Staff Picks Category: Japan

First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami [Book]

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This small collection of eight short stories by Haruki Murakami has everything I love about Murakami’s writing: the subtle oddness, the evocative descriptions of ordinary things, his expansive awareness of culture and great enthusiasm for favored subjects from baseball to jazz. Each story here is written in the first person, from the perspective a man, usually a middle-aged writer, examining some past experience. Many of the stories are completely realistic, with a few leaving you wondering whether they might be autobiographical. In one the narrator is even an author named Haruki Murakami! In others, the stories are subtly fantastic: the narrator reflects on the time he met a talking monkey at a hot spring; the narrator finds himself in another man’s body, perhaps. And, in typical Murakami fashion, even some of the most realistic stories leave you perplexed, like the narrator, wondering just what might have been going on.

My favorite story in the collection is, without a doubt, “The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection”—the story with a narrator named Haruki Murakami that reads so much like memoir. In it the narrator tells us of his love of baseball, how he came to become a Yakult Swallows fan, and how, early in his career, he self-published a chapbook of poems about baseball. The story includes a number of delightful poems about baseball (you need not be a baseball fan to appreciate them) and is told in a pleasantly conversational tone. There is no strangeness in this story, except for the mundane strangeness that lies at its very heart—why would a man be a fan of such a losing team?

This is a great volume for fans of short stories. It is sure to delight established Murakami fans, and would be a great introduction to his work for anyone not yet familiar with his writing.

Translated from the Japanese by longtime Murakami translator Philip Gabriel.

How To Wrap Five Eggs by Hideyuki Oka, photographs by Michikazu Sakai [Book]

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This is a beautiful book containing handsome black and white photographs of simple products packaged in simple materials: rice straw, bamboo, ceramics, paper, and even leaves. The boxes, wrappers, and casks depicted in this volume are all hand-made and most of them are quite wonderfully elegant, from the humble eggs of the title, to utilitarian jars of miso, and expensive casks of sake meant as souvenirs and gifts.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell [Book]

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The latest work from the prodigious literary talent David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green, follows the eponymous Jacob De Zoet, a young Dutch accountant who arrives in feudal japan in 1799 on a quest to earn enough of a fortune to marry his love upon his return to Holland. The strength of Mitchell’s characterizations, his mastery of dramatic construction and the humor and grace with which he treats his characters is evident throughout this historical tale, as he fleshes out a world previously unimagined by the reader without ever delving into dull description or awkward exposition. The continued joy of discovery prevails even when the story takes dark and despairing turns for the protagonist. Highly recommended for fans of Mitchell, contemporary fiction and historical novels alike.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden [Book]

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Nitta Sayuri is a celebrated Japanese geisha. In this beautiful coming of age story, Nitta shares how she was sold into slavery as a young girl, learns the art of being a geisha, survives World War II, and struggles to win the man she loves.