1:15 Tokyo Ueno station 2:08 The factory 2:43 Heaven 3:31 The woman in the purple skirt 4:40 What I talk about when I talk about running 5:19 An I- Novel 6:08 Shiver 7:09 Frankenstein 7:30 Lonely castle in the mirror 8:16 The wind up bird chronicle 9:39 The beast player, the beast warrior 10:27 The decagon house murders 11:22 The honjin murders 12:15 Breasts and eggs 13:32 Out 14:35 Convenience store woman 15:46 Black box 16:51 My brother's husband 18:06 My lesbian experience with loneliness 18:43 The memory police 19:23 The last children of Tokyo 20:22 An artist of the floating world 20:55 At the end of the matinee 22:01 Kitchen 23:07 Strange weather in Tokyo 24:15 Norwegian wood 25:00 The goddess chronicle 25:42 Kiki's delivery service
You have literally become my go to person when it comes to Japanese Literature, and your recommendations are interesting I recently read and enjoyed convenience store woman & I Loved it also i am currently reading Heaven & The Woman In The Purple Skirt, so big Thank You!
Tokyo ueno station The factory (hiroko oyamada) Heaven (mieko kawakami) The women in the purple skirt (natsuko) What I talk about when I talk about running (murakami) Am I-novel (minae mizumura) Manga - Shiver (junji ito) Frankenstein (junji ito) ---- Lonely castle in the mirror (mizuki tsujimura) The wind-up bird chronicles (murakami) Beast player / beast warrior (nahoko uehashi) The decagon house murders (yukito ) The honjin murders Breasts and eggs (mieko kawakami) Out (Kirino) Convenience store women (Sayaka Murata) Black box (shiori ito) Manga - My brothers husband (gengoroh tagame) My lesbian experience with loneliness Novels - The memory police (yoko ogawa) The last children of Tokyo (yoko tawada) An artist of the floating world (kazuo ishiguro) At the end of the matinee (keiichiro) Kitchen (banana yoshimoto) Strange weather in Tokyo (hiromi kawakami) Norwegian wood (murakami) The goddess chronicle (natsuo kirino) Kikis delivery service (eiko kadono) 😭😭😭
I've recently started reading again and found that I really, really, really love Japanese literature in particular! I'm so glad I was able to find your channel, i'm literally basing off my tbr on all your recs and my gf and I usually keep your videos on while we go about our daily life~ I'd really love to see you make a list of the best romance books in Japanese translation, since it's our favorite genre:>
I was just looking up all your past vids on japanese lit to add to my tbr last night and omg you posted a new vid that's exactly what I'm looking for!! What are the odds! LOVE YOUR VIDS AS ALWAYS😻😻
I always come back to this video when I'm in the mood to pick up some new Japanese literature, thank you for continuously making great content! Your channel is a gem :)
Hey! Just wanted to say that I found your channel a week back and have been on an absolute binge on your videos. I have been wanting to read translated works recently and other than Murakami and Keigo Higashino, my reading has been limited to Western and Indian books. So thanks a lot for so many recommendations!! Great video and hope you have a nice day!😁
Thank you soo mucb for this detailed recommendation. I started with japanese literature some time back and instantly fell in love with it. Was looking for more and more books . Really happy to find this channel !
I read Tokyo Ueno Station earlier this year and absolutely loved it. It'll probably end up as my favourite book of the year and I've been recommending it to everyone I know (even if they're not readers which means they'll probably never read it). Thanks so much for your book suggestions!
Thank you for your reviews! They've provided me with so many good reads! I'm currently reading "The Fall of Language in the Age of English", which overlapped with my reading "An I Novel" both by MIzumura. You've also opened my mind to the translated works from countries other than Japan. My life needed some new angles. Thanks! (btw "ms. Ice Sandwich" was so poignant - a great short, quick read when you just need a little somethin'-somethin'.)
I absolutely loved 1Q84 by Murakami… it reminds me of the song snowfall by one heart and reidenshi… it has such a nostalgia to it I dokt know what it is but I absolutely loved it
Now I know which video to use to refer any friends of mine to get a perfect comprehensive view on where to start in Japanese Literature, this is trurly an amazing video, perfect mix and variety. Thank you sooo much!!! I still need to read some of the ones mentioned, my tbr will never end! 😄 Some of my favorite Japanese authors for now are the 2 Murakamis, Kobo Abe, Akira Yoshimura, Natsume Soseki (always a special place for him as he was my intro into japanese lit.), Edogawa Ranpo, Akiyuki Nosaka, Naoki Urasawa, Mieko Kawakami, Yoko Ogawa, Sayaka Murata, Natsuo Kirino, and potentially also Hiromi Kawakami (still need to read more by her to confirm). I am also very behind on Juninchiro Tanizaki, Junji Ito, and Nahoko Uehashi, so would be able to assess once I read more by them.
