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With a country as beautiful, intriguing and as varied as Japan, it’s no wonder that it’s been inspiring writers from around the world for decades. If you haven’t yet been to Japan but want to be inspired, or if you have visited and want to rekindle some wonderful memories then this is a great list of books to inspire you to visit Japan.
Books to Inspire You to Visit Japan
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
This story is a rare and utterly engaging experience. It tells the extraordinary story of a geisha -summoning up a quarter century from 1929 to the post-war years of Japan’s dramatic history, and opening a window into a half-hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation.
A young peasant girl is sold as servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. She tells her story many years later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Her memoirs conjure up the perfection and the ugliness of life behind rice-paper screens, where young girls learn the arts of geisha – dancing and singing, how to wind the kimono, how to walk and pour tea, and how to beguile the land’s most powerful men.
The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide
A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo. They work at home as freelance writers. They no longer have very much to say to one another.
One day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. She is a beautiful creature. She leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. New, small joys accompany the cat; the days have more light and colour. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife; they go walking together, talk and share stories of the cat and its little ways, play in the nearby Garden. But then something happens that will change everything again.
The Guest Cat is an exceptionally moving and beautiful novel about the nature of life and the way it feels to live it.
Hokkaido Highway Blues by Will Ferguson
It had never been done before. Not in 4000 years of Japanese recorded history had anyone followed the Cherry Blossom Front from one end of the country to the other. Nor had anyone hitchhiked the length of Japan. But, heady on sakura and sake, Will Ferguson bet he could do both.
The resulting travelogue is one of the funniest and most illuminating books ever written about Japan. And, as Ferguson learns, it illustrates that to travel is better than to arrive.
Geisha, A Life by Mineko Iwasaki
No woman in the three-hundred-year history of the karyukai has ever come forward in public to tell her story – until now. “Many say I was the best geisha of my generation”, writes Mineko Iwasaki. “And yet, it was a life that I found too constricting to continue. And one that I ultimately had to leave”.
Trained to become a geisha from the age of five, Iwasaki would live among the other “women of art” in Kyoto’s Gion Kobu district and practice the ancient customs of Japanese entertainment. She was loved by kings, princes, military heroes, and wealthy statesmen alike. But even though she became one of the most prized geishas in Japan’s history, Iwasaki wanted more: her own life. And by the time she retired at age twenty-nine, Iwasaki was finally on her way toward a new beginning.
Geisha, A Life is her story – at times heartbreaking, always awe-inspiring, and totally true.
Lonely Planet Japan
Lonely Planet Japan is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Explore a bamboo grove in Arashiyama, marvel at Shinto and Buddhist architecture in Kyoto, or relax in the hot springs of Noboribetsu Onsen; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Japan and begin your journey now!
Lost Japan by Alex Kerr
Originally written in Japanese, this passionate, vividly personal book draws on the author’s experiences in Japan over thirty years. Alex Kerr brings to life the ritualized world of Kabuki, retraces his initiation into Tokyo’s boardrooms during the heady Bubble Years, and tells the story of the hidden valley that became his home.
But the book is not just a love letter. Haunted throughout by nostalgia for the Japan of old, Kerr’s book is part paean to that great country and culture, part epitaph in the face of contemporary Japan’s environmental and cultural destruction.
How to Live Japanese by Yutaka Yazawa
With nearly 60 per cent of us living in cities, the mega-city of Tokyo, through centuries of raze and rebuild, is surely the guiding light for how we can live together amicably in an ever-urbanising world.
Not only is Japan the mother of all metropolis’ but with two thirds of the country covered in forest, there is still much respect and celebration of the natural world, with people perfectly placed to make the most of the green space around them. From the art of making tea, to going for a hike, or celebrating imperfections, there are ceremonies the Japanese have been honing for centuries that thrive alongside modern traditions and practices of well-being.
Ikigai by Hector Garcia
It’s the Japanese word for ‘a reason to live’ or ‘a reason to jump out of bed in the morning’.
It’s the place where your needs, desires, ambitions, and satisfaction meet. A place of balance. Small wonder that finding your ikigai is closely linked to living longer.
Finding your ikigai is easier than you might think. This book will help you work out what your own ikigai really is, and equip you to change your life. You have a purpose in this world: your skills, your interests, your desires and your history have made you the perfect candidate for something. All you have to do is find it.
Do that, and you can make every single day of your life joyful and meaningful.
The 500 Hidden Secrets of Tokyo
An insider’s guide to Tokyo and its hidden secrets and addresses
An inspirational and practical guide to Tokyo’s finest and most interesting places, buildings, restaurants, shops, museums, galleries, neighbourhoods, gardens and cafes
A new edition in Luster’s successful and attractive series of city guides
The 500 Hidden Secrets of Tokyo is an affectionate city guide, written by Tokyo local Yukiko Tajima. She has listed 500 must-visit places in her truly fascinating hometown, as well as good-to-know facts.
Have you read any books that might inspire you to visit Japan?
Let me know in the comments.
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Traveling in Japan would be a DREAM, I am saving it for when I actually have some spare funds to enjoy all the onsens and best sushi, haha. Also, the name Ikigai is so inspiring!
I’m actually putting together a post at the moment about visiting an onsen – it was an interesting experience.
You’ve got a great collection here! Saw the Geisha movie and the book might be even better 🙂
Thank you.
This is a great list! I wish I had read some of these before I visited Japan – it’s amazing how a book can inspire you to travel somewhere!
Thank you. I definitely want to discover more books from Japanese writers.
This is a great list of book to inspire travel to Japan. I’ve only read one on here, Memoirs of a Geisha, but now have a few more to add to my to-read wishlist!
A couple were recommended by a friend and I read them just before my trip.
A great list of books. It’ll be interesting to go back and read some, after having living in Japan for a year.
I’m definitely hoping to go back to Japan and read even more books about the country.