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 ...

Who is the person who lives next door? Koichi Takakura is a criminology professor who lives with his wife Yasuko in the suburbs of central Tokyo. Like many married couples, the Takakuras hadn’t given ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

First-person narrator Kengo Katsuki relates his wife Michiru’s story, going back to events in her life before they met. The account begins when Michiru is 23 and working as a bookstore clerk in a ...

In a refrigerated container sitting on reclaimed land in the harbor district, 14 frozen corpses are found lying neatly in a row. The evidence seems to suggest that it is a mass suicide by sleeping pill, ...

After the collapse of modern civilization, most of our future planet’s surface is covered by water. The interactions of the surviving humans with Ichtyonaus and Thérionaus, peculiar creatures that ...

Takeshi Hongo, 34, is an investigator in the Internal Affairs section of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Formerly a private detective, he was taken on as an irregular hire by the MPD for his ...

Five former grade-school classmates who are now 40—three men and two women—are at a bar in Sapporo’s Susukino entertainment district following a class reunion. Tamura, a classmate who couldn’t ...

Ryo Himekawa is the guitarist in an amateur band formed 14 years earlier. The day he has an argument with his lover from high school days, her corpse is discovered in the studio where their band practices. ...

Shinsuke Amemura works as a bartender at the bar Myoga. One day as he is closing up, he is attacked by an unidentified man. Although he escapes with his life, he soon realizes that he suffers from partial ...

This book provides detailed instructions on a method of meditation that will improve everything from your physical condition to your emotional stability, memory, and creativity. The meditation introduced ...

In this second installment of the author’s best-selling Reiko Himekawa series, a severed left hand is found in a minivan abandoned on a dry riverbed. Himekawa and her team join the investigation. ...

Having been a victim of rape in high school, Reiko Himekawa decides she wants to be a police detective, and joins the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department upon graduation from college. Promoted with unusual ...

The title of this book is a coinage of the writer that reflects the changes that have come to Japan, a place where rapid economic growth once made the vast majority of the population middle class. “Downwardly ...