@@WillowTalksBooks He has a unique style all his own, unlike any other Japanese writer. He is a master of unforgettable endings imo, and implements some near gothic senses into his generally classical Japanese literature approach. I have read Shipwrecks and On Parole, and recommend both! (Shipwrecks is a bit better as a starting point imo) I am Planning to read One Man's Justice by him next.
Thank you for these fantastic recommendations! ♥️ I dove into Japanese literature at the beginning of this month, starting with Tokyo Ueno Station, and have not been able to stop. I will be adding many of these to my TBR. 😊
Love learning about Japanese writers from you. Will have to watch this over and over, as well as checking out your article, as I explore these books. Very informative and compelling video. Kind of gasped when you said Kiki's Delivery Service as the Ghibli movie is one I shared with my niece years ago.
I can't believe I only just found your channel! I'm binge watching so many of your videos now. Loving all the recommendations (though maybe not great for the wallet lol)
ijust finished To the warm horizon because you recommended it and i love it so much. Currently reading Breast and eggs. Thank u for your videos, im constantly adding to my tbr because of you
I LOVED convenience store woman!! 😃 So good!! Other than that, my favourite Japanese writer so far is Yasunari Kawabata...! I find his writing so poetic... And at some point I would like to read something of Soseki (he is considered a great writer in Japan, I think, more than he is in the west) and the Tale of Genji! ❤️ I would recommend the book "In the praise of shadows" by Tanizaki! A non fiction short book about the Japanese aesthetic, a great read! 😊😊
First of all, I love your voice. I could hear it all day long! Second, thank you for all these recs! I’m participating in the ReadTheWorld21 challenge and need some books for January so thank you!!
great video, thank you so much for these detailed recs! it covered some old favourites of mine, but I also wrote down loads of new titles to check out ✨
Your channel is the best! I don't feel alone in my journey in reading japanese books. I've just finished all of Sayaka Murata's English translated books and am hungry for more! I also am enjoying "once and forever" a collection of short stories by Kenji Miyazawa which are so comforting and dreamlike. I really recommend them if you haven't read them yet!
Thank you for this video.. I am going to Japan in a month and i really wanted to make a deep dive on Japan literature.. lets see how many I can read from this list 😀
Shiver is my FAVOUTITEE junji ito collection! Junji ito is sucH a talented artist, i'm constantly blown away every time i turn the page 😪 'Fashion Model' was a fav, her face was so c r e e p y ._.
Definition of Content :- This video of yours ! Pure 24 carat Gold ❤️ ! Japanese literature is always been something that always carries a special place in our hearts ! Though did you missed "Earthlings by Murata" ? I was bit shocked u didn't mentioned it ! I never gonna forget that book 😁😅
LOVED this video and it was the perfect way to start my day 😁 I’ve read quite a few on here (thanks to you) - I recently finished Lonely Castle in the Mirror and thought it was fantastic. The atmosphere, the slightly surreal world, the social commentary - it’s one of my new fave reads! I adored The Memory Police and Out but still need to get to The Goddess Chronicle. One book which I couldn’t see on your list and which I would recommend (if you haven’t already read it) is The Miracles of the Namiya General Store by Keigo Higashino - I finished it 2 days ago and I am enchanted. Very poignant at times and that ending! Great stuff 🤗
i wish i was as articulate as you when convincing people to read books i love lol i have the enthusiasm but the execution 🥴 you convinced me to read convenience store woman and kiki’s delivery service btw!
Aw thank you! It has taken literal years of being a teacher and a writer to get to even this point, and there are a lot of people better at it than me!
Only recently discovered your channel and don’t always agree with your likes and dislikes but love the way you talk about books so much. Having Frankenstein and CSW as your favourite novels makes me trust everything you say though ngl 😂 Best books.
I've got a few videos on Chinese, Korean, and Argentinian authors as well, if you haven't already seen them! And looooads more on our main site, in case you're interested 💜
this is the first video of yours i've ever watched and i was already liking what you have to say a lo. then you said frankenstein is your fav book and i just clicked suscribe faster than i've ever done it
I hope you can get your hands on One Liter of Tears (Aya Kito's Diary). It's my all time favorite book. It's basically a diary of a girl with Spinocereberal degeneration disease. It's a book filled with emotions. It was also a bestseller in Japan.
@@WillowTalksBooks oh for sure I’m going to be checking out ALL your videos. It’s great. Haven’t come across any booktubers talking about SEA lit. Or even other translated works from other countries.
