Book recs?

[esmenet]

In about two weeks, I'm going to Japan for fiveish days. My mother has most of our travel stuff planned out, but my #1 plan is to buy a lot of books, haha. However, my knowledge of Japanese books is sadly lacking, so this is me asking for recommendations!

Favorite genres: anything with lots of ladies, literary fiction that isn't just pointless navel-gazing (see Invisible Cities, The Helmet of Horror, etc.), history, myths/folklore, adorable slice-of-life, queer stuff, fiction about domestic stuff and school, the kind of horror where you are 100% on the side of the monsters, and language/linguistics/literary nitpicking.

--In other words, rec me all your favorite Japanese books! And please pass this post around to your friends as well, I need all the suggestions I can get.

(Also: I was going to say 'but no manga', since I basically know what I want on that end, but then I remembered that there are lots of lovely josei manga that never get noticed by uploaders or translators -- I mean, we're damn lucky that someone picked up Gold Rush 21, and even that's probs because of the author's more conventional series -- so if you have any favorite josei one-shots/short series or authors, pass 'em along!)

Comments

[aldanise]

I'm not sure how far our reading habits overlap (I can't stand Murakami Haruki), and also I'm a premodernist like whoa and unfairly biased towards things in dialogue with classical literature, so take these with a grain of salt, but here goes.

I adore Enchi Fumiko (円地文子), in both Japanese and English translation, of whose works Masks/女面（おんなめん） is probably the best known and also the one I imprinted on. It's basically complicated family relationships and manipulation between women against the backdrop of classical literature, and includes psychology with teeth in it but little naval gazing and no wallowing.

For supernatural sort-of-horror, I'm very fond of Izumi Kyōka's (泉鏡花) short stories, which tend to present the monsters very matter-of-factly. There's a lot of tension and suspense but not as much conflict, if that makes any sense?

For history, I'm quite fond of the Rekishi Dokuhon (歴史読本) series, which kind of straddles the line between an academic and a popular history journal, with stuff by both professionals and dedicated amateurs. Each volume is thematic, and any Book-Off almost always has a few old copies: I've seen volumes on Sengoku women, Sengoku family heirs, Yoritomo and the founding of Kamakura, Heian poets, the Three Unifiers, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu's court, etc. Slightly weighted towards the flashy history with lots of wars and politicking, but it varies rather a lot per volume.

I will also never miss the opportunity to cheer about Saiunkoku monogatari, which is a light novel series as well as anime/manga, and stars one of my favorite protagonists, who works really hard for her achievements (I say that my 'ship for this series is Shuurei/Her Career).

Finally, I don't know how much money you're looking to spend or what your position on ereaders is, but a basic Japanese Kobo is currently going about $50 at current exchange rates, and the Kobo bookstore includes a partnership with Aozora Bunko (Japan's out-of-copyright-ebook site) for Kobo versions of their texts. Aozora's stock includes Izumi Kyōka above, as well as Natsume Sōseki, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, both major shapers of modern Japanese literature, and Yosano Akiko, who blended poetry, modern translation of classical literature and pacifist/feminist social commentary. (Sōseki's women are great, though his protagonists navel-gaze a bit much for my taste; Akutagawa is possibly most famous for Rashōmon, which pretty accurately captures the casual brutality but vivid haunting power of his characters; and Akiko's translation of Tale of Genji is a classic in and of itself that I'm reading now.) All of them are possible to get directly from the Aozora site, but it's more of a hassle (usually involving file conversion), and the formatting and general prettiness of the Kobo versions is better.

Right. I need to sleep. Clearly I love talking about this, so ask if you have any questions, and I have taken classes on pretty much every era of Japanese literature that there is (including pop culture), so I have Opinions about a lot of things that someone has considered important, whether or not I liked them. (See: Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Hayashi Fumiko, Densha Otoko)

[esmenet]

I keep re-reading this comment and then in a starry-eyed daze forgetting to reply. Thank you so much for these recommendations! And if you have more, they are, of course, welcome.

Do you know if I need a Japanese credit card to buy books on the Kobo?

(I tried to read Murakami in English once, and gave up halfway through. But it was the first Japanese book I found in Shanghai, and the language he uses is pretty easy, so I'm reading it purely for practice.)

[aldanise]

I'm glad they're useful! You don't need a Japanese credit card to buy Kobo books if you're physically in Japan, because Rakuten runs Kobo Japan directly and allows you to pay using "Rakuten Cash", which I know you can buy with a foreign credit card. You might even be able to buy the books directly. Once you're out of Japan, all bets are off, since Kobo determines region by where your IP address is (rather than by credit card), leaving only the dubiously legal option of faking a Japanese IP to access the Japanese website. Any books you've bought and downloaded remain yours, though, regardless of where you are. Ah, the wonders of a publishing world that wants to pretend the Internet is not a world-wide phenomenon.

(I mostly side-load my books using Calibre, so I can tell you that side-loaded Kobo USA books read perfectly well on the Japanese Kobo, but I can't tell you if you can download Kobo USA books directly because I haven't tried. Sorry!)

(Also, good to know about Murakami! I'm impressed by your self-discipline. :D)

[esmenet]

I'm a-okay with dubiously legal in this case, I think.

(For me, nothing will ever compare to Lev Grossman's 'The Magicians' for sheer glum and irritating white-boy navel-gazing impenetrability. Murakami is almost certainly better.)

[tropicsbear]

Eternal Sabbath is considered josei, I think. It's been scanlated, but hardcopies are nice too XD