 | Shanks Mare: Japan's Great Comic Novel of Travel & Ribaldry by Ikku Jippensha
Buy used from: $4.80 This is a side-splittingly funny modern reprint from Tuttle: DO NOT MISS THIS IT!
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 | Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $3.18 This book goes to the heart of the matter: considered one of Japan's finest novels
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 | The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon
Buy new: $16.77 / Used from: $2.96 You will fall madly, deeply in love with Ms. Shonagon; however, Morris is not my fave translator.
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 | Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai by Katsu Kokichi
Buy new: $17.05 / Used from: $5.92 This guy is great: A rogue's rogue or ronin ronin, if you will, who has no shame.
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 | Confessions of a Yakuza: A Life in Japan's Underworld by Junichi Saga
Buy new: $8.80 / Used from: $3.89 This is an interesting reminscence by an early 20th century yakuza which gained recent fame when Bob Dylan used some of its material in a song.
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 | Return to Tsugaru: Travels of a Purple Tramp by Osamu Dazai
Buy used from: $12.03 This is a wonderful example of a certain Japanese Literature that intills in one the deepest sense of longing that one can feel.
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 | Speed Tribes: Days and Night's with Japan's Next Generation by Karl Taro Greenfeld
Buy new: $11.97 / Used from: $0.67 Okay, I lied, this IS a contemporary read but it does a pretty good job of capturing some of sub-cultural Modern Japan
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| Sanshiro: A Novel (Michigan Classics in Japanese Studies) by Soseki Natsume
Buy used from: $15.99 Another one by Soseki included because it is excellent and translated by Jay Rubin who also does Murakami: Soseki really understands the relationship between life & dashed hopes.
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 | Botchan: A Modern Classic by Natsume Soseki
Buy new: $22.00 / Used from: $3.74 Lest you think that Soseki is on a down, this charming ditty is a definite read: one must be careful about translators but I trust any book from Kodansha so this gets my green light.
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 | I Am a Cat: Three Volumes in One by Soseki Natsume
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $3.46 The first volume of this trilogy is the best the others drag some, I've inlcuded it to alert you to TUTTLE another dam fine publisher of JBooks.
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 | Legends of the Samurai by Hiroaki Sato
Buy new: $26.40 / Used from: $6.90 One of the BEST books, bar none, on the genre and you simply must read it.
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 | The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Buy used from: $38.51 Author is unquestionably the greatest living author of fiction; this book has a belly-button chord connection that elicits well the feelings of despondence that inhabit much great Japanese Lit.
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 | Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $3.94 I include Mishima with hesitation because he was a kook, a homosexual writing about heterosexual love and really just a second tier writer (+ I read this 25 yrs ago).
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 | In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki
Buy new: $9.95 / Used from: $4.10 This was an assigned reading in a class on 'History & the Other' I took with the great Harry Harootunian and it has stuck with me all these years: Read it!
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 | Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa
Buy new: $23.10 / Used from: $19.59 This is a bit over the top at times, and often strident but a great adventure story for kids: written (1920's/30's) to psyche people up for coming war with the West, methinks.
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 | The Confessions of Lady Nijo
Buy new: $25.15 / Used from: $2.90 This is another great read along the lines of Murasaki Shikbu: You must read it. Really!
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 | Tale Of Lady Ochikubo (Kegan Paul Japan Library) by WHITEHOUSE
Buy new: $155.00 / Used from: $74.20 This obscure 10th century potboiler, although not exactly high literature is definitely a page-turner and well worth the read. Search for cheaper copies.
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