Jap authors recommendations thread

!classics, just the other day, I was talking to a friend about Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows. It's about A E S T H E T I C S. Specifically, the nature and development of Eastern, particularly Japanese, aesthetics and how they contrast with Western aesthetics.

!teaparty, Okakura Kakuzō's The Book of Tea is also solid. This one is about the contrast between Eastern and Western aesthetics as well, but using Japanese tea ceremony as the focal point. And it was originally written in English, so you don't need to worry about the quality of the translation.

!historychads, check out Haruki Murakami's Underground. Murakami is typically a novelist, but this book is a series of interviews he did with both perpetrators and survivors of the Tokyo subway sarin attack, as well as his essay, "Blind Nightmare: Where Are We Japanese Going?". Unfortunately, while the English translation adds the interviews with members of Aum Shinrikyō, it cuts the number of interviews with survivors in half.

Don't worry [anime] and [g*mers], I didn't forget you, you fricking losers. You get Hiroki Azuma's Otaku: Japan's Database Animals. It's all about modern Japanese pop culture and how people consume it. Specifically, it puts forward the idea of "database consumption", where people take in the individual elements of a narrative without actually taking in the narrative itself. This contrasts it with Eiji Ōtsuka's A Theory of Narrative Consumption. That's right, you frickers get two. Maybe you'll learn something for once.

And last but not least, I recommend the works of Kenji Miyazawa to [chuds] and [nonchuds] alike. In particular, Night on the Galactic Railroad is a children's novel all about the nature of self-sacrifice.

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'The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea' is my favourite Mishima and one of the best books I've read. The only other Japanese author I've read is Murakami and I'd definitely recommend both Norwegian Wood and the IQ84 books

Avatar: the last airbender

The K-On omnibus is essential reading for any aspiring Fascist!

In the Shade of Spring Leaves by Higuchi Ichiyo

The Broken Commandment by Toson Shimazaki

The Box Man is a novel by Kobo Abe

I can recommend these also.

Season of the Sun by Shintaro Ishihara

It is the Rebel Without a Cause of Japan. Started an entire 50s counter culture

Haruki Murakami - Recommend Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Men Without Women.

Isuna Hasekura - Spice and Wolf is comfy romance

I prefer Sound of waves by Mishima. Personally

Sailor who fell out of grace with the sea is a good mishima entry book imo

Confessions of a mask is really good but it's also the only jap book I read that I liked.

I read some more Mishima, Kawabata and Murakami and it was all mid

Haruki Murakami is one of my favorite authors, Magical realism so things can get weird.

I also just read no longer human, I thought it was interesting but didn't get an emotional response like a lot of people talk about.

Seconding The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With The Sea as a Mishima recommendation, it's ace.

Pick a book by Murakami at random and read it. If you get it, you get it.

Goodbye Tsugumi was beautiful.

No Longer Human was really depressing.

Read the Nobel winners. Both Yasunari Kawabata and Kenzaburo Oe are excellent.

Japan also has a great detective fiction scene. If you like that stuff I recommend The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino.

Earthlings and Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata are good.