100 Best Japanese Books of All Time (Updated for 2026)

1

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin

5.0

Japan's most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II.

In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wi

Recommended by Bernard Tan, Brian Koppelman, and Sung J. Woo.

Bernard Tan

I’m also a Murakami and Vonnegut fan, Kafka on the Shore, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, Slaughterhouse-Five, etc. Now that I look at the books listed, they seem to carry an existential theme. I guess I like to understand humanity and human behaviour ultimately to better understand myself. I find reading a means to connect with people who may have lived before my time, or in a distant country, that I may never have had the chance to connect with in real life. As three-dimensional humans, we are all made up of so many faces and emotional layers that we find it hard to dissect them all, and when we find writers who can explain these thought processes in a way that’s tangible and digestible, there’s this incredibly comforting eureka moment of feeling understood. [source]

Brian Koppelman

If you have always wanted to read this author, I think this Covid-19 period of time is perfect for it. He could have conceived of this whole thing. [source]

Sung J. Woo

He’s the best-known Japanese writer right now and this book I would consider to be his opus. It’s a big sprawling book that deals with weighty subjects like the Second World War and Japan’s part in that. There is a horrifying section set when the Japanese had occupied Manchuria and the Chinese are approaching and it’s told from the point of view of a soldier who is told to kill all the animals in the zoo as the Chinese close in. It’s a harrowing tale of this Japanese soldier going round the cages killing these magnificent animals. [source]

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2

Memoirs of a Geisha

Arthur Golden

5.0

A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel presents with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.

In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love

Recommended by Alice Little.

Alice Little

The author uses language that is very, very rich and colorful. … You can really immerse yourself into that world and kind of get a sense of what things were like, at that time. [source]

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3

Shōgun: The Epic Novel of Japan (Asian Saga, 1)

James Clavell

5.0

Alternate Cover for ISBN: 0440178002

A bold English adventurer. An invincible Japanese warlord. A beautiful woman torn between two ways of life. All brought together in an extraordinary saga aflame with passion, conflict, ambition, and the struggle for power.

Here is the world-famous novel of Japan that is the earliest book in James Clavell’s masterly Asian saga. Set in the year 1600, it tells the s

Recommended by Edward Norton, Ian Mortimer, and Tradeciety Rolf.

Edward Norton

I devoured this book. [source]

Ian Mortimer

Yes, I was 15, I think, when I read it. I couldn’t believe that no one had ever written other books like it. I remember going to my English master at school and saying “What else is like this? I want to read more books like this!” I can’t remember what he recommended, but I can remember picking them up and thinking they were nothing like Shogun. I was so entranced by the world of the 16th century he created that I’ve really had a fascination for it all my life. I never really enjoyed anything else that James Clavell wrote, but that book really stands tall. There’s so many clever ideas in there, like introducing Japanese lines so the reader flatters himself that he’s understanding a bit of Japanese as he goes through it. It’s a book that people can easily fall in love with. [source]

Tradeciety Rolf

The best fiction book I've read since "The player of games". Can't put it down :) https://t.co/goANBDBjY3 [source]

4

Kafka on the Shore

Haruki Murakami

4.9

Kafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most b

Recommended by Bernard Tan, Brian Koppelman, and John Craig.

Bernard Tan

I’m also a Murakami and Vonnegut fan, Kafka on the Shore, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, Slaughterhouse-Five, etc. Now that I look at the books listed, they seem to carry an existential theme. I guess I like to understand humanity and human behaviour ultimately to better understand myself. I find reading a means to connect with people who may have lived before my time, or in a distant country, that I may never have had the chance to connect with in real life. As three-dimensional humans, we are all made up of so many faces and emotional layers that we find it hard to dissect them all, and when we find writers who can explain these thought processes in a way that’s tangible and digestible, there’s this incredibly comforting eureka moment of feeling understood. [source]

Brian Koppelman

If you have always wanted to read this author, I think this Covid-19 period of time is perfect for it. He could have conceived of this whole thing. [source]

John Craig

The only book, or should I say author, that takes priority is Haruki Murakami. He is a Japanese novelist that takes me into the next world. His style is surreal. Check it out. Start with Kafka on the Shore. [source]

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5

Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin

4.8

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats

Recommended by Bernard Tan.

