Japanese Literature

Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker Genres: Adult, AAPI, Japanese Literature, Folklore, Gothic, Historical Fiction, Horror, Psychological Horror, Mystery Thriller, Thriller Published by Hanover Square Press on April 13, 2026 Format: Hardcover Pages: 352 Source: Aardvark Book Club In this lyrical, wildly inventive horror novel interwoven with Japanese mythology, two people living centuries apart discover a door between their worlds.&nbsp October, 2026: Lee Turner doesn’t remember how or why he killed his college roommate. The details are blurred and bloody. All he knows is he has to flee New York and go to the one place that might offer refuge—his father’s new home in Japan, a house hidden by sword ferns and wild ginger. But something is terribly wrong with the house: no animals will come near it, the bedroom window isn’t always a window, and a woman with a sword appears in the yard when night falls.&nbsp October, 1877: Sen is a young samurai in exile, hiding from the imperial soldiers in a house behind the sword ferns. A monster came home from war wearing her father’s face, but Sen would do anything to please him, even turn her sword on her own mother. She knows the soldiers will …

The Rainshadow Orphans by Naomi Ishiguro Series: The Rainshadow Series #1 Genres: Asian Literature, Japanese Literature, Fantasy, Low Fantasy, Magic, Mythic Fantasy, New Adult, Science Fiction, Young Adult Published by Saga Press on May 25, 2026 Format: ARC, eBook Pages: 640 Source: Netgalley The first novel in a dazzling fantasy trilogy inspired by Japanese folklore and Studio Ghibli films like Spirited Away, set within a mythical archipelago brimming with dragons and Sun Spirits, high-tech hackers and bubble tea.  Life is hard for the inhabitants of Rainshadow City, a place where poverty and corruption are rife and where they are terrorized by an underground criminal organization known as the Lucky Crows.  Toshiko, Jun and Mei Kawakami are a family, bonded through loyalty if not blood, who live outside the increasingly corrupt law and who are seeking revenge for the murder of their beloved “aunt” Reiko by the Lucky Crows. Haru is the son of the Emperor, destined to one day rule over the Archipelago and uphold his mother’s ignoble legacy, but he is more interested in making friends with the magical Sun Spirits it seems only he can see. Theo, forced to leave his homeland, is a reluctant foot-soldier for the …

Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao Genres: Adult, Asian Literature, Japanese Literature, Fantasy, Magic, Speculative Fiction Published by Bantam on January 13, 2025 Format: Hardcover, Special Edition Pages: 374 Source: Illumicrate Would you rewrite your destiny if it meant losing a part of your past?  On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it.  Most will see only a cosy ramen restaurant. And just the chosen ones – those who are lost – will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.  Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike other customers. For he offers help, instead of seeking it.  Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice – through rain puddles, hitching rides on paper cranes, across the bridge between midnight and morning and through a night market in the clouds.  But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own – and risk making a choice she …

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa Genres: Adult, Asian Literature, Dystopian, Fiction, Japanese Literature, Speculative Fiction Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group on August 12, 2019 Format: Hardcover Pages: 274 On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses—until things become much more serious. Most of the island’s inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.  When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.  A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language. Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police is a poignant and thought-provoking exploration of loss masquerading under a dystopian …

What You’re Looking For Is In the Library by Michiko Aoyama Genres: Adult, Contemporary Fiction, Japanese Literature Published by Hanover Square Press on September 5, 2023 Format: Hardcover Pages: 304 For fans of The Midnight Library and Before the Coffee Gets Cold, this charming Japanese novel shows how the perfect book recommendation can change a reader’s life.  What are you looking for?  This is the famous question routinely asked by Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. Like most librarians, Komachi has read every book lining her shelves—but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of her library guests. For anyone who walks through her door, Komachi can sense exactly what they’re looking for in life and provide just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it.  Each visitor comes to her library from a different juncture in their careers and dreams, from the restless sales attendant who feels stuck at her job to the struggling working mother who longs to be a magazine editor. The conversation that they have with Sayuri Komachi—and the surprise book she lends each of them—will have life-altering consequences.  With heartwarming charm and wisdom, What You Are Looking …