my extensive collection of japanese literature can always become even more immaculate.

Satoshi Yagisawa

Eric Ozawa

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

New York

A Novel

The wise and charming international bestseller and hit Japanese movie about a young woman who loses everything but finds herself--a tale of new beginnings, romantic and family relationships, and the comfort that can be found in books. Translated By Eric Ozawa Twenty-five-year-old Takako has enjoyed a relatively easy existence--until the day her charming boyfriend Kashikoi, the man she expected to wed, casually announces he's been cheating on her and is marrying the other woman. Suddenly, Takako's life is in freefall. She loses her job, her friends, and her acquaintances, and spirals into a deep depression. In the depths of her despair, she receives a call from her distant uncle Ojisan. An unusual man who has always pursued something of an unconventional life, especially after his wife Momoko left him out of the blue five years earlier, Ojisan runs a second-hand bookshop in Jimbocho, Tokyo's famous book district. Takako once looked down upon Ojisan's life. Now, she reluctantly accepts his offer of the tiny room above the bookshop rent-free in exchange for helping out at the store. The move is temporary, until she can get her old life back. But in the months that follow, Takako surprises herself when she develops a passion for Japanese literature, becomes a regular at a local coffee shop where she befriends a graduate student, and eventually meets a young editor from a nearby publishing house who's going through his own messy breakup. But just as she begins to find joy again, Kashikoi reappears, forcing Takako to rely once again on her uncle, whose own life has begun to unravel. Together, these seeming opposites work to understand each other and themselves as they continue to share the wisdom they've gained in the bookshop.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

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Jun'Ichiro Tanizaki

Brought this book from my local bookstore. Planned to read it, clearly that didn’t happen.

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

District of Columbia

Junichirō Tanizaki's magisterial evocation of a proud Osaka family in decline during the years immediately before World War II is arguably the greatest Japanese novel of the twentieth century and a classic of international literature.

Tsuruko, the eldest sister of the once-wealthy Makioka family, clings obstinately to the prestige of her family name even as her husband prepares to move their household to Tokyo, where that name means nothing. Sachiko compromises valiantly to secure the future of her younger sisters. The shy, unmarried Yukiko is a hostage to her family's exacting standards, while the spirited Taeko rebels by flinging herself into scandalous romantic alliances and dreaming of studying fashion design in France. Filled with vignettes of a vanishing way of life, The Makioka Sisters is a poignant yet unsparing portrait of a family--and an entire society--sliding into the abyss of modernity. It possesses in abundance the keen social insight and unabashed sensuality that distinguish Tanizaki as a master novelist.

The Makioka Sisters

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Takuji Ichikawa

Terry Gallagher

Arkansas

When Takumi's wife suddenly returns from the grave, he can't believe his eyes. How could such a thing be possible? Is she here to stay? Has love miraculously triumphed over death? As Takumi starts looking for answers to these questions, he discovers the secret of his wife's appearance is somehow linked to the past...and the future.

Be with You

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Japanese Literature Lover

Osamu Tezuka

Washington

New Omnibus Edition

ARE YOU A BEAST? It may or may not be contagious. There seems to be no cure for it. Yet Monmow Disease, a life-threatening condition that transforms a person into a dog-like beast, is not the only villain in this shocking triumph of a medical thriller by manga-god Osamu Tezuka. Said to have been the personal favorite of the artist, who held a degree in medicine, and surprisingly attentive to Christian themes and imagery, Ode to Kirihito demolishes naive notions about human nature and health and likely preconceptions about the comics master himself. A promising young doctor, Kirihito Osanai visits a remote Japanese mountain village to investigate the source of the latest epidemiological mystery. While he ends up traveling the world to discover what it takes to be cured of such a disease, a conspiracy back home attempts to explain away his absence. From plutocratic Taipei and apartheid South Africa to backwater Syria and metropolitan Osaka, ambition and desire beckon “normal men” to behave uglier than any beast as we examine the true worth of human beings through and beyond appearances.

Ode to Kirihito

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Otsuichi

loundraw

Texas

Based on the critically acclaimed animated short film about three high schoolers' supernatural coming-of-age--and don't miss the light novel, also from Seven Seas! There's an urban legend that claims the ghost of a young woman will appear if you set off fireworks in a certain abandoned airport. Three high school students are united by their shared desire to meet this ghost--and each of them is close to death. What happens when they come together one fateful summer night as the boundary between life and death grows thin?

Summer Ghost: the Complete Manga Collection

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Manga Maniac

Chad Lutzke

Indiana

An elderly funeral worker, struggling with the loss of his wife, finds an unnatural attraction to a corpse at work resembling his bride in her younger years.A story of desperation, loneliness and letting go.

Stirring the Sheets

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Octavia E. Butler

Michigan

Octavia E. Butler's final novel is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly unhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: She is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted--and still wants--to destroy her and those she cares for, and how she can save herself.



"A master storyteller, Butler casts an unflinching eye on racism, sexism, poverty, and ignorance and lets the reader see the terror and beauty of human nature." --The Washington Post

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Shelves by Aoki’s 🌎 of Books

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Japanese Literature Lover

Manga Maniac

The Horrors Persist