All the Japanese Books in Translation You Need to Read from July to December 2026!

“After many years abroad, Hatoko reluctantly returns to Kamakura to take over the stationery store left to her by her late grandmother. As the custodian of the store, she also inherits the profession of public scribe, a role Hatoko trained for as a child under the guidance of her strict grandmother.

As the locals seek out Hatoko’s help, she takes on all manner of requests: writing letters of greeting, condolence, farewell, love, and more on behalf of those who come to her. A local community forms around Hatoko and the store, and, when the secrets of her late grandmother begin to unravel, Hatoko learns that the role of the scribe requires much more than putting ink to paper.

Set to the rhythm of the four seasons and the Japanese rituals and festivities that come with them, Tsubaki Stationery Store is a charming story about the importance of community and the reconciliatory power of the written word.”
— Penguin Books UK

We reviewed Ito Ogawa’s Tsubaki Stationery Store on Substack! You can read our review here!

Left: Cover of Tsubaki Stationery Store (Credit: Hutchinson Heinemann)

“Amane Morikawa arrives at the bookshop she’s inherited from her grandfather in Onomichi, only to find a dusty space with empty bookshelves – and a group of characterful cats who’ve made it their home.

Comforted by her new feline friends, Amane begins to connect with the people around her. A clockmaker who tends to the cats. A photographer. A record shop owner. Each meeting drawing her closer to a new purpose: reopening the bookshop.

But the shop needs more than repairs … Can the cats, mysterious guardians of the bookshop, lead Amane to the missing piece that will bring it back to life?

Full of charm and creature comforts, this healing tale from Japanese bestseller Takuya Asakura shows that every reader – and every bookshop – really does need a good cat.”
— HarperCollins Publishers

Left: Cover of Every Bookshop Needs a Cat (Credit: HarperCollins Publishers)

“In his third life, Kinnosuke belonged to a famous author.

Now, in his ninth, he wants nothing more to do with humans, who bring nothing but trouble and suffering. Drawn to the city in search of food, he comes across the Hokuto-do Bookshop, owned by a curious woman who has already given a home to four contented cats.

Soon Kinnosuke begins to notice the shop’s quirks: there are few customers, but it never goes out of business. No stock is ordered, but it never runs out of books. And the other cats also belonged to famous authors in previous lives. If he wants to know more of its secrets, he will have to reveal his own about the life he shared with the author.

At first, he is reluctant, but when a young aspiring writer faces tragedy, Kinnosuke is drawn into her struggle, confronting the bookshop’s hidden past to help keep her dream alive.“
— Hachette UK

Left: Cover of The Nine Lives of a Bookshop Cat (Credit: Hachette UK)

“Welcome to the Friday Bookshop, a cozy little bookstore tucked inside a rustic train station north of Tokyo. Rumor has it, you’ll find the perfect book there—one that you need at that particular moment, even if you don’t know it yourself…

When college student Fumiya visits the Friday Bookshop as a last-ditch effort to find a book for his ill father, he is disappointed in its ordinary appearance despite whispers of its peculiar charm. But he soon discovers that it not only includes a café where the food menu changes daily on the chef’s whim but also a vast underground vault lined with bookshelves, lovingly converted from an old abandoned subway platform. The bookshop, run by a quirky trio who have been close friends since high school, quickly becomes Fumiya’s favorite place—so much so that he begins to work there part-time.

Fumiya, who was never really a reader, learns to embrace the joy of reading, and that books can be a means to connect with other people and navigate the twists and turns of life.

Through colorful interactions with the zany shop owners and their visitors, as well as mouthwatering dishes inspired by the books the owners recommend, it’s impossible not to fall in love with the seemingly ordinary yet enchanting little bookstore in the subway station in Kanto.“
— Google Books

Left: Cover of The Friday Bookshop (Credit: Penguin Books)

“On a quiet neighbourhood shopping street the new café waits to open, still smelling of fresh paint.

