Books Set in Japan
Books Set in Japan
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Books have an extraordinary power to transport us. Through their pages, we can cross oceans, wander through bustling cities, and experience the beauty of distant places—all from the comfort of our own homes. Few places capture readers’ imaginations as vividly as Japan. With its stunning landscapes, rich traditions, and vibrant culture, Japan provides the perfect setting for stories that linger in our hearts long after we turn the final page.
A Journey Through Japan’s Many Layers
When you read books set in Japan, you are not just reading words—you are stepping into a land of tradition, history, and natural beauty. Japan offers a unique mix of serene temples, neon-lit cityscapes, and breathtaking countryside. You can wander through the cherry blossom-lined streets of Kyoto, explore the snow-covered peaks of Hokkaido, or experience the electric energy of Tokyo. From the quiet beauty of rural villages to the modern rhythm of its cities, Japan comes alive in books in a way that feels both magical and deeply human.
Stories set in Japan capture the essence of the country—its traditions, its struggles, and its timeless charm. Through these pages, readers experience Japan’s stunning landscapes, deep-rooted customs, and tales of resilience and transformation.
A Feast for the Senses
Japan is a country that engages every one of the senses, and authors who set their stories here bring that richness to life. When reading about Japan, you can almost feel the gentle breeze during hanami (cherry blossom viewing), hear the clang of temple bells, or smell the steam rising from a bowl of ramen. You might taste freshly prepared sushi or the sweetness of matcha tea. From the peaceful silence of a Zen garden to the bustling sounds of a Tokyo street, books set in Japan evoke a sensory experience unlike any other.
Books like Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden capture the beauty and complexity of traditional Japan, while novels like Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi celebrate the small, magical moments of modern life. Japan’s unique landscapes and traditions are so vividly brought to life in fiction that readers can almost feel they are there.
Stories Woven with History and Tradition
Japan’s long history and rich traditions provide a stunning backdrop for both historical fiction and contemporary tales. Books like The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama transport readers to pre-war Japan, immersing them in a story of healing and quiet strength. Meanwhile, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee spans generations, tracing the struggles and triumphs of a Korean family living in Japan.
Japanese folklore and traditions are woven into many stories, offering readers a deeper understanding of the country’s culture. Books like Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn share ghostly legends and myths, while modern novels like The Night Parade by Kathryn Tanquary bring ancient spirits and traditions to life in contemporary settings.
Romance and Reflection in Japan
Japan’s beauty and atmosphere make it an ideal setting for stories of love, introspection, and transformation. Its tranquil gardens, cherry blossoms, and mist-covered mountains provide the perfect backdrop for characters seeking connection or personal growth. In Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, readers experience a poignant tale of love and loss set in 1960s Tokyo. Meanwhile, The Little House in the Big City by Kyoko Nakajima explores themes of memory and change through the lens of daily life in Japan.
For contemporary romance and reflection, books like Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata blend quirky humor and deep themes, inviting readers to consider identity, belonging, and societal expectations.
Mystery and Adventure
For readers who crave suspense, Japan offers a unique and atmospheric setting for mysteries and thrillers. Books like The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino deliver clever, intricate plots while capturing Japan’s urban landscapes and social subtleties. The country’s mix of modernity and tradition lends itself to stories full of secrets and intrigue.
From crime novels set in Tokyo’s bustling neighborhoods to adventures unfolding in remote, eerie villages, Japan’s varied settings add layers of depth and atmosphere to thrilling tales.
Escape to Japan Anytime
For readers unable to travel, books set in Japan provide the ultimate escape. They allow us to experience the cherry blossoms of Kyoto, the vibrancy of Tokyo, and the serenity of its ancient temples without ever leaving home. Whether you crave a quiet moment of beauty, a sweeping historical tale, or a thrilling mystery, Japan offers something for every reader.
