For Japanese Culture Day, we are sharing titles that celebrate the country’s art, history, and culture. From titles about the history of Japan to classic and modern Japanese literature—ranging from women’s voices and historical, sociological, or religious perspectives—this collection provides an array of perspectives about Japanese culture.
After three decades in Japan, Pico Iyer knows the country like few others. In A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, he draws on his years of experience—his travels, conversations, readings, and reflections—to illuminate his adopted home like never before. This is a playful and profound guidebook full of surprising, brief, incisive glimpses into Japanese culture.
Japan’s internationally celebrated master storyteller returns with five stories of women on their way to healing that vividly portrays the blissful moments and everyday sorrows that surround us in everyday life.
As much a history of the cherry blossom in Japan as it is the story of one remarkable man, The Sakura Obsession follows the flower from its significance as a symbol of the imperial court, through the dark days of the Second World War, and up to the present-day worldwide fascination with this iconic blossom.
Set in 1970s Japan, this tender and poetic novel about a young, single mother struggling to find her place in the world is an early triumph by a modern Japanese master.
A major new collection of Japanese short stories, many appearing in English for the first time, with an introduction by Haruki MurakamiA Penguin Classic
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker · NPR · WBEZ’s Nerdette · The New York Public Library · Literary HubA New York Times Editors’ Choice“One of the most passionate cases I’ve ever read for female interiority, for women’s creative pulse and rich inner life.” ―Katy Waldman, The New Yorker“Always expect the unexpected when you’re not expecting.” ―Sloane CrosleyA woman in Tokyo avoids harassment at work by perpetuating, for nine months and beyond, the lie that she’s pregnant in this prizewinning, thrillingly subversive debut novel about the mother of all deceptions, for fans of Convenience Store Woman and Breasts and Eggs
A woman turns herself into a forest after long being co-opted to serve as the subject of her husband’s novels—this surrealist fable challenges traditional gender attitudes and exploitation in the literary world
Back with Caliber after more than a decade out of print, a revelatory and groundbreaking account of Imperial Japan’s kamikaze—the suicide pilots of World War II—as told through the eyes of survivors
Contributed by Alexa Hagerty, author of Still Life with Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains. In the wake of genocidal violence, anthropologist Alexa Hagerty works with forensic teams at mass grave sites and in labs, discovering how bones bear witness to crimes against humanity and how exhumation can bring families meaning after unimaginable loss. She
For Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which takes place on October 13th, we are sharing books by Indigenous authors and about Indigenous communities to honor their histories and cultures. Find a full collection of titles here.
