What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorA Tale for the Time Being
Ruth Ozeki · 432 pages
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, she 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. Across the Pacific a novelist living on a remote island discovers artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchb
The Salaryman's Wife
Sujata Massey · 424 pages
Fear and Trembling
Amelie Nothomb · 138 pages
"According to ancient Japanese protocol, foreigners deigning to approach the emperor were to adopt a tone of fear and trembling. Terror and self-abasement conveyed respect. Amelie, our well-intentioned and eager young Western heroine in this new novel by Amelie Nothomb, goes to Japan to spend a year working at the Yumimoto Corporation. Returning to the land where she was born is the fulfillment of
The Teahouse Fire
Ellis Avery · 400 pages
The story of two women whose lives intersect in late nineteenth century Japan, The Teahouse Fire is also a portrait of one of the most fascinating places and times in all of history-Japan as it opens its doors to the West. Told through the enchanting and unforgettable voice of Aurelia, an American orphan adopted by proprietors of a tea ceremony school, this is "a magisterial novel that is equal pa
Flying the Dragon
Natalie Dias Lorenzi
When Skye's cousin Hiroshi and his family move to Virginia from Japan, the cultural differences lead to misunderstandings and both children are unhappy at the changes in their lives--will flying the dragon kite finally bring them together?
Tea with Milk
Allen Say · 32 pages
After growing up near San Francisco, a young Japanese woman returns with her parents to their native Japan, but she feels foreign and out of place. Historia de una chica japonesa educada en Estados Unidos, quien al regresar a su país tiene que superar obstáculos para poder adaptarse a su nuevo hogar.
After Dark
Haruki Murakami · 208 pages
A sleek, gripping novel of encounters set in Tokyo during the spooky hours between midnight and dawn, by an internationally renowned literary phenomenon.Murakami's trademark humor, psychological insight, and grasp of spirit and morality are here distilled with an extraordinary, harmonious mastery. Combining the pyrotechnical genius that made Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle intern
If You Follow Me
Malena Watrous · 356 pages
Hoping to outpace her grief in the wake of her father's suicide, Marina has come to the small, rural Japanese town of Shika to teach English for a year. But in Japan, as she soon discovers, you can never really throw away your past . . . or anything else, for that matter.If You Follow Me is at once a fish-out-of-water tale, a dark comedy of manners, and a strange kind of love story. Alive with vib
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee · 560 pages
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
The Language Inside
Holly Thompson · 521 pages
Raised in Japan, American-born tenth-grader Emma is disconcerted by a move to Massachusetts for her mother's breast cancer treatment, because half of Emma's heart remains with her friends recovering from the tsunami.
The Good Shufu: Finding Love, Self, and Home on the Far Side of the World
Tracy Slater · 323 pages
"In this memoir of travel and love, a fiercely independent American woman finds everything she ever wanted in the most unexpected place. Shufu. In Japanese it means "housewife," and it's the last thing Tracy Slater ever thought she'd call herself. A writer and academic, Tracy had carefully constructed a life she loved in her beloved hometown of Boston. But everything was upended when she fell head
Strange Weather in Tokyo
Hiromi Kawakami · 179 pages
"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
Horimiya, Vol. 1
Hero · 166 pages
At first glance, the ultra-popular Hori-san seems like a frivolous high school girl, but in reality, she's plain, pragmatic, and family-oriented. On the other hand, the bespectacled Miyamura-kun comes across as an average, gloomy high school fanboy, but he's actually an attractive young man who has a bad-boy streak and is covered in piercings and tattoos. When these two unexpectedly similar classm
The Restaurant of Love Regained
Ito Ogawa · 193 pages
Returning home from work, Rinko is shocked to find her flat is totally empty. Gone are her TV set, fridge, and above all, her boyfriend. She has no choice but to go back to her native village and her mother, on which she turned her back 10 years ago. There she decides to open a very special restaurant.
My Japanese Husband Thinks I'm Crazy: The Comic Book
Grace Buchele Mineta · 188 pages
The Yokota Officers Club
Sarah Bird · 367 pages
"Bernadette "Bernie" Root, military brat, speaks. She has never really noticed what a peculiar bunch of nomads her eight-member Air Force family is (with the exception of her Post Princess sister, Kit), until the summer after her first year of college when she joins them at their new assignment: Kadena Air Base, Okinawa.". "Just as Okinawa turns out to be a sorry version of the Japanese paradise