18 books like 色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年
ダンス・ダンス・ダンス
He burst upon the international scene with the wildly acclaimed A Wild Sheep Chase. He quickly came to represent the quirky voice of a new generation of Japanese writers. Now Haruki Murakami gives us his wittiest, boldest, most daring work to date. Dance dance dance continues the extraordinary adventure of an ordinary man. At thirty something, Murakami's nameless hero lives in a hi-tech,…
Shares: Near and far eastern fiction, Japan
The Interestings
The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty. Their friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their…
Shares: Self-realization, Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age, Friendship
The Idiot
Embarking on her freshman year at Harvard in the early tech days of the 1990s, a young artist and daughter of Turkish immigrants begins a correspondence with an older mathematics student from Hungary while struggling with her changing sense of self, first love and a daunting career prospect.
Shares: Identity, Literary, Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age
金閣寺
The son of a poor rural priest becomes an acolyte at the Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mizoguchi had built up an image of ideal beauty in his mind based on this Golden Pavilion; this ideal image causes him to feel disappointed in any supposed form of beauty, even the actual physical Golden Pavilion. He comes under the influence of Kashiwagi, a fellow student with a very bitter view of life.
Shares: Near and far eastern fiction, Japan
吾輩は猫である
Written over the course of 1904 through 1906, Soseki's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the follies of upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him. The New Yorker called it "a nonchalant string of…
Shares: Near and far eastern fiction, Japan
Number9Dream
At age twenty, Eiji goes to Tokyo to search for the wealthy father he's never known. He stumbles upon the hidden power centers of the Japanese underworld and instead of finding his father, finds himself.
Shares: Contemporary, Literary, Bildungsromans, Fantasy
Invincible summer
Four close friends who graduate college together in 1998 venture off to pursue their fortunes in the new millennium, but find themselves drawn back together twenty years later amidst broken dreams, lost jobs, and shattered relationships.
Shares: Self-realization, Coming-of-age, Friendship
All the ugly and wonderful things
"As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing…
Shares: Literary, Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age
Bicycle days
When Alec Stern arrives in Japan, he discovers a land of opportunity. For only in Tokyo could an impressionable young man fresh out of college find, in one stroke, a new job, a new family, and a society that lavishes attention on Japanese-speaking gaijin. Yet, even as Alec claims a place in this new world, he is haunted by memories of the one he left behind—a world once infinitely secure but…
Shares: Japan, Bildungsromans
Asymmetry
Explores the imbalances that spark and sustain dramatic human relations, tracing the overlapping stories of a young American editor's relationship with a famous older writer, an unexpected New York romance during the early years of the Iraq War and an Iraqi-American man who is detained by immigration officers in Heathrow.
Shares: Literary, Coming-of-age
A good country
"Laguna Beach, California, 2009. Alireza Courdee, a fourteen-year-old straight-A student and chemistry whiz, takes his first hit of pot. In as long as it takes to inhale and exhale, he is transformed from the high-achieving son of Iranian immigrants into a happy-go-lucky stoner. He loses his virginity, takes up surfing, and sneaks away to all-night raves. For the first time, Reza--now Rez--feels…
Shares: Literary, Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age
The Goldfinch
"The Goldfinch is a rarity that comes along perhaps half a dozen times per decade, a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind....Donna Tartt has delivered an extraordinary work of fiction."--Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review
Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present day America and a drama of…
Shares: Self-realization, Literary, Friendship
If We Were Villains
Entreated to tell his side of the story to a detective who put him in prison a decade earlier for a murder he may not have committed, Oliver Marks describes his past as a Shakespearean actor in college whose rivalry with a castmate escalated in dangerous ways.
Shares: Contemporary, Literary, Coming-of-age
Talent
An English grad student struggling with her dissertation about the intellectual history of inspiration desperately searches for a perfect case study to anchor her thesis, only to find it in the unlikeliest of places.
Shares: Literary, Coming-of-age
Todos nuestros nombres
Two young friends join an uprising against Uganda's corrupt regime in the early 1970s. As the line blurs between idealism and violence, one of them flees for his life.
Shares: Identity, Coming-of-age, Friendship
Cackle
All her life, Annie has played it nice and safe. After being unceremoniously dumped by her longtime boyfriend, Annie seeks a fresh start. She accepts a teaching position that moves her from Manhattan to a small village upstate. She’s stunned by how perfect and picturesque the town is. The people are all friendly and warm. Her new apartment is dreamy too, minus the oddly persistent spider…
Shares: Contemporary, Fantasy
Candy
Banned upon its initial publication, the now-classic Candy is a romp of a story about the impossibly sweet Candy Christian, a wide-eyed, luscious, all-American girl. Candy -- a satire of Voltaire's Candide -- chronicles her adventures with mystics, sexual analysts, and everyone she meets when she sets out to experience the world.
Shares: Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age
The visitors
"Built around Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, this evocative novel from New York Times-bestselling author Sally Beauman blends fact and fiction to recreate a lost world that's still fiercely enthralling and relevant today"--
Shares: Literary, Coming-of-age, Friendship