Japanese Fiction Recommendations

[akissbeforebed]

If I enjoyed Tokyo Express, Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, what would you recommend I read next? I've recently got into Japanese fiction and will finish the Coffee trilogy (?). I enjoy thrillers but open to other genres too although not big on romances.

Yoko Ogawa - The Memory Police, Mina’s Matchbox
Natsuo Kirino - Out, Real World, Grotesque
Natsuko Imamura - The Woman in the Purple Skirt
Sosuke Natsukawa - The Cat who Saved Books
Riku Onda - Honeybees and Distant Thunder
Hisashi Kashiwai - The Kamogawa Food Detectives
Ryu Murakami - In the Miso Soup
Yukito Ayatsuji - The Decagon House Murders

Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa.

Butter Adako Yuzuki
second Out by Natsuo Kirino

What You Are Looking For Is In The Library by Michiko Aoyama

It's a series of interconnecting short stories, all linked by the community library and the mysterious yet wise librarian. I thought it was lovely.

Lots to go on my tbr list - thank you all 😊

Currently reading Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami. Not far along enough to know what I think but the translation is very good.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata is supposed to be very good, it's on my TBR. Picked it up off the back of liking the Before the Coffee Gets Cold!

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha is Korean but might scratch that itch. I liked it anyway.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa.

Seishi Yokomizo “The Honjin Murders” Agatha Christie type murder mystery

I enjoyed this book a lot.

If you liked this one, I think you'd like The Bookshop Woman by Nanako Canada. It's actually non-fiction and about a woman who manages a bookshop and meets up with strangers to recommend books to them.

It's really well translated. It doesn't feel clunky at all, unlike some work and it's genuinely interesting. Great for book lovers!

I’ve just read butter with my book club. None of us liked it (ten people) I’m afraid

Loved the Travelling Cat Chronicles!
Lonely Castle in the Mirror
The Housekeeper and the Professor
Scattered All Over the Earth

Convenience Store Woman is very good but I would not recommend it to someone in the same breath as Days at the Morisaki Bookshop or Before the Coffee Gets Cold. It is deeply weird in way that leaves you in a very odd headspace.

I also liked Butter, Life Ceremony, and Diary of Void, but those are all similarly incredibly odd and kind of disturbing, and in no way soothing like Before the Coffee.

Confessions by Kanae Minato is a really good thriller

Convenience Store Woman is very good but I would not recommend it to someone in the same breath as Days at the Morisaki Bookshop or Before the Coffee Gets Cold. It is deeply weird in way that leaves you in a very odd headspace.

I think Convenience Store Woman is far superior to Before the Coffee, and wouldn't describe it as weird at all, it's all very naturalistic and a convincing portrait of a character that struggles with social interactions. Earthings by the same author is deeply weird and disturbing though.

@akissbeforebed you might like the novels of Hiromi Kawakami and I agree with the recommendations above to read Yōko Ogawa's novels (start with The Housekeeper and the Professor). Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto is also good.

I'm currently reading Convenience Store Woman - I'm finding her grasp of the world really interesting, there's no apology for who she is.

I really enjoyed A Woman Of Pleasure by Kiyoko Murata.

I wouldn’t say it’s fair to say Before the Coffee is inferior per se - I don’t think it’s seeking to be anything other than soothing read suitable to enjoy with a coffee - but I do agree that Convenience Store Woman is trying (and succeeding) in doing something far more sophisticated. By weird, I meant that it very successfully conveys the worldview of a natural social recluse who has opinions and perceptions of the world that are perhaps 45 degrees off normal (for a given value of normal). I very much recommend it, but I’m trying to convey that it’s not a comfort read. (Although the passages describing the operation of the convenience store are incredibly satisfying).

Oh and I absolutely agree that earthlings was brilliant but the most disturbing thing I’ve read in a very long time

I see what you mean, and I do agree to a certain extent. But in Before the Coffee a female character makes a decision I don't think any woman would ever make in real life and I just thought 'male author writing unrealistic woman to create drama' so it annoyed me. Whereas I found the character in Convenience Store Woman far more realistic in her quirkiness and her self confidence in her difference a more uplifting story.

Seicho Matsumoto Pro Bono is great

also, Point Zero

and I loved beast in the shadows by edogawa rampo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Snow

I can highly recommend The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto -

I just finished The Kamogawa Food Detectives. An easy read. At first I was a bit perplexed by the simplicity of it but that's partly the charm. The way the food is described is lovely. It is one of those book that I keep thinking about.

Natsuo Kirino - Out
Ryū Murakami - In the Miso Soup
Haruki Murakami - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage; South of the Border, West of the Sun; Sputnik Sweetheart