The Gate to Kagoshima by Poppy Kuroki
They lay… Her heart torn to ribbons. How would she ever let him go now? 2005: While researching her Japanese ancestors, Isla travels from Scotland to Kagoshima. There, a vicious typhoon and a strange white gate in a deserted shrine tumbles Isla back to 1877 and the dawn of the Satsuma Rebellion, the conflict that heralded the end of the samurai. Keiichirō Maeda, a samurai with eyes that promise the world, introduces Isla to a way of life only previously encountered in books, and Isla begins to wonder if she has found her true home. But as the samurai muster against what she knows will be a futile battle and the end of everything they hold dear, Isla is increasingly anxious. Should she tell the man she now loves what history has taught will happen to the samurai, or should she let Keiichirō die the glorious death he so believes in, proud to the end that he remained a faithful warrior? And if that does happen, can Isla ever find her way back to her modern-day life in the Highlands? Only time can tell…
White Mulberry by Rosa Kwon Easton
Also listed in Books Set in the 1930s
Inspired by the life of Easton’s grandmother, White Mulberry is a rich, deeply moving portrait of a young Korean woman in 1930s Japan who is torn between two worlds and must reclaim her true identity to provide a future for her family.
1928, Japan-occupied Korea. Eleven-year-old Miyoung has dreams too big for her tiny farming village near Pyongyang: to become a teacher, to avoid an arranged marriage, to write her own future. When she is offered the chance to live with her older sister in Japan and continue her education, she is elated, even though it means leaving her sick mother―and her very name―behind.
In Kyoto, anti-Korean sentiment is rising every day, and Miyoung quickly realizes she must pass as Japanese if she expects to survive. Her Japanese name, Miyoko, helps her find a new calling as a nurse, but as the years go by, she fears that her true self is slipping away. She seeks solace in a Korean church group and, within it, finds something she never expected: a romance with an activist that reignites her sense of purpose and gives her a cherished son.
As war looms on a new front and Miyoung feels the constraints of her adopted home tighten, she is faced with a choice that will change her life―and the lives of those she loves―forever.
The Puzzle Box by Danielle Trussoni
Author Interview with Danielle Trussoni
Two sisters. A lost imperial treasure. The world’s greatest puzzle master has twenty-four hours to solve the most dangerous mystery of his life . . . or die trying, in the new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Puzzle Master, hailed as “thrilling” by David Baldacci.
It is the Year of the Wood Dragon, and the ingenious Mike Brink has been invited to Tokyo, Japan, to open the legendary Dragon Box.
The box was constructed during one of Japan’s most tumultuous periods, when the samurai class was disbanded and the shogun lost power. In this moment of crisis, Emperor Meiji locked a priceless Imperial secret in the Dragon Box. Only two people knew how to open the box—Meiji and the box’s sadistic constructor—and both died without telling a soul what was inside or how to open it.
Every twelve years since then, in the Year of the Dragon, the Imperial family holds a clandestine contest to open the box. It is devilishly difficult, filled with tricks, booby traps, poisons, and mind-bending twists. Every puzzle master who has attempted to open it has died in the process.
But Brink is not just any puzzle master. He may be the only person alive who can crack it. His determination is matched only by that of two sisters, descendants of an illustrious samurai clan, who will stop at nothing to claim the treasure.
Brink’s quest launches him on a breakneck adventure across Japan, from the Imperial Palace in Tokyo to the pristine forests of Hakone to an ancient cave in Kyushu. In the process, he discovers the power of Meiji’s hidden treasure, and—more crucially—the true nature of his extraordinary talent.
Tasmania by Paolo Giordano
Also listed in Books Set in Paris
After losing the future he imagined for himself, a writer sets out in search of connection and purpose at a tipping point with climate change and global conflict, in this breathtaking novel from the Strega Prize–winning author of The Solitude of Prime Numbers.
In late 2015, Paolo feels his life coming apart: While his wife, Lorenza, has decided to give up on pregnancy after years of trying, he clings to the dream of becoming a father, not just a father figure to Lorenza’s son. As their marriage strains, Paolo immerses himself in work, traveling to Paris to report on the UN Climate Change Conference in the wake of terrorist attacks that shook the world. His journalism dovetails with a book he hopes to write on the atomic bomb and its survivors, a growing obsession that will take him to cities across Europe and ultimately Japan.
