Books from Japan
236 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.
111.
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
112.
Description:
'Kanae Minato is a brilliant storyteller' Emily St John Mandel, author of Station Eleven When a group of young girls are approached by a stranger, they cannot know that the encounter will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Hours later, Emily is dead. The surviving girls alone can identify the killer. But not one of them remembers his face... Driven mad by grief, the victim's mother demands the girls find the murderer or else atone for their crimes. If they do neither, she will have her revenge. She will make them pay... From the critically acclaimed author of Confessions, Penance is a dar... continue
113.
Penguin Highway by Tomihiko Morimi EN
Description:
I may only be in fourth grade, but I know more than most adults. I take notes every day and read all kinds of books, so I have a solid grasp on the world around me. But suddenly, there are penguins in my town! I know it has something to do with the lady at the dentist and her weird powers, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it...
114.
People from My Neighborhood : Stories by Hiromi Kawakami EN
Description:
Nominated for the 2021 Shirley Jackson Award From the author of the internationally bestselling Strange Weather in Tokyo, a collection of interlinking stories that masterfully blend the mundane and the mythical—"fairy tales in the best Brothers Grimm tradition: naïf, magical, and frequently veering into the macabre" (Financial Times). A bossy child who lives under a white cloth near a tree; a schoolgirl who keeps doll's brains in a desk drawer; an old man with two shadows, one docile and one rebellious; a diplomat no one has ever seen who goes fishing at an artificial lake no one has ever hear... continue
115.
Description:
"Mr. Murakami’s novels are filled with entertaining psychopaths." -- The New York Times A pulsating cult-favorite psycho-thriller, the basis of the major motion picture starring Christopher Abbott and Mia Wasikowska *One of Literary Hub's "Ten Works of Literary Horror You Should Read (Even if You Don't Think You Like Horror)"* Kawashima Masayuki is a successful graphic designer living in Tokyo with his loving wife, Yoko, and their baby girl. Outwardly, their lives are a picture of happiness and contentment, but every night while his wife sleeps Kawashima creeds from him bed and watches over th... continue
116.
Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami EN
Description:
Pinball, 1973 is a novel published in 1980 by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The second book in the "Trilogy of the Rat" series, it is preceded by Hear the Wind Sing and followed by A Wild Sheep Chase, and is the second novel written by Murakami.
117.
Postcards to Donald Evans by Takashi Hiraide EN
Description:
Art/Poetry Taksahi Hiriade is one of the leading poets of Japan's post-war generation, travelling extensively, including three months as a poet-in-residence at the University of Iowa International Writing Program. POSTCARDS TO DONALD EVANS chronicles Hiriade's travels through places as varied as Iowa, , to Seattle, Tokyo, and Amsterdam. He currently lives in Tokyo.
118.
Quicksand by Junichiro Tanizaki EN
Description:
Quicksand is a silkily nuanced novel of erotic gamesmanship and obsession. Sonoko Kakiuchi, an Osaka lady of a good family, married to a dully respected lawyer, tells a story of temptation and betrayal. Sonoko is infatuated with the beautiful art student and femme fatale Mitsuko, a woman so seductive and heartless she can even turn Sonoko's husband into her own accomplice. Filled with intrigue and treacherous romance, readers will be entranced by Tanizaki’s seminal novel. At once savagely funny and timorously exact in its portrayal of sexual enthrallment, Quicksand is “beautifully and mysterio... continue
119.
Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa EN
Description:
Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan's foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. "Rashomon" and "In a Bamboo Grove" inspired Kurosawa's magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as "The Nose", "O-Gin" and "Loyalty" paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later works such as "Death Register", "The Life of a Stupid Man" and "Spinning Gears", Akutagawa drew from his own... continue
120.
Real World by Natsuo Kirino EN
Description:
"In a crowded Tokyo suburb, four teenage girls indifferently wade their way through a hot, smoggy summer. When one of them, Toshi, discovers that her nextdoor neighbor has been brutally murdered, the girls suspect the killer is the neighbor's son. But when he flees, taking Toshi's bike and cell phone with him, the four girls get caught up in a tempest of dangers that rise from within them as well as from the world around them." -- Publisher's description.