After her mother’s death, Akiko quits her corporate job and transforms her beloved izakaya into a café. With a simple, nourishing menu of homemade bread and soup, Akiko wants to provide her customers with a slice of peace – or of delicious cake.

But it wasn’t always this way. When Akiko’s mother was alive the café was rowdy and well-loved, always busy with familiar patrons, gossip and secrets.

As she settles into her new life, honouring her mother’s legacy brings up complicated memories for Akiko. But with a stray tabby cat and a helpful new employee by her side, she will discover the healing power of a good meal shared with friends.

Heart-warming and beautifully written, A Day for Bread, Soup and Cats is a much-loved Japanese bestseller.“
— Orion Publishing

Left: Cover of A Day for Bread, Soup and Cats (Credit: Orion Publishing)

“An asteroid is hurtling towards Earth and the human race has just over two months to live. But twenty-three-year-old Haru, stargazer and chronic worrier, is still trying to pass her driving test. Then she finds a body in the boot of her car: a woman, stabbed and tortured. There’s a murderer on the loose. And it turns out that Haru’s driving instructor is an ex-cop with a manic devotion to justice.

So, despite the small matter of an impending apocalypse, the two women team up to catch the culprit regardless of the danger.

After all, the world’s not quite over yet…“
— Pushkin Press

Left: Cover of Murder at the End of the World (Credit: Pushkin Press)

“1. Please form pairs
2. You cannot pair with someone twice
3. Anyone without a partner will be executed

Mishin Mizushima isn’t nearly cool enough by Japanese standards. Even her Mum has ditched Mishin for a new lover, leaving her alone in their tiny apartment.

At school, towering alpha females move and think as a single, terrifyingly beautiful organism. The betas know to lay low. The rest grovel at the bottom of the cut-throat food chain.

But one day, a new teacher questions the natural order with a simple instruction – and unleashes a gladiatorial catfight for survival.

Already a hit in Japan, Please Form Pairs is a candy-coated death game where every doll must play by three rules: keep up, be liked, and stay (barely) alive in a girl-eat-girl world.“
— Hachette UK

Left: Cover of Please Form Pairs (Credit: Hachette UK)

“Mana Suzukura spends her days working at a clothing manufacturer in Tokyo in quiet solitude. But one day, on her way home, she is ambushed by Hodaka, a client who has taken a persistent liking to Mana. She is saved from his advances by her husband, Kazuki Suzukura, but Mana is not relieved. She is terrified. Because five years ago, Mana pushed her husband off a cliff.

Kazuki claims to have no memories of their past life together and there seems to be no trace of the violent man Mana once knew him as. So, reluctantly, she allows him to move back into their former home.

Just as Mana is adjusting to this new life, an anonymous letter arrives at her doorstep: “I know about Mana Suzukura’s past.” Then a detective informs Mana that Kazuki’s remains have been found in the mountains of Miyagi Prefecture.

Who is this man that Mana has allowed into her house? What kind of woman can’t recognise her own husband?

A page-turning psychological thriller with secrets like open wounds, The Murdered Husband Returns is a gripping exploration of what a woman will do to survive.“
— Google Books

Left: Cover of The Murdered Husband Returns (Credit: Bonnier Books)

“At an elegant hotel on a stormy night, travelling businessman Kohei Daigo meets a shadowy yet captivating woman, Fumiko. Their faces obscured in the darkness, they pass the hours by talking. Until the night takes an unexpected turn, and the strangers make a confession. They both have good reason to want someone dead.

They fantasise about the perfect murder: each one enacting cold-blooded revenge on the other’s enemy, with nothing to tie them to the crime.

In the light of day, Daigo resolves to put the unsettling night behind him. But back home in Fukuoka, he soon receives news of a tragic accident. To his horror, it appears that Fumiko has followed through on her side of their deadly bargain – and now it’s his turn.

