List of Joy #2

Remembering the books I read that Japanese authors wrote, and one by an author who used to live in Tokyo. So I can get a little excited before my big trip to Japan.

1) The Bells of Old Tokyo: Travels in Japanese Time by Anna Sherman ★★★★★

It's the highlight for me! This book explored Tokyo's past and present, and I learned much about old Tokyo's history and culture by reading it.

In The Bells of Old Tokyo, Anna Sherman explores Japan and revels in all its wonderful particularity.

As a foreigner living in Tokyo, Sherman’s account takes pleasure and fascination in the history and culture of a country that can seem startlingly strange to an outsider.

Following her search for the lost bells of the city – the bells by which its inhabitants kept time before the Jesuits introduced them to clocks – to her personal friendship with the owner of a small, exquisite cafe, who elevates the making and drinking of coffee to an art-form, here is Tokyo in its bewildering variety.

From the love hotels of Shinjuku to the appalling fire-storms of 1945 (in which many more thousands of people died than in Hiroshima or Nagasaki), from the death of Mishima to the impact of the Tohoku earthquake of 2011.

2) Days at the Morisaki Bookshop Novel by Satoshi Yagisawa ★★★

I wanted an easy-to-read, heartwarming vacation book. This book ticks every box. A book on love and loss. I finished this book 2-3 nights after putting Atlas to sleep.

In Tokyo, there is a neighbourhood with the highest number of bookstores in the world. It is called Jinbocho where book lovers can browse to their heart's delight and where hunters of first editions or autographed copies prowl the bookcases.

The Morisaki bookshop, a small family-run shop, is so packed with books that barely five people can fit inside. Books crowd the shelves and invade every corner of the floor; when a customer arrives, the owner, Satoru, immediately pops out from behind the counter. Recently, his wife Momoko has joined him, and often, in her free time after work, their niece Takako also helps out.

For the first time, the girl does not feel lonely; she has new friends and new rituals to keep her company: the annual Jinbocho festival, the café around the corner, or an unexpected visitor. Because, as she has discovered, a bookstore is populated not by the characters contained in the books, but also by those who frequent it. And those stories create bonds.

As a sign of gratitude, Takako gives her aunt and uncle a trip, promising to look after the shop while they are away. Everything seems to be going swimmingly, but then why is Satoru behaving so strangely? And what does that woman with the red umbrella want who has appeared at the end of the street? How many other stories, emotions, and treasures does the Morisaki bookshop hold?

3) Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Muraki ★★★★★

A science fiction book by Haruki Murakami, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It's very different from most of the books I've read from his. There are two stories, and they are told in alternating chapters. Both stories touch on the concept of consciousness and identity.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World takes a tour through two parallel narratives, exploring consciousness, the subconscious and identity.

A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim.

This book is science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel.

Tracking one man's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy.

4) Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata ★★

This book was straightforward to read. It also made me think a lot about society's expectations and depression. This book also made me want to visit every convenience store in Japan.

Meet Keiko. She's 36 years old, has never had a boyfriend, and she's been working in the same supermarket for eighteen years.

Keiko's family wishes she'd get a proper job. Her friends wonder why she won't get married.

But Keiko knows what makes her happy, and she's not going to let anyone come between her and her convenience store...

A cult hit around the world, Convenience Store Woman is both a feminist rallying cry and a must-read oddball comedy.

5) Breasts and eggs by Mieko Kawakami ★★★★

This book has two different stories. The first is about the narrator's sister wanting a breast implant, and the second one is about wanting to be a single parent via artificial insemination from a sperm donor. I love this book as it is thought-provoking and touches on sensitive topics in the society.

On a hot summer’s day in a poor suburb of Tokyo we meet three women: thirty-year-old Natsuko, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko’s teenage daughter Midoriko. Makiko, an ageing hostess despairing the loss of her looks, has travelled to Tokyo in search of breast enhancement surgery. She's accompanied by her daughter, who has recently stopped speaking, finding herself unable to deal with her own changing body and her mother’s self-obsession. Her silence dominates Natsuko’s rundown apartment, providing a catalyst for each woman to grapple with their own anxieties and their relationships with one another.

Eight years later, we meet Natsuko again. She is now a writer and finds herself on a journey back to her native city, returning to memories of that summer and her family’s past as she faces her own uncertain future.

In Breasts and Eggs Mieko Kawakami paints a radical and intimate portrait of contemporary working class womanhood in Japan, recounting the heartbreaking journeys of three women in a society where the odds are stacked against them.

6. Strange weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami ★★★★★

This is the first book I have read for Japan, and it is beautifully written. It is a love story, and it is heartwarming. I saw someone write this in their book review, and I bought it right away: “As someone who is very interested in Japanese culture, I enjoyed the snapshot of Japan that this book gave me. There are many references to food and drink and traditional customs and you really get a feel for life there.”

Tsukiko is in her late 30s and living alone when one night she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, 'Sensei', in a bar. He is at least thirty years her senior, retired and, she presumes, a widower.

After this initial encounter, the pair continue to meet occasionally to share food and drink sake, and as the seasons pass - from spring cherry blossom to autumnal mushrooms - Tsukiko and Sensei come to develop a hesitant intimacy which tilts awkwardly and poignantly into love.

Strange Weather in Tokyo is perfectly constructed, warmly funny and deeply moving.

I hope you love reading them as much as I love writing them.

Love, Azzy