Bernard Tan

I’m also a Murakami and Vonnegut fan, Kafka on the Shore, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, Slaughterhouse-Five, etc. Now that I look at the books listed, they seem to carry an existential theme. I guess I like to understand humanity and human behaviour ultimately to better understand myself. I find reading a means to connect with people who may have lived before my time, or in a distant country, that I may never have had the chance to connect with in real life. As three-dimensional humans, we are all made up of so many faces and emotional layers that we find it hard to dissect them all, and when we find writers who can explain these thought processes in a way that’s tangible and digestible, there’s this incredibly comforting eureka moment of feeling understood. [source]

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6

1Q84 (1Q84 #1-3)

Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin, Philip Gabriel

4.7

The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He

Recommended by Adam Savage.

Adam Savage

Seriously, one of my favorite books of all time. [source]

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7

Pachinko

Min Jin Lee

4.7

In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision

Recommended by Emma Watson and Gail Kelly.

Gail Kelly

Former CEO/ Westpac

Member of the Group of 30, and former CEO of Westpac will be spending her summer months reading a memoir, a novel and historical non-fiction. Lab Girl—Hope Jahren Pachinko—Min Jin Lee The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics—Daniel James Brown [source]

8

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Haruki Murakami

4.6

'A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following. Tracking one man's

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9

Convenience Store Woman

Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori

4.6

The surprise hit of the summer and winner of Japan's prestigious Akutagawa Prize, Convenience Store Woman is the incomparable story of Keiko Furukura, a thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident who has been working at the Hiiromachi "Smile Mart" for the past eighteen years. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but in her convenience store, she is able to find peace and purpose w

Recommended by Candace Bushnell and Linda Flores.

Candace Bushnell

Love this book #ConvenienceStoreWoman. It’s also very funny. https://t.co/1On1xoprYH [source]

Linda Flores

Convenience Store Woman says something about how we articulate subjectivity when social norms impose limitations on our individual identity. [source]

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10

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel

4.6

A New York Times and Washington Post notable book, and one of the Financial Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Slate, Mother Jones, The Daily Beast, and BookPage's best books of the year

An instant #1 New York Times Bestseller, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is the remarkable story of a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences

Recommended by Brian Koppelman.

Brian Koppelman

If you have always wanted to read this author, I think this Covid-19 period of time is perfect for it. He could have conceived of this whole thing. [source]

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11

A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3)

Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum

4.6

His life was like a recurring nightmare: a train to nowhere. But an ordinary life has a way of taking an extraordinary turn. Add a girl whose ears are so exquisite that, when uncovered, they improve sex a thousand-fold, a runaway friend, a right-wing politico, an ovine-obsessed professor and a manic-depressive in a sheep outfit, implicate them in a hunt for a sheep, that may or may not be running

Recommended by Brian Koppelman.

Brian Koppelman

If you have always wanted to read this author, I think this Covid-19 period of time is perfect for it. He could have conceived of this whole thing. [source]

12

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

Marie Kondō

4.6

Preview Summary

Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles?

Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you'll never have to do it again. Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom

Recommended by Andra Zaharia, Annie Loves Covfefe, Benjamin Spall, and 3 others.

Andra Zaharia

I’ve gone through quite a few experiences brought on or shaped by what I’ve learned from books. … a more frivolous example is The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying. I read this one when moving apartments a few years ago and it made me throw or give away ⅓ of my stuff. The result: freeing up space, both physical and mental, and acquiring some home organizing skills that have stuck with me ever since. My home is tidier and my mind is clearer because of this book. [source]

Annie Loves Covfefe

@Benny29143790 @Thereal_ssteele Oh how I love Kondo cleaning. Her first book is fantastic too!! [source]

Benjamin Spall

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo … I started reading on vacation. I interviewed Marie for my own book and while the translation is somewhat quirky in places, her book is worth the hype. [source]

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13

Kokoro

Natsume Soseki, Meredith McKinney

4.5

No collection of Japanese literature is complete without Natsume Soseki's Kokoro, his most famous novel and the last he completed before his death in 1916. Published here in the first new translation in more than fifty years, Kokoro—meaning "heart"—is the story of a subtle and poignant friendship between two unnamed characters, a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls "Sensei". Haunted by

Recommended by Linda Flores.

