Open Books Challenge 2025: Books Set in Japan or by a Japanese Author

Updated December 22, 2024
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The travelling cat chronicles
Arikawa, Hiro
Paper Book
A book that "speak[s] volumes about our need for connection--human, feline or otherwise" (The San Francisco Chronicle), The Travelling Cat Chronicles is a life-affirming anthem to kindness and self-sacrifice that shows how the smallest things can provide the...
A single rose
Barbery, Muriel
Paper Book
From the best-selling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog comes a story about a woman's journey to discover the father she never knew and a love she never thought possible.   Rose has just turned forty when she gets a call from a lawyer asking her to come to Kyoto for the reading...
ShOogun :
Clavell, James
Paper Book
A bold English adventurer. An invincible Japanese warlord. A beautiful woman torn between two ways of life, two ways of love. All brought together in an extraordinary saga of a time and a place aflame with conflict, passion, ambition, lust, and the struggle for power...
The lost ryū
Cohen, Emi Watanabe
Paper Book
BEST OF THE YEAR: Chicago Public Library · Kids' Indie Next List A story of multigenerational pain, magic, and the lengths to which we'll go to protect the people we love. Kohei Fujiwara has never seen a big ryu&...
Beyond me
Donwerth-Chikamatsu, Annie
Paper Book
In the spirit of A Place to Belong, this remarkable novel-in-verse examines the aftershocks of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan in 2011 through the eyes of a young girl who learns that even the smallest kindness can make a difference. March 11, 2011 ...
Wotakoi love is hard for otaku. Volume 1
Fujita, Artur
Paper Book
A geeky girl whose life revolves around yaoi manga and a quiet gamer boy are old friends, but when they start working in the same office, they decide to date. It's a relationship of convenience at first, but could it become something more? This manga comedy is now a hit streaming anime!
Under the midnight sun
Higashino, Keigo
Paper Book
From the acclaimed international bestseller Keigo Higashino (The Devotion of Suspect X) comes a sweeping novel in the tradition of Les Miserables and Crime and Punishment. This is the compelling story of a brutal crime and the two teenagers--Ryo, the son of the murdered man,...
The heartbeat library
Imai Messina, Laura
Paper Book
The Heartbeat Library is a tender, contemplative, and uplifting novel about grief, friendship, and the many ways we heal, by the internationally bestselling author of The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World. On the peaceful Japanese island of Teshima...
Diary of a Tokyo teen : a Japanese-American girl travels to the land of trendy fashion, high-tech toilets and maid cafes
Inzer, Christine Mari
Paper Book
**2017 Creative Child Magazine Preferred Choice Award Winner** **2017 Moonbeam Children's Book Award Gold Medal Winner** A book for comic lovers and Japanophiles of all ages, Diary of a Tokyo Teen presents a unique look at modern-day Japan through a young...
Tokyo ever after
Jean, Emiko
Paper Book
Emiko Jean's New York Times bestseller and Reese Book Club Pick Tokyo Ever After is the "refreshing, spot-on" (Booklist, starred review) story of an ordinary Japanese American girl who discovers that her father is the Crown Prince of Japan! Izumi Tanaka...
Fifty words for rain : a novel
Lemmie, Asha
Paper Book
A Good Morning America Book Club Pick and New York Times Bestseller!   From debut author Asha Lemmie, "a lovely, heartrending story about love and loss, prejudice and pain, and the sometimes dangerous, always durable ties that link a family together." -...
Shuna's journey
Miyazaki, Hayao
Paper Book
A New York Times BestsellerWinner of the Eisner for Best U.S. Edition of International Material--Asia From legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki comes Shuna's Journey, a new manga classic about a prince on a quest for a golden grain that would...
The Full Moon Coffee Shop : a novel
Mochizuki, Mai
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Translated from the Japanese bestseller, a charming and magical novel that reminds us it's never too late to follow our stars. "Mochizuki dazzles in her beautifully crafted contemporary fantasy debut. . . . This gentle fantasy is not to be missed."--...
Mina's matchbox
Ogawa, Yo?ko
Paper Book
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE * A TIME BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * From the award-winning, psychologically astute author of The Memory Police, a hypnotic, introspective novel about an affluent Japanese family navigating buried secrets, and their young house guest...
What's left of me is yours : a novel
Scott, Stephanie
Paper Book
"Each chapter of this enrapturing novel is elegantly brief and charged with barely contained emotion." --New York Times Book Review A gripping debut set in modern-day Tokyo and inspired by a true crime, for readers of Everything I Never Told You and The Perfect Nanny...
The puzzle box : a novel
Trussoni, Danielle
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER . "A fun, DaVinci Code-style blend of puzzles, mysticism and high-octane action" (People, Best Books of the Month), from the author of The Puzzle Master "This rip-roaring adventure thriller is an escapist puzzle box of delights- a...
Butter : a novel of food and murder
Yuzuki, Asako
Paper Book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer, and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story There are two things that I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and...

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