Brimming with atmosphere, and with a dark, twisty mystery at its heart, Murder at Lake Ashinoko is the perfect, nostalgic, rediscovered novel for fans of Japanese translated fiction and classic crime.“
— Penguin Books UK

Left: Cover of Murder at Lake Ashinoko (Credit: Penguin Books)

“More than 150 deaths across Japan have been connected to Blue Butterfly, a game that leads people to take their own lives. The organizer of this terrible “game” is Kei Yorikawa, a seemingly good-natured high school student. How did a girl like her become such a monster? This story is a look back at the boy who changed her fate—her childhood friend, and her first kill.“
— Avocado House

Left: Cover of Sickness unto Love (Credit: Avocado House)

“Detective Yoshitaro Katayama is afraid of many things: heights, dark spaces, blood and . . . women.

When a young female student is found murdered, he’s given two choices – review the harrowing crime-scene photographs or head to Hagoromo Women’s College to investigate – and reluctantly opts for the latter.

But the murders don’t stop, and soon Katayama has a different surprise on his hands: a calico cat named Holmes, orphaned her [sic] owner falls victim.

Surely that’s the last thing Katayama needs. Until Holmes begins to display some uncanny investigative instincts of her own . . .

Introducing one the [sic] most iconic investigative duos in crime fiction – a hapless detective and his capable cat – The Deductions of Mikeneko Holmes is a must for all readers of Japanese cat fiction and classic crime.“
— MacLehose Press

Left: Cover of A Game of Cat and Killer – The Casebooks of Mikeneko Holmes (Credit: MacLehose Press)

“Mayu has just moved back to her hometown to plan her wedding when tragedy strikes. Her father is murdered. Her uncle, Takeshi, a former Las Vegas marquee magician, impulsively decides that he’ll catch the culprit himself. Who needs the police? When Mayu’s former classmates emerge as the prime suspects, it takes a conjurer’s dazzling sleight of hand to unravel this teasing pandemic-period puzzle.

Who’s next? The murderer holds the high cards, always one step ahead. But who better to unpack this twisty, turny mystery than a master illusionist? Mayu’s naive eyes are about to be opened wide–as she hurtles headlong into a nightmarish narrative with a shocking conclusion!“
— Google Books

Left: Cover of The Dark Magician: Murder in a Town with No Name (Credit: Tuttle Publishing)

“Two people die in hot spring towns in different parts of Japan from hydrogen sulfide poisoning. Investigating the case is geochemist Shusuke Aoe, who witnessed the same mysterious girl, Madoka, at both crime scenes … A sci-fi mystery that challenges established norms of the genre, written by acclaimed author Keigo Higashino!“
— Avocado House

Left: Cover of Laplace’s Witch (Credit: Avocado House)

“Baboons chatter in the zoo. Tadpoles writhe in a pond. A gecko is stuck to the window. And ants are crawling everywhere. Nature runs wild and mysterious in this stunning collection of stories by Hiroko Oyamada in which the everyday reality of the human world, with its social norms and familial ties, slides into something altogether more strange. As children begin to explore the landscape around them and adults are forced to navigate the bumpy terrain of marriage, parenthood and grief, the non-human world pulsates with a life of its own, and humans are revealed to be the most incomprehensible species of all.”
— Granta Books

Left: Cover of Garden: Stories (Credit: Granta Books)

“A collection of twenty-six shocking, awe-inducing short stories! A doctor tells a patient they can speak only one thousand words before their life ends. Someone’s boyfriend turns into a can of mackerel. A woman is in her sixth year of pregnancy. This mysterious world is full of laughter and tears, and twists and turns sure to leave anyone reeling!“
— Avocado House

Left: Cover of 1,000 Words Left to Live (Credit: Avocado House)

“Traveling Practice follows a novelist and his spirited niece as they embark on a walk across the Japanese countryside during the last days before the pandemic. Through their journey, the book masterfully explores themes of memory and the power of writing to capture fleeting moments and preserve them. Nominated for the prestigious Akutagawa Prize and winner of both the Mishima Yukio Prize and the Tsubota Joji Literature Prize, Traveling Practice’s quiet, reflective tone and focus on the characters’ inner lives elevate it beyond a simple travel story, establishing it as a significant work of literary fiction.“
— Honford Star

Left: Cover of Traveling Practice (Credit: Honford Star)

“Kyoko Tanihara still loves books. Just about.