Linda Flores

This novel articulates the sensibilities of the late Meiji era and the tensions of a modernising nation. [source]

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14

Kitchen

Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus

4.5

Banana Yoshimoto's novels have made her a sensation in Japan and all over the world, and Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, is an enchantingly original and deeply affecting book about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine of Kitchen, is

15

The Book of Five Rings

Miyamoto Musashi

4.5

Preview Summary

Written over three centuries ago by a Samurai warrior, the book has been hailed as a limitless source of psychological insight for businessmen-or anyone who relies on strategy and tactics for outwitting the competition.

Recommended by Steve Blank, Ryan Holiday, Bill Liao, and 2 others.

Ryan Holiday

Author

Widely held as a classic, this book is much more than a manifesto and manual on swordsmanship and martial arts. It’s about the mindset, the discipline, and the perception necessary to win in life or death situations. As a swordsman, Musashi fought mostly by himself, for himself. His wisdom, therefore, is mostly internal. He tells you how to out-think and out-move your enemies. He tells you how to fend for yourself and live by a code. And isn’t that precisely what so many of us need help with every day? [source]

Bill Liao

The human world occurs in language so best get good at it! [source]

Stephane Grand

I do not believe there are business and non-business books. Business is life, you do business like the man or woman you excavate from the person you are told you are. Hence, the most potent business books are not about business, in my opinion. What makes a great business book is that it is a book that helps you find a better version of yourself. Therefore, I would say that my favorite business book is Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings. It is an amazing inwards look at how to win battles. [source]

16

In Praise of Shadows

Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

4.5

An essay on aesthetics by the Japanese novelist, this book explores architecture, jade, food, and even toilets, combining an acute sense of the use of space in buildings. The book also includes descriptions of laquerware under candlelight, and women in the darkness of the house of pleasure.

Recommended by Jason Fried and Kyle Chayka.

Kyle Chayka

Tanizaki is mourning what has been paved over, which is the old Japanese aesthetic of darkness, of softness, of appreciating the imperfect—rather than the cold, glossy surfaces of industrialized modernity that the West had brought to Japan at that moment. For me, that’s really valuable, because it does preserve a different way of looking at the world. [source]

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17

A Tale for the Time Being

Ruth Ozeki

4.5

In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace—and will touch lives in a ways she can scarcely imagine.

Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a r

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18

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

David Mitchell

4.5

By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

In 2007, Time magazine named him one of the most influential novelists in the world. He has twice been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. The New York Times Book Review called him simply “a genius.” Now David Mitchell lends fresh credence to The Guardian’s claim that “each of his

Recommended by Caterina Fake.

19

Hiroshima

John Hersey

4.5

On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atom bomb ever dropped on a city. This book, John Hersey's journalistic masterpiece, tells what happened on that day. Told through the memories of survivors, this timeless, powerful and compassionate document has become a classic "that stirs the conscience of humanity" (The New York Times).

Almost four decades after the original publication of

Recommended by Alex Blumberg.

Alex Blumberg

I had always been interested in this kind of … long form narrative nonfiction. [source]

20

No Longer Human

Osamu Dazai

4.5

Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human, this leading postwar Japanese writer's second novel, tells the poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. In consequence, he feels himself "disqualified from being human" (a literal translation of the Japanese title).

Donald Keene, who tra

21

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

Laura Hillenbrand

4.5

Preview Summary

In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit. Telling an unforgettable story of a man's journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of

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22

Sputnik Sweetheart

Haruki Murakami

4.5

alternate cover can be found here

Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is glamorous and successful, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel.

Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever

23

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Haruki Murakami

4.5

An intimate look at writing, running, and the incredible way they intersect, from the incomparable, bestselling author Haruki Murakami.While simply training for New York City Marathon would be enough for most people, Haruki Murakami's decided to write about it as well. The result is a beautiful memoir about his intertwined obsessions with running and writing, full of vivid memories and insights, i

Recommended by Anant Jain and Brian Koppelman.

