Japanese Light Novel Book Club discussion

Suggest novels we should read as a group here!

The books should be from Japan or relating to Japan in some way (whether by taking place in Japan, being about Japanese culture, being from Japan, etc.) Please only suggests books currently available in the US (as we are a US-based group).

Suggestions:
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Read (spoiler tagged for the sake of space):
(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)]

Out of Print (spoiler tagged for sake of space, please correct me if this is incorrect):
(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)]

My mom recommended this one to me. She says it's heavy on Japanese culture and has a lot of the martial arts.

Oooo. Great nominations! Can't wait to see which is decided on.

Jean wrote: "Oooo. Great nominations! Can't wait to see which is decided on."

Feel free to add your own. ;)

I'll save mine for the next round of nominations. So many good nominations already, don't want them to compete but would have put up Malice if you didn't beat me to it.

^ Sounds good. :)

I agree Jean, there is nothing I can add to this list that would in any way be more interesting than what is already listed. Memoirs of a Geisha will always be one of my favorite books. In fact it helped encourage my interest in Japanese culture.

One of my favorites so far, I found it really imaginative and had an Alice in Wonderland feel to it.

I second I am a cat. It's been sitting on my shelf for months.

I read once this pretty good novel called moribito:the guardian of spirits. It was nice.

Mika wrote: "I read once this pretty good novel called moribito:the guardian of spirits. It was nice."

Could you give me a link to the book? Just click "add book/author" and search for the book you had in mind.

Has anyone read "In the Miso Soup" already?

H. wrote: "Has anyone read "In the Miso Soup" already?

"

Suggestion added to the list :)

Mika wrote: "I read once this pretty good novel called moribito:the guardian of spirits. It was nice."

By any chance, is this the Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit that you wanted to suggest as a group read?

I'll just leave this here ;-)

I quite enjoyed this book; I'm told the author is wonderful but I haven't read anything else she wrote yet. But it has a good feel for Japanese myth in a modern setting but seen through the ideas of a Gaijin - so, like most of us. But it's not dumbed down or over explained and we trust the characters to be smart enough to understand the culture they're in.

Jess wrote: ""
Added :)

Paprika
I just want to read this one

Paula wrote: "Paprika
I just want to read this one"

Added. Took me a bit to confirm this is actually currently available in the US. :)

Perhaps the most admired childhood memoir ever written in Japan, The Silver Spoon is a sharp detailing of life at the end of the Meiji period (1912) through the eyes of a boy as he grows into adolescence. Innocence fades as he slowly becomes aware of himself and others, while scene after scene richly evokes the tastes, lifestyles, landscapes, objects, and manners of a lost Japan.

^ Hi Stone Bridge Press,

Thank you for the suggestion for a group read, but I'm afraid this doesn't fit our theme... See, we're a Japanese Novel group, and that's kind of a memoir...

If that was meant to be a general recommendation rather than a group read suggestion, please go to the Recommendation folder instead. ;)

Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa it's a short little novella and not all will like, but it's good for those who have a taste for the strange and macabre.

~♡Sushi♡~ wrote: "Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa it's a short little novella and not all will like, but it's good for those who have a taste for the strange and macabre."

Is this the book you're referring to? Hotel Iris

Indeed it is :)

Some of my favorite Japanese novels were "The Sound of Waves" by Yukio Mishima and "The Thief" by Fuminori Nakamura. Actually, I count these two authors among my favorite Japanese authors and plan to read the rest of their writings. Here's my reviews of those two books:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I can also recommend Keigo Higashino's "Salvation of a Saint", if you like mystery novels. It was pretty good although it's not perfect: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

I haven't read any of Natsume Soseki's books yet, but they're on my to-read list because he's a really big Japanese classic author. Obviously, his top novel "Kokoro" is already up on the list.

Btw, I'll be reading Murakami's "Norwegian Wood" and Ayatsuji's "Another" sometime in the next month.

The Sound of Waves, The Theif, and Salvation of a Saint have been added to the group read suggestions.

Has this been added yet?

Added. :)

I didn't see this one listed, and I could use an excuse to read it. Kitchen.

Kitchen

Added.

You'd have to get the kindle edition. But it's available. :)

All added but for Kiki. It seems Kiki's out of print and not easy to get a hold of.

Let me know if I'm wrong because there's an ebook on Amazon or something. :)

Nah, I thought the paperback one was the novel but I looked closer and it was a manga :(



I read this a long time ago and bought it. So putting it forth as a suggested group read. I remember really liking it. :) It'd be more fun to reread as a group.

Tiffany wrote: "Nah, I thought the paperback one was the novel but I looked closer and it was a manga :(



I read this a long time ago and bought it. So putting it forth as a sugg..."

Isn't that one a light novel? You might want to suggest it in the light novel thread instead. :)

I'm not sure actually. But I'll put it over there. This one is really hard to tell tbh. xD

Tiffany wrote: "I'm not sure actually. But I'll put it over there. This one is really hard to tell tbh. xD"

I usually go with what Wikipedia says lol

I didn't even look on wiki. I checked the goodreads page. It'll usually have on the side if it's a light novel or not. But I put it on the light novel recs so I'm not being difficult.

It looks like The Devil's Whisper is out of print. If this is incorrect, please let me know.

I consider "out of print" to mean that it's not currently being published physically and is not available as an Ebook.

Nek0 Neha wrote: "This one is a rather large one but I've heard nothing but phenomenal things about it.



Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe"

looks like we're going to start this tome on 18 December. who else is joinig? i'm in. i actually bought this book for my daughter, but she has so much other reading to do, i think i'm going to get to it before her.

didn't we read another tome, 1Q84, back in the Fall last year? is this a recurring theme for our group? long books for the cold holidays when we can stay nestled under our blankets?

Alex G wrote: "didn't we read another tome, 1Q84, back in the Fall last year? is this a recurring theme for our group?"

We did read 1Q84 a little while ago. I'm not sure what you mean by "recurring theme" though. We cycle between novels and light novels for each group read.

Selena wrote: "Alex G wrote: "didn't we read another tome, 1Q84, back in the Fall last year? is this a recurring theme for our group?"

We did read 1Q84 a little while ago. I'm not sure what you mean by "recurrin..."

i meant the timing of long novels.