Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
In here, you’ll find twelve Japanese mystery stories written by a host of award-winning crime writers, all loved and selected by the excellent Ellery Queen. Why Should I Read This Book? A sign of early genius by Japan’s most raw and brutal modern novelist. Main article: Nara period The Daibutsu-den, within the complex of Tōdai-ji. This Buddhist temple was sponsored by the Imperial Court during the Nara period. The stories in this collection are all unique and separate from one another; they show off the depth and breadth of Ito’s artistic and narrative talents to an astonishing degree. Japan has a deep history of folkloric terror. The ghosts and yokai of Japanese folklore are famed and beloved the world over, and much of that fame can be attributed to Hearn and this Japanese short story collection: In Ghostly Japan. Ellery Queen’s Japanese Mystery Stories
Japan: Key Facts and History - ThoughtCo Japan: Key Facts and History - ThoughtCo
Ellery Queen was both the pseudonym and main character of American mystery writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee. And here, the two have compiled and edited together their favourite Japanese mystery stories. Why Should I Read This Book? It is a beautifully written and introspective tale that gracefully explores healing power of nature, and the subtle ways in which animals can touch our lives. Why Should I Read This Book? Here is a unique examination of the art and aesthetics of Japan by one of its most beautiful writers. The Devotion of Suspect X is the most acclaimed of Keigo Higashino’s detective novels, selling more than 800,000 copies the year it was released. It’s a cerebral mystery novel, full of concise plotting and sleights of hand, that subverts the whodunnit form. Yasuko Hanaoka finds herself in a desperate situation when her ex-husband, Togashi, shows up at their apartment, resulting in a violent confrontation that leads to his death. Yasuko’s neighbor, the brilliant mathematician Ishigami, begins to devise a cover up. And there is only one man capable of untangling the mystery of what happened on that fateful day: Detective Galileo.
8. Shita-kiri suzume
There are few novels as politically and socially important as Convenience Store Woman. This novel made headlines the world over for being a unique take on the state of working life in Japan. It follows the life of a convenience store clerk who has worked the job for eighteen years and is perfectly happy with her lot in life. This is a book about expectations, corporate ladders, and social stresses. It’s a biting, sarcastic, venomous book written with passive aggression that makes it electric and addictive. A true modern classic. Kenzaburo Oe was another of Japan’s Nobel Prize winners, and his books are often intimate family affairs that touch on politics but mostly focus on the pain that comes with family. The Silent Cry is his most polished and rounded example of this theme, telling the story of two brothers in the 60s who return to their childhood village. One travels from Tokyo, and the other from the US. Both have new-found baggage and bring it with them to a home that is being changed by the tides of modernity. It’s a book about change, both personal and national; a brutal and harsh novel but a work of true mastery.
10 Classic Japanese Stories | tsunagu Japan
JO SELECTS offers helpful suggestions, and genuine recommendations for high-quality, authentic Japanese art & design. We know how difficult it is to search for Japanese artists, artisans and designers on the vast internet, so we came up with this lifestyle guide to highlight the most inspiring Japanese artworks, designs and products for your everyday needs.
7. Kachi-kachi yama
One tale tells of a woman who is given the transformative powers of witchcraft, and she turns them on her cheating, worthless husband. Izumi Suzuki was a very special writer and person. Her colourful career included acting, modelling, and writing. This collection, Terminal Boredom includes a selection of speculative science fiction stories written by Suzuki later in her life. The Pre-Ceramic era was followed by two better-recorded cultures, the Jōmon and the Yayoi. The former takes its name from a type of pottery found throughout the archipelago; its discoverer, the 19th-century American zoologist Edward S. Morse, called the pottery jōmon (“cord marks”) to describe the patterns pressed into the clay. A convincing theory dates the period during which Jōmon pottery was used from about 10,500 until about the 3rd century bce. Of the features common to Neolithic cultures throughout the world—progress from chipped tools to polished tools, the manufacture of pottery, the beginnings of agriculture and pasturage, the development of weaving, and the erection of monuments using massive stones—the first two are prominent features of the Jōmon period, but the remaining three did not appear until the succeeding Yayoi period. Pottery, for example, first appeared in northern Kyushu (the southernmost of the four main Japanese islands) about 10,500 bce, in an era that is called the Incipient Jōmon period. While continental influence is suspected, the fact that Kyushu pottery remains predate any Chinese findings strongly suggests that the impetus to develop pottery was local. Jōmon is thus best described as a Mesolithic culture, while Yayoi is fully Neolithic. That theme is, as I said, a man’s relationship to his mother. In Longing, our narrator dreams of his life as a boy, wandering an unfamiliar rural street at night and searching for his mother.
Christopher Harding Tells a “Japan Story” Through the Nation
Autobiographical and truthful to a fault, The Gossamers Years follows two decades in the life of its author, who goes by the nom de guerre Michitsuna no Haha (Michitsuna’s mother). Dissatisfied at occasionally playing second fiddle to her lordly husbands numerous wives and concubines – which was common for feudal aristocrats to have – the unnamed protagonist aims to subvert the marriage system of her day. The book’s feminist overtones are emotionally resonant in a way that few other works of millennia-old literature were ever achieved. Japan has had a complicated and bloody relationship with outsider religions, but it does have a small Christian and Catholic population. One of the most famous Catholics of Japan is Shusaku Endo, who wrote the novel Silence, inspired by real-world events and people. This novel had such a global impact that it was adapted into a celebrated film by Martin Scorsese. The novel features the famous Shimabara Rebellion, in which a group of Catholic peasants, in 1637, rose up against their lord after he laid down brutal anti-Christian laws in his region.While she was celebrated as a feminist in all aspects of her career, she really made her name as a writer, and these stories vividly show why that is. These are the best kinds of science fiction stories; ones which take real-world concerns and twist them into nightmare scenarios. Because they had an agricultural civilization, the population of the Yayoi began to grow rapidly and ultimately overwhelmed the Jōmon people, natives of the Japanese archipelago who were hunter-gatherers. [3]
Top 10 books about Japan | Books | The Guardian
Known as The Lonesome Bodybuilder in some places and Picnic in the Storm in others, this is a Japanese short story collection full of surrealism and feminist gusto. In 1221, the retired Emperor Go-Toba instigated what became known as the Jōkyū War, a rebellion against the shogunate, in an attempt to restore political power to the court. The rebellion was a failure and led to Go-Toba being exiled to Oki Island, along with two other emperors, the retired Emperor Tsuchimikado and Emperor Juntoku, who were exiled to Tosa Province and Sado Island respectively. [78] The shogunate further consolidated its political power relative to the Kyoto aristocracy. [79]
Select a format:
An oft-overlooked classic of Japanese literature, The Waiting Years tells the story of a diplomat’s wife, who has been tasked with travelling to Tokyo and selecting a new lover - from a lineup of geisha - for her own husband. This book explores the concept of responsibility, both political and familial. It is a heartbreaking tale that reeks of rigidity and the price we pay for what is expected of us.
Great Deal 
New Comment