Along the way, Paolo interacts with a vibrant cast of characters, each struggling to find their own Tasmania, a safe haven in which to weather the coming crises—global warming, pandemics, authoritarian governments, and wars. He develops a friendship with a brilliant, opinionated physicist, who followed the scientific path Paolo had abandoned, and who will test Paolo’s loyalty and values.
A stunning return to fiction after How Contagion Works, Paolo Giordano’s semi-autobiographical novel captures the fear, anxiety, wonder, and beauty of this time of uncertainty and upheaval, exploring how we can create and maintain relationships with other people when it feels increasingly difficult to connect.
We'll Prescribe You A Cat by Syou Ishida, Translated by E. Madison Shimoda
A cat a day keeps the doctor away…
Discover the award-winning, bestselling Japanese novel that has become an international sensation in this utterly charming, vibrant celebration of the healing power of cats.
Tucked away in an old building at the end of a narrow alley in Kyoto, the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul can only be found by people who are struggling in their lives and genuinely need help. The mysterious clinic offers a unique treatment to those who find their way there: it prescribes cats as medication. Patients are often puzzled by this unconventional prescription, but when they “take” their cat for the recommended duration, they witness profound transformations in their lives, guided by the playful, empathetic, occasionally challenging yet endearing cats.
Throughout the pages, the power of the human-animal bond is revealed as a disheartened businessman finds unexpected joy in physical labor, a young girl navigates the complexities of elementary school cliques, a middle-aged man struggles to stay relevant at work and home, a hardened bag designer seeks emotional balance, and a geisha finds herself unable to move on from the memory of her lost cat. As the clinic’s patients navigate their inner turmoil and seek resolution, their feline companions lead them toward healing, self-discovery, and newfound hope.
Group Living and Other Recipes by Lola Milholland
Lola Milholland grew up in the nineties, the child of iconoclastic hippies. Both her parents threw open the doors of the Holman House, their rambling home in Portland, Oregon, to long-term visitors and unusual guests in need of a place to stay. Years later, after college and after her parents’ separation, Milholland returned home. There, she joined her brother and his housemates—an eccentric group of stop-motion animators and accomplished cooks—in furthering the experiment of communal living into a new generation.
Group Living and Other Recipes tells the story of the residents of the Holman House—of transcendent meals and ecstatic parties, of colorful characters coming together in moments of deep tenderness and inevitable irritation, of a shared life that is appealing, humorous, confounding, and, just maybe, utopian—with a wider exploration of group living as a way of life. From spending time at her aunt and uncle’s intentional community in Washington State to finding her footing in the kitchen as a student in Japan to mushroom hunting in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, Milholland offers an expansive and vibrant reevaluation of the structures at the very center of our lives.
Thoughtful, quirky, candid, and wise, Group Living and Other Recipes introduces a gifted memoirist and thinker, making a convincing case that “now is always the right time to reimagine home and family”—and introduces a gifted memoirist and food writer in the tradition of Laurie Colwin, Ruth Reichl, Gabrielle Hamilton, and M.F.K. Fisher.
The Mighty Moo by Nathan Canestaro
The Mighty Moo is the tale of how a scrappy little World War II aircraft carrier and its untested crew earned a distinguished combat record and beat incredible odds to earn 12 battle stars in the Pacific.
The USS Cowpens and her crew weren’t your typical heroes. She was a flattop that the US Navy initially didn’t want, with a captain nearly scapegoated for the loss of his last command, pilots who self-trained on the planes they would fly into combat, and sailors that had been in uniform barely longer than the ship had been afloat. Despite their humble origins, Cowpens and her band of second-string reservists and citizen sailors served with distinction, fighting in nearly every major carrier operation from 1943 to 1945, including the Battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf. Together they faced a deadly typhoon that brought the ship to the verge of capsizing, and at war’s end there was only one US aircraft carrier in Tokyo Bay to witness the Japanese surrender—The Mighty Moo.
In the years to follow, Cowpens’ service has become the wellspring for a remarkable modern tradition, both within the US Navy and the small Southern town that still celebrates her legacy with a festival every year. The Mighty Moo is a biography of a World War II aircraft carrier as told through the voices of its heroic crew—a “Band of Brothers at sea.”
