia (1412)
621.

Territory of Light : A Novel by Yuko Tsushima EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
From one of the most significant contemporary Japanese writers, a haunting, dazzling novel of loss and rebirth “Yuko Tsushima is one of the most important Japanese writers of her generation.” —Foumiko Kometani, The New York Times I was puzzled by how I had changed. But I could no longer go back . . . It is spring. A young woman, left by her husband, starts a new life in a Tokyo apartment. Territory of Light follows her over the course of a year, as she struggles to bring up her two-year-old daughter alone. Her new home is filled with light streaming through the windows, so bright she has to sq... continue

622.

The Setting Sun by 太宰治 EN

Rating: 5 (3 votes)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
Novel of present day Japan. Reaction of an upper-class family to the war and the resultant cultural impact.

623.

The Liminal Zone by Junji Ito EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
Three-time Eisner Award winner Junji Ito presents brand-new nightmares! What destiny awaits them after the screaming? After abruptly departing from a train in a small town, a couple encounters a “weeping woman”—a professional mourner—sobbing inconsolably at a funeral. Mako changes afterward—she can’t stop crying! In another tale, having decided to die together, a couple enters Aokigahara, the infamous suicide forest. What is the shocking torrent they discover there? One of horror’s greatest talents, Junji Ito beckons readers to join him in an experience of ultimate terror with four new stories... continue

624.

Venus in the Blind Spot by Junji Ito EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
A “best of” collection of creepy tales from Eisner award winner and legendary horror master Junji Ito. This striking collection presents the most remarkable short works of Junji Ito’s career, featuring an adaptation of Rampo Edogawa’s classic horror story “Human Chair” and fan favorite “The Enigma of Amigara Fault.” With a deluxe presentation—including special color pages, and showcasing illustrations from his acclaimed long-form manga No Longer Human—each chilling tale invites readers to revel in a world of terror.

625.

An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
A Japanese artist looks back on his life in this celebrated and prize-winning novel.
Genre

626.

A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe EN

Rating: 3 (2 votes)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
First pub. 1964. Author's most dramatic work, won him the prestigious Shincho Literary Prize. In the novel the narrator tells how he responds to the birth and problems posed by his handicapped child. Recipient of the 1994 Nobel prize.

627.

Night on the Galactic Railroad & Other Stories from Ihatov by Kenji Miyazawa EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
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

628.

The Ginza Ghost by Keikichi Ōsaka EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
The Japanese form of Golden Age detective fiction was re-launched in the early 1980s as shin honkaku by Soji Shimada and Yukito Ayatsuji, but the original honkaku dates from the 1930s and one of its pioneers was Keikichi Osaka. The Ginza Ghost is a collection of twelve of his best stories, almost all impossible crimes. Although the solutions are strictly fair-play, there is an unreal, almost hallucinatory quality to them. Osaka, who died tragically young, was an early pioneer and master of the genre, whose work is only now starting to be re-discovered. Readers of LRI's The Decagon house Murder... continue

629.

Botchan by Soseki Natsume EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
Publisher description: The setting is Japan's deep south, where the author himself spent some time teaching English in a boys' school. Into this conservative world, with its social proprieties and established pecking order, breezes Botchan, down from the big city, with scant respect for either his elders or his noisy young charges; and the result is a chain of collisions large and small.

630.

The Poems of Nakahara Chūya by Chuya Nakahara EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Japan flag Japan
Description:
Acclaimed English translation of poems by one of the most gifted and colourful of Japan's early modern poets: Nakahara Chuya. Now ranked among the finest Japanese verse of the 20th century, influenced by both Symbolism and Dada, he created lyrics renowned for their songlike eloquence, their personal imagery and their poignant charm.