Anant Jain

On the non-business side of things, “What I Talk about When I Talk About Running” by Haruki Murakami is my recent favorite. I’m a long distance runner and I was extremely delighted to find out that one of the top fiction writers in the world draws a huge chunk of his inspiration from long distance running. In this book, Murakami beautifully connects running to writing, which are two skills close to me that I want to get better at. [source]

Brian Koppelman

The single best distillation of the kind of focus, commitment, and sense of mission it takes to become a great artist. [source]

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24

After Dark

Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin

4.5

A short, sleek novel of encounters set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami’s masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore.

At its center are two sisters—Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny’s toward people whose live

Recommended by Timothy Ferriss and Cliff Hartono.

Timothy Ferriss

Author & Entrepreneur

I bought this book at Kinokuniya bookstore in Shinjuku, Tokyo. It is as thick as a Harry Potter book, probably thicker, but the pages are as thin as onion skin. It’s a serious tome. I never expected to finish it, and I tore through it in less than two weeks. If you’re like me and enjoy a good Samurai story – the wandering ronin, epic battle scenes with lots of penetrating (wisdom), then you’ll love Eiji Yoshikawa’s Musashi. It’s sold more than 100 million copies in Japanese. Musashi’s transformation from talented yet conflicted young warrior to one of the greatest (perhaps the greatest) swordsman of all time teaches you about critical thinking, strategizing, and ultimately, that there is more to life than merely surviving. Musashi re-created himself from nothing and rose from destitution to legend. [source]

Cliff Hartono

My favourite non-business book is probably Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa. It is a fictionalized history of Musashi Miyamoto, who is known in Japan as its greatest swordsman and warrior. He is probably one of the most underappreciated people in history – after being undefeated in countless duels, he became an accomplished architect, painter, sculptor, writer and philosopher. A captivating book about an endlessly fascinating person. [source]

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33

The Woman in the Dunes

Kobo Abe

4.4

The Woman in the Dunes, by celebrated writer and thinker Kobo Abe, combines the essence of myth, suspense and the existential novel.

After missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit. But when he attempts to leave the next morning, he quickly discovers that the locals have other plans. Held

34

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Yukio Mishima, Ivan Morris, Donald Keene

4.4

In The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, celebrated Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima creates a haunting and vivid portrait of a young man’s obsession with idealized beauty and his destructive quest to possess it fully.

Mizoguchi, an ostracized stutterer, develops a childhood fascination with Kyoto’s famous Golden Temple. While an acolyte at the temple, he fixates on the structure’s aesthetic perfection

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35

The Elephant Vanishes

Haruki Murakami

4.4

In these stories, a man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald’s in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard. By turns haunting and hilarious, in The Elephant Vanishes Murakami crosses the border betwe

Recommended by Susan J Napier.

Susan J Napier

Murakami is writer who creates wonderful visions the stranger aspects of our mundane world. Some people call him a magical realist; Murakami has our normal world being invaded by, by strange things. [source]

36

The Pillow Book

Sei Shonagon

4.3

The classic portrayal of court life in tenth-century Japan

Written by the court gentlewoman Sei Shonagon, ostensibly for her own amusement, The Pillow Book offers a fascinating exploration of life among the nobility at the height of the Heian period, describing the exquisite pleasures of a confined world in which poetry, love, fashion, and whim dominated, while harsh reality was kept firmly at a d

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37

After the Quake

Haruki Murakami and Jay Rubi

4.3

The six stories in Haruki Murakami’s mesmerizing collection are set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, when Japan became brutally aware of the fragility of its daily existence. But the upheavals that afflict Murakami’s characters are even deeper and more mysterious, emanating from a place where the human meets the inhuman.

An electronics salesman who has been abruptly deserted b

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38

Out

Natsuo Kirino

4.3

Natsuo Kirino's novel tells a story of random violence in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works a night shift making boxed lunches brutally strangles her deadbeat husband and then seeks the help of her co-workers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime.