But life at the Musashino Bookstore is starting to get her down. Instead of promoting her favorite stories, she finds herself distracted, tearing her hair out at the mere sight of her infuriating manager, who can’t seem to do anything but get in her way of success.

From his obsession with self-help books to his “inspirational” speeches at staff meetings, everything about Takeru Yamamoto seems designed to set her teeth on edge. As the store lurches from crisis to crisis, facing criticism from customers and authors alike, only the prospect of changing a life by handing over the perfect book keeps her going.

Until one day she is handed a book that speaks to all her frustrations, and opens her eyes to an alarming possibility. What if there’s actually more to Yamamoto’s obnoxious antics than meets the eye? What if, just maybe, her manager isn’t so stupid after all?

How Can My Manager Be So Stupid is the perfect read for anyone who has felt that they can’t even . . . with the idiots that walk among us.“
— MacLehose Press

Left: Cover of How Can My Manager Be So Stupid? (Credit: MacLehose Press)

“Twenty-five-year-old Yasuko has been living with her kind but apathetic boyfriend Tsunaki for three years. During this time, she has battled waves of depression and hypersomnia, staying in bed for days on end, mired in ennui.

When Tsunaki begins working longer hours, Yasuko tries to take over some of the house chores in the hope of breaking out of her rut, but cannot even manage to cook dinner without ending up sobbing in a pitch-black hallway. Any attempt to get her life together seems only to highlight Yasuko’s brokenness. As everything threatens to fall apart, she makes a spectacular last-ditch effort to wrench Tsunaki out of his indifference and find something to ground her in the world.

Radical, comical, and energetic, Love at Least is a sincere and compelling story of a young woman searching for connection.“
— Soft Skull Press

Left: Cover of Love at Least (Credit: Soft Skull Press)

“Mari is an eleven-year-old witch who loves her life. Indeed, what’s not to love about spending time with her amazing mothers, hanging out with her clever friends, eating delicious food and experimenting with fashion?

But, if you ask any of the other witches in town, Mari loves her life a little too much. After all, a wonderful witch puts the needs of others, before herself. Magic should be used to help humans – not (for example…) creating giant donuts for you and your classmates to scoff.

But Mari doesn’t care what other people think of her – and when disaster strikes her town, she’ll need to convince the other witches to have the courage to break free, too, and be just as wildly unwonderful as she is.“
— Penguin Books UK

Left: Cover of Mari the Unwonderful Witch (Credit: Penguin Books)

“A newly discovered firsthand account of the Hiroshima bombing and its aftermath from one of the survivors—a lost classic that brings unprecedented immediacy to our understanding of this world-changing event.

The whole city was covered with dark clouds, and conflagrations were breaking out in various directions. Could all of this have happened at once? It was then that black drops of rain, as big as blackberries, began to fall – rain caused by the atomic bomb. I wondered what had happened to my home and church. With a pale face, I ran down the Koi highway…

When the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima at 8.15am on 6 August 1945, Methodist minister Kiyoshi Tanimoto was just beginning his day by helping a neighbour on the outskirts of the city. Unbeknownst to him at that moment, the events that awaited him over the following days and weeks were full of horror, but through his courageous determination to save his family, church and city from total devastation, Tanimoto would become internationally recognised as a hero of Hiroshima. In 1946, he featured in American journalist John Hersey’s seminal book Hiroshima which catapulted Tanimoto into global fame – but it is only now that we have discovered the manuscript that he wrote in his own words.