Sisters Under the Rising Sun by Heather Morris
Sisters Under the Rising Sun is another beautiful, historical novel of resilience and survival from Heather Morris, the multimillion-copy bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Cilka’s Journey, and Three Sisters. Based on the real-life experiences of Australian nurse Sister Nesta James and English musician Norah Chambers, Morris once again brings to life women who history has overlooked. She writes, “I have not told this story so the women internees of the Japanese prisoner-of-war camps in Indonesia will be remembered. I have told this story so they will be known.” Sisters Under the Rising Sun is a story of women in war: a novel of sisterhood, bravery and the power of friendship and music in the darkest of circumstances.
Of White Ashes by Constance Hays Matsumoto and Kent Matsumoto
The bombing of Pearl Harbor propels America into WWII and two Japanese Americans into chaos. Separated by the Pacific, each embarks on a tumultuous path to survive childhood and live the American dream. Ruby Ishimaru loses her liberty and is uprooted from her Hawaii home to Japanese American incarceration camps on the mainland. Koji Matsuo strains under the menacing clouds of the Japanese war machine and Hiroshima atomic bombing while concealing a dangerous secret—one that threatens his family’s safety.
When destiny brings Ruby and Koji together in California, their chemistry is magnetic, but wounds of trauma run deep and threaten their love as another casualty of war.
Inspired by the true stories of the authors’ family, Of White Ashes crosses oceans and cultures, illuminating the remarkable lives of ordinary people who endure seemingly unbearable hardship with dignity and patience. Their experiences compel us to reflect on the resilience of humanity and the risk of history repeating itself.
Bottled Lightning by L. M. Weeks
Top global technology lawyer Tornait “Torn” Sagara knows he shouldn’t get involved with his beautiful client, Saya Brooks, whose revolutionary lightning-on-demand invention will solve climate change and render all other energy sources obsolete. But their shared connection as hafu (half Japanese, half American) draws them irresistibly together.
Saya’s technology could save the world, but what’s good for the planet is bad news for those who profit from the status quo. Now, someone wants to stop Saya from commercializing her invention and will go to any lengths—even murder—to do so. When Torn takes Saya for a spin on his motorcycle, they are viciously attacked. That death-defying battle on a crowded Tokyo expressway is only the start of Torn’s wild ride.
As the violence escalates, Torn discovers that everything he values—his reputation, his family, and even his life—is on the line. Racing from the boardrooms of Tokyo to the wilds of Russia in a desperate search for the truth, Torn is forced to face his own flaws and discover what really matters most.
The Easy Life in Kamusari by Shion Miura
From Shion Miura, the award-winning author of The Great Passage, comes a rapturous novel where the contemporary and the traditional meet amid the splendor of Japan’s mountain way of life.
Yuki Hirano is just out of high school when his parents enroll him, against his will, in a forestry training program in the remote mountain village of Kamusari. No phone, no internet, no shopping. Just a small, inviting community where the most common expression is “take it easy.”
At first, Yuki is exhausted, fumbles with the tools, asks silly questions, and feels like an outcast. Kamusari is the last place a city boy from Yokohama wants to spend a year of his life. But as resistant as he might be, the scent of the cedars and the staggering beauty of the region have a pull.
Yuki learns to fell trees and plant saplings. He begins to embrace local festivals, he’s mesmerized by legends of the mountain, and he might be falling in love. In learning to respect the forest on Mt. Kamusari for its majestic qualities and its inexplicable secrets, Yuki starts to appreciate Kamusari’s harmony with nature and its ancient traditions.
In this warm and lively coming-of-age story, Miura transports us from the trappings of city life to the trials, mysteries, and delights of a mythical mountain forest.
Riding High in April by Jackie Townsend
Inside the rising tech microcosms of Seoul, Singapore, Japan, and India, far from the mendacity of Silicon Valley, a serial tech entrepreneur pursues a last-ditch attempt to build something great: COMPASS, an open-source network platform that Microsoft has labeled “reckless.” At stake are his reputation, his dwindling bank account, and his fifteen-year relationship with the only woman he’s ever loved—a woman in the midst of reckoning with who she is and what really matters to her in the face of the narcissism and destructiveness of the technology world. She shows up in Seoul in a big, bold move to be with him—only to find that living in Asia reshapes her in intangible, unexpected ways.