The ringleader of this cover-up, Masako Katori, emerges as the emotional heart of Out and as one of the shrewdest, most clear-

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39

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

Yukio Mishima

4.3

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea tells the tale of a band of savage thirteen-year-old boys who reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call "objectivity." When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship's officer, he and his friends idealize the man at first; but it is not long before they conclude t

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40

Strange Weather in Tokyo

Hiromi Kawakami

4.3

Tsukiko, thirty-eight, works in an office and lives alone. One night, she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, "Sensei" in a local bar. Tsukiko had only ever called him "Sensei" ("Teacher"). He is thirty years her senior, retired, and presumably a widower. Their relationship, traced by Kawakami’s gentle hints at the changing seasons, develops from a perfunctory acknowledgment of

41

I Am a Cat

Soseki Natsume, Aiko Ito, Graeme Wilson

4.3

I am a cat. As yet I have no name.

So begins one of the most original and unforgettable works in Japanese literature.

Richly allegorical and delightfully readable, I Am a Cat is the chronicle of an unloved, unwanted, wandering kitten who spends all his time observing human nature - from the dramas of businessmen and schoolteachers to the foibles of priests and potentates. From this unique perspectiv

42

Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

John W. Dower

4.3

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the 1999 National Book Award for Nonfiction, finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize and the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, Embracing Defeat is John W. Dower's brilliant examination of Japan in the immediate, shattering aftermath of World War II.

Drawing on a vast range of Japanese sources and illustrated with dozens of astonishing documentary photographs, Embracing Def

Recommended by John David Lewis.

John David Lewis

This is a key study in the effects on the Japanese of the defeat of Japan by the United States in World War II. It shows the actual effects of a ruthless military victory magnanimously enforced by the victor over a defeated nation, and the beneficial consequences that followed for millions of people. The fundamental reason for this success is the shift in the ideas held by the Japanese people. In all the five books I have chosen the role of ideas is essential to the workings of foreign policy and war. [source]

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43

The Makioka Sisters

Junichiro Tanizaki

4.3

In Osaka in the years immediately before World War II, four aristocratic women try to preserve a way of life that is vanishing. As told by Junichiro Tanizaki, the story of the Makioka sisters forms what is arguably the greatest Japanese novel of the twentieth century, a poignant yet unsparing portrait of a family–and an entire society–sliding into the abyss of modernity.

Tsuruko, the eldest sister,

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44

Geisha, a Life

Mineko Iwasaki

4.3

"No woman in the three-hundred-year history of the karyukai has ever come forward in public to tell her story. We have been constrained by unwritten rules not to do so, by the robes of tradition and by the sanctity of our exclusive calling...But I feel it is time to speak out."

Celebrated as the most successful geisha of her generation, Mineko Iwasaki was only five years old when she left her paren

45

The Tale of Genji

Murasaki Shikibu

4.3

An abridged edition of the world's first novel, in a translation that is "likely to be the definitive edition . . . for many years to come" (The Wall Street Journal)

The inspiration behind The Metropolitan Museum of Art's "The Tale of Genji A Japanese Classic Illuminated" -- Now through June 16 at The Met Fifth Avenue

A Penguin Classic

Written in the eleventh century, this exquisite portrait of cour

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46

Confessions of a Mask

Yukio Mishima

4.3

Confessions of a Mask tells the story of Kochan, an adolescent boy tormented by his burgeoning attraction to men: he wants to be “normal.” Kochan is meek-bodied and unable to participate in the more athletic activities of his classmates. He begins to notice his growing attraction to some of the boys in his class, particularly the pubescent body of his friend Omi. To hide his homosexuality, he cour

47

Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan

Jake Adelstein

4.3

A riveting true-life tale of newspaper noir and Japanese organized crime from an American investigative journalist.

Jake Adelstein is the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police Press Club, where for twelve years he covered the dark side of Japan: extortion, murder, human trafficking, fiscal corruption, and of course, the yakuza. But when his fin

Recommended by Ben Smith.

