My favorite books about Japan

Discover the best books about Japan with this curated list of favorites. Explore Japanese culture, history, and fiction through these must-read titles for Japan enthusiasts.

The Makioka Sisters Cover
Book

The Makioka Sisters

by Junichiro Tanizaki

Four daughters of an old merchant family unknowingly face the end of a gentler way of life in Osaka, Japan in 1938.
Kokoro Cover
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Kokoro

by Bishop of Hippo Soseki

Haunted by tragic secrets, Sensei slowly opens up to his young disciple, confessing indiscretions from his own student days that have left him reeling with guilt.
Silence Cover
Book

Silence

by Shūsaku Endō

Translation, from the Japanese, of Chinmoku.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Cover
Book

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

 

No summary available.
Dance dance dance Cover
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Dance dance dance

 

No summary available.
Kitchen Cover
Book

Kitchen

by Banana Yoshimoto

Relates the experiences of two free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan.
Out Cover
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Out

by Natsuo Kirino

ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • Winner of Japan's Grand Prix for Crime Fiction • Edgar Award Finalist • Nothing in Japanese literature prepares us for the stark, tension-filled, plot-driven realism of Natsuo Kirino’s award-winning literary mystery Out. This mesmerizing novel tells the story of a brutal murder in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works the night shift making boxed lunches strangles her abusive husband and then seeks the help of her coworkers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime. The coolly intelligent Masako emerges as the plot’s ringleader, but quickly discovers that this killing is merely the beginning, as it leads to a terrifying foray into the violent underbelly of Japanese society. At once a masterpiece of literary suspense and pitch-black comedy of gender warfare, Out is also a moving evocation of the pressures and prejudices that drive women to extreme deeds, and the friendships that bolster them in the aftermath.
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Embracing Defeat Cover
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Embracing Defeat

 

No summary available.
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