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Risa Wataya’s Charming Eccentrics
「嫌いなら呼ぶなよ」 綿矢りさ、 河出書房新社、2022 “Don’t Invite Me If You Dislike Me!” by Risa Wataya, Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2022 In an interview, Risa Wataya said that she did not set out…
Risa Wataya’s Charming Eccentrics
「嫌いなら呼ぶなよ」 綿矢りさ、 河出書房新社、2022 “Don’t Invite Me If You Dislike Me!” by Risa Wataya, Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2022 In an interview, Risa Wataya said that she did not set out…
本心
With「本心」, Keiichiro Hirano (平野 啓一郎) has written a big, old-fashioned novel of ideas. It is set in the 2040s in a Japan in which a tenuous daily life…
本心
With「本心」, Keiichiro Hirano (平野 啓一郎) has written a big, old-fashioned novel of ideas. It is set in the 2040s in a Japan in which a tenuous daily life…
No Ordinary Summer
I love reading; it’s my favorite thing to do. I know I’m not alone in this—luckily, there is a whole tribe of us out there, people who understand…
No Ordinary Summer
I love reading; it’s my favorite thing to do. I know I’m not alone in this—luckily, there is a whole tribe of us out there, people who understand…
Finding Tokyo’s soul in sento
「メゾン刻の湯」 小野美由紀, 2018 Maison Toki no Yu, by Miyuki Ono, 2018 In my quest for books set at sento or onsen, I ran across 「メゾン刻の湯」by Miyuki Ono. When Ono…
Finding Tokyo’s soul in sento
「メゾン刻の湯」 小野美由紀, 2018 Maison Toki no Yu, by Miyuki Ono, 2018 In my quest for books set at sento or onsen, I ran across 「メゾン刻の湯」by Miyuki Ono. When Ono…
Koenji Junjo Shotengai
高円寺純情商店街 ねじめ正一 Koenji Junjo Shopping Street by Shoichi Nejime This novel, first published in 1989, won the 101st Naoki Prize that year, and has proved so popular that the…
Koenji Junjo Shotengai
高円寺純情商店街 ねじめ正一 Koenji Junjo Shopping Street by Shoichi Nejime This novel, first published in 1989, won the 101st Naoki Prize that year, and has proved so popular that the…
The Mad City
「出会い系サイトで70人と実際に会ってその人に合いそうな本をすすめまくった1年間のこと」、花田菜々子 My Year of Meeting 70 People in Real Life via an Online Matching Site and Recommending the Perfect Book, by Nanako Hanada I read this book when…
The Mad City
「出会い系サイトで70人と実際に会ってその人に合いそうな本をすすめまくった1年間のこと」、花田菜々子 My Year of Meeting 70 People in Real Life via an Online Matching Site and Recommending the Perfect Book, by Nanako Hanada I read this book when…
Spinning while revolving
「自転しながら公転する」 山本文緒 Spinning while revolving, by Fumio Yamamoto [no English translation available] It takes real skill to write a novel that draws the reader (at least this reader) so…
Spinning while revolving
「自転しながら公転する」 山本文緒 Spinning while revolving, by Fumio Yamamoto [no English translation available] It takes real skill to write a novel that draws the reader (at least this reader) so…
Idol, Burned
『推し、燃ゆ』宇佐見りん Idol, Burned, by Rin Usami Rin Usami won the Akutagawa Prize for 『推し、燃ゆ』 (“Idol, Burned”) at the age of 21, as a second-year university student. In 2019,…
Idol, Burned
『推し、燃ゆ』宇佐見りん Idol, Burned, by Rin Usami Rin Usami won the Akutagawa Prize for 『推し、燃ゆ』 (“Idol, Burned”) at the age of 21, as a second-year university student. In 2019,…
Japanese Booksellers Award 2021
The end of the Christmas and New Years holidays don’t seem such a letdown because I have both the announcement of the Naoki and Akutagawa Awards and the…
Japanese Booksellers Award 2021
The end of the Christmas and New Years holidays don’t seem such a letdown because I have both the announcement of the Naoki and Akutagawa Awards and the…
Books & Sake
「高円寺古本酒場ものがたり」狩野俊 Story of Koenji Books & Sake, by Suguru Karino The “Story of Koenji Books & Sake” is Suguru Karino’s account of how he started a bookstore and…
Books & Sake
「高円寺古本酒場ものがたり」狩野俊 Story of Koenji Books & Sake, by Suguru Karino The “Story of Koenji Books & Sake” is Suguru Karino’s account of how he started a bookstore and…
Comfort Reading in Japanese
I was in the middle of reading 「熱源」, which won the most recent Naoki Prize, when the coronavirus began spreading, and suddenly reading a book in which the…
夏物語
夏物語、 川上 未映子、文藝春秋、 2019 Summer Story, Mieko Kawakami, Bungeishunju, 2019 [Since I first read this book, an English translation has been published by Europa Press as Breasts and…
本屋大賞2020 Japanese Booksellers Award 2020
The books nominated for the Booksellers Award were announced this week. Bookstore employees around Japan vote for the books they are most eager to recommend to customers. I…
Misumi Kubo imagines a sexless Japan
アカガミ、窪美澄、河出書房新社、2016 Akagami, by Misumi Kubo, Kawade Publishing, 2016 “Akagami” is Misumi Kubo’s vision of what would happen if the trends seen among Japan’s younger generation were to reach…
Tokyo Nipper
東京の子、藤井 太洋 、Kadokawa 2019 Tokyo Nipper, by Taiyo Fujii Novels set in the future and other science fiction are often used to express our deepest fears about human…
The Homeless Go Up in Flames
「野良ビトたちの燃え上がる肖像」木村友祐、 新潮社、2016 The Homeless Go Up in Flames, Yusuke Kimura, Shinchosha, 2016 I would say that this book is not for the faint of heart, except that maybe…
Misumi Kubo’s Trinity
トリニティ、窪美澄、新潮社、2019 (Trinity, by Misumi Kubo, published by Shinchosha in 2019) In an essay entitled「五十歳の私」 (“Myself at 50;” published in 2016), Misumi Kubo writes that she was surprised when…