Ben Smith

The @jakeadelstein book on which this is based is one of the great guides to beat reporting https://t.co/Jet6ZKq7Ho [source]

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48

Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori, #1)

Lian Hearn

4.3

In his black-walled fortress at Inuyama, the warlord Iida Sadamu surveys his famous nightingale floor. Constructed with exquisite skill, it sings at the tread of each human foot. No assassin can cross it unheard.
The youth Takeo has been brought up in a remote mountain village among the Hidden, a reclusive and spiritual people who have taught him only the ways of peace. But unbeknownst to him, his

49

Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

Haruki Murakami

4.3

It was a clear spring day, Monday, March 20, 1995, when five members of the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo conducted chemical warfare on the Tokyo subway system using sarin, a poison gas twenty-six times as deadly as cyanide. The unthinkable had happened, a major urban transit system had become the target of a terrorist attack.

In an attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakami, internationally acclaimed

50

The Buddha in the Attic

Julie Otsuka

4.3

Julie Otsuka’s long-awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine is a tour de force of economy and precision, a novel that tells the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as “picture brides” nearly a century ago.

In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the picture brides’ extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exch

Recommended by Mohsin Hamid.

Mohsin Hamid

Julie Otsuka’s novel is an amazing first-person plural account of the mass migration of what were called Japanese ‘picture brides’ in the years leading up to, and during, World War II. [source]

51

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel, Jay Rubin

4.3

Collection of twenty-four stories that generously expresses Murakami’s mastery of the form. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit his ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and relentlessly entertaining. Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an iceman, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might w

52

The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro

4.2

An elegant Everyman's Library hardcover edition of the universally acclaimed novel—winner of the Booker Prize, a bestseller and a perpetually strong backlist title, and the basis for an award-winning film—with full-cloth binding, a silk ribbon marker, a chronology, and a new introduction by Salman Rushdie.

Here is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect butler, and o

Recommended by Jeff Bezos, Emma Watson, and Riz Khan.

Jeff Bezos

Founder/Amazon

If you read The Remains of the Day, which is one of my favorite books, you can't help but come away and think, I just spent 10 hours living an alternate life and I learned something about life and about regret. You can't do that in a blog post. [source]

Riz Khan

About missed chances and what the British character does to a person’s emotions. There is this brick wall that they can’t crack through and after a while a bit of the grout wears away. [source]

Cover unavailable

53

An Artist of the Floating World

Kazuo Ishiguro

4.2

In the face of the misery in his homeland, the artist Masuji Ono was unwilling to devote his art solely to the celebration of physical beauty. Instead, he put his work in the service of the imperialist movement that led Japan into World War II.

Now, as the mature Ono struggles through the aftermath of that war, his memories of his youth and of the “floating world”—the nocturnal world of pleasure,

54

A Geek in Japan: Discovering the Land of Manga, Anime, Zen, and the Tea Ceremony

Hector Garcia

4.2

For every fan of manga, anime, J-pop, or Zen, A Geek in Japan is a hip, smart and concise guide to the land that is their source.

Comprehensive and well informed, it covers a wide array of topics in short articles accompanied by sidebars and numerous photographs, providing a lively digest of the society and culture of Japan. Designed to appeal to the generations of Westerners who grew up on Pokemon

Recommended by Timothy Ferriss and Derek Sivers.

Derek Sivers

This is the book I've given most often as a gift because I’m fascinated with understanding the mindset of a place. [source]

55

Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories

Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Jay Rubin, Haruki Murakami

4.2

This collection features a brilliant new translation of the Japanese master's stories, from the source for the movie Rashōmon to his later, more autobiographical writings.

Ryūnosuke 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. ‘Rashōmon’ and ‘In a Bamboo Grove’ inspired Kur

56

Thousand Cranes

Yasunari Kawabata

4.2

An alternate cover of this ISBN can be found here.

Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata’s Thousand Cranes is a luminous story of desire, regret, and the almost sensual nostalgia that binds the living to the dead.

While attending a traditional tea ceremony in the aftermath of his parents’ deaths, Kikuji encounters his father’s former mistress, Mrs. Ota. At first Kikuji is appalled by her indelicate

Cover unavailable

57

The Sound of the Mountain

Yasunari Kawabata, Edward G. Seidensticker

4.2

An alternate cover of this ISBN can be found here.

Ogata Shingo is growing old, and his memory is failing him. At night he hears only the sound of death in the distant rumble from the mountain. The relationships which have previously defined his life - with his son, his wife, and his attractive daughter-in-law - are dissolving, and Shingo is caught between love and destruction. Lyrical and precise,

Recommended by Mona Simpson.