Taut and richly layered, Riding High in April is a powerful evocation of our contemporary tech moment, a revealing exploration of resilience and the pursuit of something unattainable, and a moving story of love, friendship, and letting go.
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. It begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old girl with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. We witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup, and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it.
In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction—at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful—and completely unforgettable.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Also listed in Books About Family
In this New York Times bestseller, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan–the inspiration for the television series on Apple TV+.
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger. When she discovers she is pregnant–and that her lover is married–she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.
Profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty.
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
From the bestselling author of Kafka on the Shore: A magnificent coming-of-age story steeped in nostalgia, “a masterly novel” (The New York Times Book Review) blending the music, the mood, and the ethos that were the sixties with a young man’s hopeless and heroic first love.
Now with a new introduction by the author.
Toru, a serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. As Naoko retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.
Stunning and elegiac, Norwegian Wood first propelled Haruki Murakami into the forefront of the literary scene.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
The first book in the five million-copy bestselling magical realism series
If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet?
In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee—the chance to travel back in time.
Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.
Prepare to meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the cafe’s time-travelling offer in order to:
confront the man who left them
receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by Alzheimer's
see their sister one last time, and
meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.
Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s internationally bestselling novel explores the age-old question: What would you change if you could travel back in time?
The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama
The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Gail Tsukiyama's The Samurai's Garden uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for this extraordinary story.
A 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight.
Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu's generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu's soulmate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.
The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
Yasuko Hanaoka is a divorced, single mother who thought she had finally escaped her abusive ex-husband Togashi. When he shows up one day to extort money from her, threatening both her and her teenaged daughter Misato, the situation quickly escalates into violence and Togashi ends up dead on her apartment floor. Overhearing the commotion, Yasuko's next door neighbor, middle-aged high school mathematics teacher Ishigami, offers his help, disposing not only of the body but plotting the cover-up step-by-step.
When the body turns up and is identified, Detective Kusanagi draws the case and Yasuko comes under suspicion. Kusanagi is unable to find any obvious holes in Yasuko's manufactured alibi and yet is still sure that there's something wrong. Kusanagi brings in Dr. Manabu Yukawa, a physicist and college friend who frequently consults with the police. Yukawa, known to the police by the nickname Professor Galileo, went to college with Ishigami. After meeting up with him again, Yukawa is convinced that Ishigami had something to do with the murder. What ensues is a high level battle of wits, as Ishigami tries to protect Yasuko by outmaneuvering and outthinking Yukawa, who faces his most clever and determined opponent yet.
Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn
Most of the following Kwaidan, or Weird Tales, have been taken from old Japanese books,—such as the Yaso-Kidan, Bukkyo-Hyakkwa-Zensho, Kokon-Chomonshu, Tama-Sudare, and Hyaku-Monogatari. Some of the stories may have had a Chinese origin: the very remarkable “Dream of Akinosuke,” for example, is certainly from a Chinese source. But the story-teller, in every case, has so recolored and reshaped his borrowing as to naturalize it... One queer tale, “Yuki-Onna,” was told me by a farmer of Chofu, Nishitama-gori, in Musashi province, as a legend of his native village. Whether it has ever been written in Japanese I do not know; but the extraordinary belief which it records used certainly to exist in most parts of Japan, and in many curious forms... The incident of “Riki-Baka” was a personal experience; and I wrote it down almost exactly as it happened, changing only a family-name mentioned by the Japanese narrator.
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
The English-language debut of one of Japan’s most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies there, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction—many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual—and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action…
Japan’s captivating landscapes, deep traditions, and timeless charm make it a literary destination unlike any other. Books set in Japan let us explore its serene beauty, immerse ourselves in its culture, and connect with its stories from wherever we are. Whether you’re dreaming of cherry blossoms, temple gardens, or neon cityscapes, let Japan be your next armchair travel destination—all you need is a good book.
