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

Share

The untold story of how Japan became a cultural superpower through the fantastic inventions that captured--and transformed--the world's imagination.   "A masterful book driven by deep research, new insights, and powerful storytelling."--W. David Marx, author of ...

A life-affirming anthem to kindness and self-sacrifice, The Travelling Cat Chronicles shows how the smallest things can provide the greatest joy. We take journeys to explore exotic new places and to return to the comforts of home, to visit old acquaintances and to make new...

A classic Japanese murder mystery inspired by the golden age of British crimewriting.

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...

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&...

Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being. 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...

Haruki Murakami's stories in graphic novel form for the first time! Haruki Murakami's novels, essays and short stories have sold millions of copies worldwide and been translated into dozens of languages. Now for the first time, many of Murakami's best-loved short stories are...

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,...

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...

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, the prince of a poor land, watches in despair as his people work themselves to death harvesting the little grain that grows there. And so, when a traveler presents him with a sample of seeds from a mysterious western land, he sets out to find the source of the golden grain, dreaming of a...

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."--...

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE* An unfulfilled college student hurtles through four parallel realities to explore the what-might've-been and the what-should-never-be in this Groundhog Day meets The Midnight Library-esque novel from one of Japan's most popular authors. ...

From the award-winning author of Flygirl comes this powerful WWII romance between two Japanese teens caught in the cogs of an unwinnable war, perfect for fans of Salt to the Sea, Lovely War, and Code Name Verity. Japan 1945. Taro is a talented...

*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography* *Winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award* *Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography* A vivid, deeply researched work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman...

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...