Hiromasa Hida was once one of Japan’s premier skiers, representing the country in international competitions; his daughter Kazami is also a skier. When Kazami was two, his wife—Kazami’s mother—committed ...

Kyōko Umemoto is a slightly chubby 18-year-old-girl. Having recently graduated from high school, she remains undecided about what to do next with her life. Then one day she sees a “Help Wanted” sign ...

Shugo Machida, still a bachelor at 32, works for a food company. Three years ago his 60-year-old mother died of Parkinson’s disease; Shugo’s father—who never imagined that his stouthearted ...

Natsuko Kotani has a knack for wrapping men around her little finger. She lies to them, she’s mean to them, and while she’s not even especially good looking, somehow they find their spirits ...

Jumpei Sakamoto, 21, is a good-natured, bottom-rung foot soldier in a yakuza syndicate that claims the Kabukicho entertainment district near Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station as its territory. He can be quick ...

Osamu Tokieda is in his third year at a college on the outskirts of Tokyo. He is revelling in the easy student life, spending time with his girlfriend and earning pocket money at a part-time job, when ...

This million-selling novel follows the lengthy process of compiling a dictionary, bringing a genuine sense of drama to the lives of people who immerse themselves day after day in the constant flux of language. Mitsuo ...

Takakura, a professor of criminal psychology at a university in Tokyo, has recently moved with his wife Yasuko to a single-family home in the residential area of Ogikubo. Takakura’s next-door neighbor ...

Three linked stories portray the emotional ups and downs of adolescence. In Yakusoku no basho, yakusoku no jikan (Agreed Time, Agreed Place), 13-year-old Yū Kikuchi arrives as a midyear transfer ...

Hiromi drifts from one motherless home to another, serving as a surrogate mother to children whose single fathers—truck drivers, crewmen on far-roaming fishing boats—are away for extended periods of ...

A year after the events of Inbijiburu rein (Invisible Rain), Reiko Himekawa’s team in Criminal Investigation Division I of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has been disbanded, and Reiko ...

Public prosecutor Hideki Otomo asks his friend Koichiro Sakuma, who works for Forest, a major eldercare chain, for help in finding a high-end facility for his aging father. Forest has been growing rapidly ...

A much-discussed work that sold 200,000 copies and ignited the “low-carb boom” in Japan. The author, a doctor, maintains a low carbohydrate diet himself and squarely refutes rumors that “low-carb ...

A fanciful tale in which a dog rescued by a young nurse working for a terminal-care facility becomes a therapy dog for the patients in an unusual way, and also solves an old murder mystery. The dog, a ...

In this collection of five short mysteries, “Nobara no niwa e“ (To the Garden of Wild Roses) takes place at a luxurious villa in the old capital of Kamakura, south of Tokyo. Shihoko ...

Freelance writer Sayoko Hamaoka is stabbed to death on the street. Shortly afterward, 68-year-old Sakuzo Machimura turns himself in to the police and confesses to the crime, claiming that he did it for ...

With over a million species identified to date, insects are said to make up more than two-thirds of all living creatures on earth. Though more often than not they are regarded as a lowly form of life and ...

In an apartment in suburban Tokyo, the remains of a body are discovered along with a dozen or so cats. All that can be gathered from the scene is the victim’s name, Yoko Suzuki. Whether the death is ...

This volume contains eight short stories that complement author Tetsuya Honda’s best-selling novel series featuring crime fighter Reiko Himekawa. Five of the tales relate cases that Reiko, now 33, undertakes ...

This book is an account of the year author Natsu Miyashita and her family spent living in the remote mountain village of Tomuraushi in Hokkaido. It was this year-long sojourn surrounded by incomparable ...