Japanese Literature discussion

Just for Fun! #ReadingTheMeow aka Cat Read Week. June 9-15, 2025
Read a novel one or more references to cats, kittens, or other felines in the work.

This is part of the multi-site annual week-long celebration of cats and books. This event invites readers and bloggers to read books with cats in them and share their reviews/thoughts. The book can be any genre in Japanese literature (there is a wide range which features cats–whether children’s fiction or graphic novels, classic fiction, cosies or nonfiction, poetry and much more)–the only rule is the cat in it must have a significant (or at least reasonable) part, not just be present.

I will post some suggestions as we get closer to the week.

Some Examples (more to come):I Am a Cat

The Cat Who Saved Books or The Cat Who Saved the Library by Sōsuke Natsukawa, eng translation by Louise Heal Kawai
I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki, eng translation by Graeme Wilson and Aiko Ito
We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida, eng translation by E. Madison Shimoda
The Travelling Cat Chronicles or The Goodbye Cat by Hiro Arikawa, Eng translation by Philip Gabriel.

You can post suggestions in this thread also.

My friend and our co-moderator of the Japanese Literature forum on GR had a blog post and a podcast on Japanese “Cat Books”. You can find Alison’s blog post and a link to the podcast here:
https://readjapaneseliterature.com/20...

I am happy for her list of novels in this ‘cat’egory. BTW, I just read the first 4 volumes of the LN Secrets of the Silent Witch (Light Novel), Vol. 1. Monica, the Silent Witch, has a cat familiar, Nero, so this counts a #ReadingTheMeow2025 selection! :)

If you liked The Cat Who Saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa, the sequel is recently out in English, The Cat Who Saved the Library.

Here are some more options:
- the curious kitten and the chibineko kitchen by Yuta Takahashi
- the kamogawa food detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai
- Morning with my cat Mii by Mayumi Inaba
- Blanket Cats by Kiyoshi Shigematsu

I missed cat week?! Y’all should revive it for the first or second week of August around international cat day!

I will try to slink over to that.
In the meowtime here is some history of cat island, Kyattoshima (really Aoshima or Ai[no]shima).
https://youtu.be/rHLLDOyZepY?si=BINjU...

And some more detail from The Catster:
https://www.catster.com/lifestyle/aos...

There are other “cat islands” and cat theme area. For those of you lucky to visit or live in Japan here is a list of places from “zooming Japan”:

https://zoomingjapan.com/travel/cat-p...

Cat shrines are my fav since i am (shhhh!) allergic to cats (Nyah).