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A Riot of Goldfish

A Riot of Goldfish
  • Author(s): Kanoko Okamoto
  • Location(s): Japan
  • Genre(s): Novella
  • Era(s): Earlier 20th Century

The son of lower-class goldfish sellers falls in love with the beautiful daughter of his rich patron. After he is sent away to study the science of goldfish breeding, with strict orders to return and make his patron’s fortune,...

A Thing of the Moment

A Thing of the Moment
  • Author(s): Bruno Noble
  • Location(s): Tokyo, London, Oxford
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1970s to 1990s

A novel written from the points of view of three women with the subject, besides telling the stories of how they grow up and meet, the nature of the self, or of identity. It takes its title from Straw...

Abroad in Japan

Abroad in Japan
  • Author(s): Chris Broad
  • Location(s): Japan
  • Genre(s): Travelogue, Autobiography/Memoirs
  • Era(s): Contemporary from 2012

When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan he wondered if he’d made a huge mistake. With no knowledge of the language and zero teaching experience, was he about to be the most quickly fired...

After Dark

After Dark
  • Author(s): Haruki Murakami
  • Location(s): Tokyo
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Modern

Eyes mark the shape of the city The midnight hour approaches in an almost-empty diner. Mari sips her coffee and reads a book, but soon her solitude is disturbed: a girl has been beaten up at the Alphaville hotel,...

All She Was Worth

All She Was Worth
  • Author(s): Miyuki Miyabe
  • Location(s): Japan
  • Genre(s): Crime, Fiction
  • Era(s): 1990s

Here is a deftly written thriller that is also a “deep and moody” (New York Times Book Review) journey through the dark side of Japan’s consumer-crazed society. Ordinary people plunge into insurmountable, personal debt and fall prey to dangerous...

All The Lovers In The Night

All The Lovers In The Night
  • Author(s): Mieko Kawakami
  • Location(s): Tokyo
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Contemporary

Fuyuko Irie is a freelance proofreader in her thirties. Living alone, and unable to form meaningful relationships, she has little contact with anyone other than Hijiri, someone she works with. When she sees her reflection, she’s confronted with a...

American Fuji

American Fuji
  • Author(s): Sara Backer
  • Location(s): Mount Fuji
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): early 2000s

Gaby Stanton, an American professor living in Japan, has lost her job teaching English at Shizuyama University. (No one will tell her exactly why.) Alex Thorn, an American psychologist, is mourning his son, a Shizuyama exchange student who was...

An Artist of the Floating World

An Artist of the Floating World
  • Author(s): Kazuo Ishiguro
  • Location(s): Japan
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Post WW2

It is 1948. Japan is rebuilding her cities after the calamity of World War Two, her people putting defeat behind them and looking to the future. The celebrated artist, Masuji Ono, fills his days attending to his garden, his...

Audrey Hepburn’s Neck

Audrey Hepburn’s Neck
  • Author(s): Alan Brown
  • Location(s): Japan
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): late 20th century

Offering a unique perspective and unusual insight into modern Japan and its wartime past, Audrey Hepburn’s Neck is also a shrewd study of cross-cultural obsessions, and of erotic, romantic and familial love. The American author Alan Brown crosses both...

Because Japan

Because Japan
  • Author(s): Ash Watson
  • Location(s): Japan
  • Genre(s): Travelogue
  • Era(s): Contemporary

Because Japan 日本ですから, is a truly unabashed account of the less publicised side of life in Tokyo for a ‘foreigner’. The book offers a witty, vivid and honest insight into the daily life of a British Expat over the course of...

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