With a powerful introduction from Tanimoto’s daughter, Koko Kondo, a renowned peace activist in her own right, Hiroshima, 8:15 is a remarkable eyewitness account of this devastating moment of history. Written in the immediate aftermath of the bomb, the manuscript had been lost for many decades and was only recently discovered in a university archive.

Today, over eighty years later in a world fraught with conflict, Tanimoto’s story is a moving and powerful reminder of how the strength, love and resilience of the human spirit will always triumph over the things that divide us.“
— Penguin Books UK

Left: Cover of Hiroshima, 8:15: The Lost Memoir (Credit: Penguin Books)

“At the 300-year-old Ippodo tea shop in Kyoto, time passes at the gentle pace of green tea leaves brewing in a kyusu teapot. Written by the store’s vice president, Miyako Watanabe, Tales of Green Tea offers an account of everyday life at this beloved spot, but also of the knowledge, encounters, and discoveries that come with a life steeped in tea.

Through evocative, sensory snapshots across the seasons, Watanabe traces the life of tea: from the quiet patience of growing and harvesting to the meditative rituals of the ceremony. By weaving together the history of the tradition with its place in contemporary Japanese culture, this lyrical book brings to light the wisdom and endless flow of stories to be found in a simple cup of tea.“
— Google Books

Left: Cover of Tales of Green Tea: Notes from a Centuries-old Kyoto Teahouse (Credit: Little, Brown Book Group)

“A beautifully illustrated edition of the internationally bestselling author’s meditation on memory and family.

In this meditation on memory and what makes us who we are, Haruki Murakami recalls his relationship with his father – the son of a priest who might have become a priest himself had a clerical error not sent him to fight in the Second World War. Murakami’s father wrote accomplished haiku and eventually became a teacher, but as Haruki grew older they found they had less and less in common. They went on to be estranged for twenty years, only reconciling on his father’s deathbed.

This haunting personal essay is a reflection on what it means to be a father and what it means to be a son – on what it means to be loved and to be abandoned – and a meditation on a particular era of Japanese history, through the aftermath of the Second World War and on into the present. It is a beautiful short work of family history from one of the world’s most beloved, iconic writers.“
— Penguin Books UK

Left: Cover of Abandoning a Cat (Credit: Penguin Books)

“Maki Kamoya is a Japanese housewife who believes that housework is an act of love. Rather than bringing more pressure for everything to be perfect, she advocates doing what you want, when you want – this is housework without the resentment.

There are chores to be done today, tomorrow and the day after. Sometimes it feels like a never-ending duty. But what if we change our way of thinking? What if we see the true purpose of housework as filling our homes with bright and robust energy? Kamoya explores how housework can be made into an act of love. Everything you do with your heart and love brightens your home. You can give your love to your family, yourself and also to those who do not have words; plants, animals and objects with which you share your home.“
— Quercus Books

Left: Cover of Cleaning with Love Energy: The Japanese Art of Housework with Heart (Credit: Quercus Books)

“Since making its mark with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Studio Ghibli has been producing beloved animated films treasured by fans of all ages.

Explore the studio’s rich history with behind-the-scenes anecdotes about favorites such as Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Howl’s Moving Castle. From initial concepts and production challenges to Ghibli’s unique management methods and innovative marketing campaigns, this book offers new insights into the production of all 27 movies, including the most recent film, Academy Award winner The Boy and the Heron.

Edited by producer and executive director of Studio Ghibli Toshio Suzuki, The Studio Ghibli Chronicles is the inside story of forty years of filmmaking.

‘Miyazaki once told me, ‘Suzuki, remember the important things!’ Now is the perfect time.’“
— Google Books

Left: Cover of The Studio Ghibli Chronicles: Inside Stories from the Award-Winning Animation Studio (Credit: Viz Media)