Happy New Year! Thank you very much for you video! I am Brazilian Japanese descedant. I not good in English but your talk I could understand! I was looking for a review from the book The book of Tokyo, and I was surprised by your video with many others reviews of Japanese books! Thank you! From now on I will follow your work! Conglats!!! You’ve also read a Brazilian book!?Thank you again for your great work!!! clau
Loved this video and subscribed to this channel!!! Just finished and loved memory police by yoko ogawa and am looking forward to reading more Japanese lit
Love this so much..have watched this video several times. I can never get enough recommendations for Japanese literature.❤ Its nice to see someone so in love with Convenience Store woman. Lots of people like the book, but I don't often hear people say it is a favorite . it is one of my all time favorites too!
About Ueno Station, it's the protagonist's son who was born on the same day as royalty (ie: the crown prince). Minor correction - doesn't diminish any element of the story. Thanks for recommending it. You've introduced me to many books I've enjoyed!
Interesting not to see very many classic Japanese authors on this list apart from the detective mentions. I wonder if you would recommend Oe, Kawabata or Yukio Mishima, or even Natsume Soseki or Lady Murasaki. Based on the books you've recommended here, I really trust your takes and would be really interested in seeing what you think about some of these older authors!
I’ve read some Oe, Kawabata, and Soseki, and I enjoy them all to one degree or another. I’ve done a dedicated video on Mishima. I have a review of a Tanizaki collection here somewhere. I also have a review of No Longer Human by Dazai. I just prefer modern Japanese fiction, especially by women, so that’s what I decided to talk about here in this specific video :)
I always love your book recommendations, they have changed my reading life! So thank you so much! I have a recommendation for you, I hope you really like this one, as much as I do. It’s called: Before the coffee gets cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot. Please read it!
I'm going to go broke trying to get all of these to read! Love seeing some manga enter your list! A manga recommendation that I think you would love is Boys Run the Riot. We have only recently got it in English, but it is about a Trans teen, and I think you would really appreciate not only the art, but the story being told. I cried reading it.
@@WillowTalksBooks Another fantastic one is I Think Our Son is Gay. It's the perspective of a mother as she is noticing her teenage son may be Gay, but he hasn't come out to her. The struggle is her husband isn't kind to members of the LGBT community, so it is her journey learning how to be a good wife and a good mother. It's beautiful also. If you ever want some manga recs, I would happily get you a list you may not have heard of.
Ooo awesome, I recently picked up the first two detective Kosuke books and I-Novel and A True Novel. Also thought Convenience Store Woman is criminally underrated. Thanks for the video!
@@WillowTalksBooks will do! I will be reading it (relatively) soon, because it was actually pretty hard to get a copy of here in Canada and was a bit expensive.
I read Hiromi Kawakami's The Nakano thrift shop and I really loved that one too. I will read some of her other books. Did I mention I really like Japanese literature ;-)
In the american version; "the last children of tokyo" is called "the emissary". this book still haunts me but i didn't find it that simple and don't think it's about environmentalism at all. It seemed much more existential, a criticism of the concept of identity itself, the happy sick vs the unhappy healthy, what one does with one's immortality when surrounded by apocalypse, generational isolation, japan's cultural isolation and nationalism in general. tawada is deceptively simple like juan rulfo or even kafka. she is a fast read but like a poem her deep literary work is done on the sentence level. If you haven't read "the naked eye" i highly recommend it.
i recently read the honjin murder, the inugami curse and out, now i am reading coin locker babies and i was looking for some books to read after thanks for the recommendations.
Totally dig that you put up a lot of feminist titles on here because I actually didn't know there was any at all. I assume there would be but I didn't know there was actual powerful titles. Highly interested to read some titles in your list. I'm a dude that wants more deep samurai tales like Musashi but lately I've been digging their romance novels because of how different it is compare to how it's like here in the states.
Just discovered this video. Thanks for all recommendations. I have added about 6 or 7 to my list. I am nowhere as well read as you in Japanese Litreature, but from what I read I think "The Makioka Sisters" by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki deserves a place. Maybe "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai also worth mentioning. Also loved your website, and subsrcribed.
Thanks for watching! I'm a big fan of the authors/novels you mentioned but I tried my best with this list to avoid the bigger names, classics, and male authors. My favourite Japanese authors are contemporary women so that's what I mostly focussed on :)
@@WillowTalksBooks Fair enough :). I am yet to explore your old videos/website. But, I would really love to read books about the transitional periods in Japan or that conflict you briefly touched on between old vs new Japan.
PLEASE read/watch D gray man. It is incredibly complex. And one of the very few stories that reads as a novel but also works as a manga. The art is ridiculously good. At 1st the plot may seem pretty straight forward but mid way through the development it is revealed everything up to that points not what it appeared to be. But the story, the moral religious human issue is quite the ride. I seriously know you will not regret it.
