Where to Start with Japanese Literature: 12 Books by Mood, from a Tokyo Bookseller

A man from Tokyo keeps returning to a snowbound hot-spring town and to the geisha Komako. Kawabata became Japan’s first Nobel laureate in literature in 1968.

My notesAlmost every Japanese person knows its opening line by heart. It’s a book that tastes completely different when you read it again as an adult. Hard even for Japanese readers, and lovely.

After a failed suicide attempt, a young man advertises his life for sale — and the buyers who answer pull him into one strange job after another.

Why read itIf Mishima sounds intimidating, this is the book that proves otherwise: astonishingly readable and simply fun, and it never feels dated.

A lonely boy and his best friend ride a train across the Milky Way on the night of a star festival.

My notesMany Japanese children read it at school. I only read it as an adult, and I was surprised something this difficult had been in textbooks. Miyazawa was barely recognized in his lifetime and became famous only after his death — his life is sometimes compared to Van Gogh’s. It’s the kind of book you finish and immediately want to discuss.

A brusque but brilliant librarian in a small Tokyo community library recommends each struggling visitor an unexpected book.

Why read itThe perfect next read if you loved Before the Coffee Gets ColdNot yet read. It’s everything that’s good about having someone choose a book for you.

A young woman in Kamakura writes letters for other people, choosing the paper, pen and handwriting for each one.

Why read itMany real Kamakura shops appear in it, and readers in Japan often visit them afterward. Read it before a day trip from Tokyo.

On an island where objects — and the memory of them — quietly disappear, a novelist hides her editor from the Memory Police.

My notesEven reading in Japanese, Ogawa’s language is so beautiful it makes us nervous, like words gliding on ice that might melt. A finalist for the International Booker Prize.

A lonely proofreader in Tokyo whose one pleasure is walking alone through the city on her birthday night.

Why read itFew novels suit a city night sky like this one. By the author of Breasts and EggsNot yet read.

Two women with no friends at all — an elite office worker and a housewife blogger — meet once at a late-night family restaurant, and both their lives start to unravel.

Why read itTheir need for approval goes completely off the rails, and you can’t quite laugh it off. Devilishly addictive.

From just before midnight until dawn, a young woman reading in a Tokyo Denny’s crosses paths with the city’s night people.

My notesThe contrast between the fluorescent light of a Denny’s at night and Murakami’s dreamlike prose is almost too beautiful. One of his shortest novels.

In Shinjuku’s Kabukicho, police officers are being shot one after another. While his colleagues chase the killer, one lone detective, feared under a certain nickname, hunts the man making the guns.

Why read itA hard-boiled crime novel that captures Tokyo at full intensity. The gunfight near the end is so vivid you’ll hold your breath. After reading it, you’ll walk through Shinjuku a little more nervously.

A gifted runner who is sick of running is talked into joining a ragtag university team — most of whom have barely run before — with an impossible goal: the Hakone Ekiden, Japan’s most famous relay race.

Why read itThe team’s silly daily life will make you laugh, and when each runner tells his own story, you’ll find yourself cheering out loud. The final race stays with you for years.

A shy young man with a gift for words joins a publisher’s dictionary team and spends years making one dictionary.

Why read itA love letter to words, and to patient work. Winner of the 2012 Japan Booksellers’ Award.