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

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Portraying himself as a failure, the protagonist of Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human narrates a seemingly normal life even while he feels himself incapable of understanding human beings. Oba Yozo's attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high...

From the international bestselling author of THE PHONE BOX AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD: a powerful, moving novel of grief, hope, friendship and love based around a real archive on an island in Japan, where people travel to record their heartbeats.

A Reese Witherspoon Book Club YA Pick! Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean is a hilarious and heartfelt novel perfect for fans of To All the Boys I've Loved Before and The Princess Diaries. Izumi Tanaka has lived an uneventful seventeen years in...

HUMANS ARE STARS IN THEIR OWN RIGHT, MIZUKI. EVERY ONE OF THEM. The NEXT big read for lovers of BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD set in a cat-run, astrology-themed Kyoto coffee shop TRANSLATED INTO 20 LANGUAGES #1 STRAITS TIMES BESTSELLER...

On sleepless nights, I open the matchbox and reread the story of the girl who gathered shooting stars. After the death of her father, twelve-year-old Tomoko is sent to live for a year with her uncle in the coastal town of Ashiya. It is a year which will change her life.

A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE DAILY MAIL AND WOMAN AND HOME A New York Times 'Editor's Pick' One of the Observer's Ten Best Debut Novelists of 2020 Shortlisted for the Author's Club First Novel Award Longlisted for the...

Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2020, a vivid work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman in Edo - now known as Tokyo - and a portrait of a great city on the brink of momentous change 'Compelling... Deeply absorbing'...

For fans of BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD, fairy tale and magic are weaved together in sparse language that belies a flooring emotional punch. 'Strange and beautiful. Imagine the offspring of THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE with THE VIRGIN SUICIDES' GUARDIAN

WINNER OF WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 THE NUMBER 2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK 'A full-fat, Michelin-starred treat' THE SUNDAY TIMES 'Unputdownable, breathtakingly original' ERIN KELLY 'I have been glued to Asako Yuzuki...