Mona Simpson

This is a book where the father does live with the family. I just love Kawabata. To me this is a beautiful book about middle age and old age. The thing I like so much about it is that each member of the family is going through a particular change or journey or revelation at the same time, and yet they’re not aware of each others’ struggles. They’re only glimpsingly aware and yet they live together in this home. It’s a beautiful evocation of how the family contains these separate missions. [source]

Cover unavailable

58

VIP: Liberdade que vicia

Ky Crossfire

4.2

59

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (Yuasa)

Matsuo Basho, Nobuyuki Yuasa

4.2

In later life Basho turned to Zen Buddhism, and the travel sketched in this volume relfect his attempts to cast off earthly attachments and reach out to spiritual fulfillment. The sketches are written in the "haibun" style--a linking of verse and prose. The title piece, in particular, reveals Basho striving to discover a vision of eternity in the transient world around him and his personal evocati

Kazuo Ishiguro

4.1

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, comes an unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human.

Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature,

Recommended by Lev Grossman.

Lev Grossman

It’s a difficult book to talk about because one almost doesn’t want to give away the premise, which drops on you like a ton of bricks around page eighty or so… It’s set at a very unusual boarding school where the students are being raised and educated for the absolute darkest of purposes, which they initially have no knowledge of or control over, and prove ultimately unable to escape from. [source]

Cover unavailable

78

A Man Called Ove

Fredrik Backman

4.1

A grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just beca

Recommended by Abid Zaidi.

Abid Zaidi

Day 6 : #30Days of posting cover of books I love (1 book a day for 30 days). No expectations, no reviews, just the covers. Inspired by @rekha_bhardwaj #MyFavouriteBooks https://t.co/rl0foOp6hK [source]

79

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture

Ruth Benedict

4.0

A recognized classic of cultural anthropology, this book explores the political, religious, and economic life of Japan from the seventh century through the mid-twentieth, as well as personal family life.

Cover unavailable

80

Killing Commendatore

Haruki Murakami

4.0

The epic new novel from the internationally acclaimed and best-selling author of 1Q84

In Killing Commendatore, a thirty-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it,

Cover unavailable

81

Confessions

Kanae Minato, Stephen Snyder

4.0

HER PUPILS KILLED HER DAUGHTER.
NOW, SHE WILL HAVE HER REVENGE.

After calling off her engagement in wake of a tragic revelation, Yuko Moriguchi had nothing to live for except her only child, four-year-old Manami. Now, following an accident on the grounds of the middle school where she teaches, Yuko has given up and tendered her resignation.

But first she has one last lecture to deliver. She tells a

Cover unavailable

82

My Year of Meats

Ruth Ozeki

4.0

In a single eye-opening year, two women, worlds apart, experience parallel awakenings. In New York, Jane Takagi-Little has landed a job producing Japanese docu-soap My American Wife! But as she researches the consumption of meat in the American home, she begins to realize that her ruthless search for a story is deeply compromising her morals. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, housewife Akiko Ueno diligently pr

Christian Galan and Florence Lerot-Calvo

4.0

Cover unavailable

97

Genki 1 2 , Learning Japanese for Beginners 4 Book Bundle Set , An Integrated Course in Elementary Workbook and Textbook With Original Sticky Notes

Eri Banno, Yoko Ikeda, et al.

4.0

Cover unavailable

98

The Decay of the Angel

Yukio Mishima

4.0

As the dramatic climax of The Sea of Fertility, 'The Decay of the Angel' brings together the dominant themes of the three previous novels- the meaning and decay of Japan's courtly tradition and samurai ideal; the essence and value of Buddhist philosophy and aesthetics; and, underlying all, Mishima's apocalyptic vision of the modern era, which saw the dissolution of the moral and cultural forces th

99

Death Note, Vol. 1: Boredom (Death Note, #1)

Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata

4.0

Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects - and he's bored out of his mind. But all that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami, a death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legen

100

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

Herbert P. Bix

4.0

Winner of the Pulitzer PrizeIn this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose sixty-three-year reign ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such clarity and vividness. Bix shows what it was like to be trained from bir