I really loved reading "snakes and earrings" by Hitomi Kanehara. Also have read her book Autofiction, but it is not that interesting as the first one. I read them in German translation, those two are her only ones that were published in German so far, but there is more of her stuff in English. In General she is at the moment still my favourite japanese author. I have read Haruki Murakamis "Kafka on the shore" and his short story collection "after the quake" and liked both. It's not my most favourite, but it is good. I have read "In the Miso Soup" by Ryu Murakami and really don't know if I should like it or not. Currently I read "Coin Locker Babys" by Ryu Murakami (really good one so far - this I have to read in English because there is no German translation), The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (this I read in English, because it's the original language, but at the beginning it seems somehow boring to me, hope it gets better) and The tale of Genji (a free ebook version with other old japanese stories as well - the style is not so well, maybe I should give another translation a try). I'm very into Gothic and I like to read books about abuse, japanese authors do abuse very well as I think. They are usually better than the German ones, even though there are some very good ones in German language as well, but not much in english Literature as far as I'm aware of it. Can you recommend me what best to read next? I also like Lefcadio Hearns books a lot and am a big fan of fairy tales in general, so I have a lot of them, but they are a bit confusing sometimes. They are very different from european folklore.
My favourite of these is for sure the „memory police“. Such a good good book. It has some flaws, but I didn‘t mind them. I‘m currently reading „Convenience Store Woman“ and I think it might not be for me, even though I can see the message behind it and I like the message, i find it a bit boring, but maybe the last 80 pages will turn my opinion around, who knows ;-). I still have an unread copy of the „Honjin Murders“ in my bookshelf, but I will read it soon - for sure. :-)
Sorry to hear Convenience Store Woman hasn't clicked with you but I'm glad to know another Memory Police fan! And I really hope you enjoy The Honjin Murders!
Mhm, yup, all modern stuff. Everyone knows the classics (I enjoy Kawabata, too; I've written articles on him) but my favourites are mostly modern Japanese women writers, so that was my focus.
Is there any reason why you don't mention any older books, like works from Kawabata or Mishima? You mention mostly contemporary writers. Every title you mentioned is indeed great, but some of the older masters are at such a high level. Have you read anything from Kobo Abe for example? I find Mishima, even though ideologically the opposite of me, as one of the great writers of the 20th century. Another great writer is Dazai.
I have an article on my website about Abe, and two about Kawabata. I have a video about Tanizaki on this channel and another about Dazai. Feel free to look around my channel and my website. I don’t cover Mishima because he was a fascist. And the main reason I didn’t cover any of these men here is because I generally read and promote books by women and queer writers. Men already get enough attention so I’m here to make sure readers who already lose their minds over Murakami and Mishima have also heard of Japan’s great (and better) women writers.
I've read 6 and own 3 unread books from this list. A lot of cool picks and plenty I want to read. Maybe except for the Murakamis I don't know lol My recs are Ango Sakaguchi's Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees (idk if there's a translation, if not, the film is also worth checking out), The Lake and Lizard by Banana, and Junji Ito's Cat Diary.
That's a very interesting list and as a manga reader I'm happy that manga were included. I'm not into horror or thriller but there are other people that are. I should get to read Tagame's book and I believe you should definitely include Our Dreams at Dusk, Nausicaa of the Valley of the wind (which I must also get into after all the praises and recs) and Land of the Lustrous for a touch of the bizarre and existentialism. I would be careful recommending Nagata's manga because I) the way her homosexuality is sorta tied with her dysfunctional relationship with her mother gives the wrong idea to straight cis people, II) I feel she found a way to success through self harm and that's gonna have terrible consequences for her in the future sooner or later (she's been already hospitalized for alcoholism) and happiness doesn't make for good sales unfortunately, if you understand my train of thought. I pray her psychotherapist will help redirect her need for approval and attention to a healthier path. I really want to try Uehara's writing since I've watched anime based on her books. I had no idea we had some translated in English. Similarly with Kiki's delivery service.
I have just recently read Our Dreams at Dusk. I'll be writing an article on it and possibly doing an accompanying video as well. I totally see where you're coming from with regards to Nagata and her relationship to her work. It's a very good point! I think the balance between her writing being relatable/informative and damaging/exploitative is a very interesting and difficult one.
hello, I am from southkorea I love japanese novels so always find to whats japanese novels translated in korea. I red a Loneky castle in the mirror at one years ago. I cried after done to read. so I wanna talk to the other peoples to "you must read. If you wanna get touching"
1. I mentioned at the start that I kept it to 30 for brevity, but that the full article is longer (and the full article includes Kawabata, Soseki, and Oe). 2. I also mentioned that the video only included contemporary writers from the past 30ish years because they're my personal favourites. 3. I also didn't mention Shikibu, Kobo Abe, or Tanizaki for the same reasons. 4. I don't discuss or promote Mishima in particular because he was a fascist.
