Yakapin

Twenty-twenty-five (2025) provided me with the opportunity to step back and simply let life be. One of the things I truly enjoyed during this process was taking the time to still immerse myself in the pleasure of finishing a book, despite all the busyness of work, travel, and daily life. That’s when I turn to finding short Japanese reads. Good thing, Japanese literature has this particular gift of brevity.

However, being in Matsuyama — a relatively small city compared to other major Japanese cities — finding English-translated Japanese books was a great struggle. Yet, during my trips to Osaka and Tokyo, I learned to make my walks more intentional, and always come home with a new book in hand.

Revenge by Yoko Ogawa

Revenge is one of the short Japanese fiction stories that can feel expansive. The book is a collection of interconnected short stories that will open your mind to a vast world that keeps you curious on every page.

The book explores the themes of loss, cruelty, obsession, and even beauty, but in a subtle way. Ogawa’s writing is gentle, but the darkness in each line weighs more as you slowly swim through its depths. Even though the pieces are short, they would demand a kind of attentiveness.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

This one saved me when I almost lost that interest in reading at one point. Convenience Store Woman had this quirky cover that caught my attention, and I thought it was a short read, so I chose it. However, this was an easy read in terms of the flow of each scene as the prose is simple, but it has that quiet sharpness to it.

This book tells the story of Keiko Furukura, which seems like a straightforward narration. But as you go through the story, you see this clear critique of societal expectations. It even hits closer to home as I live in Japan, and somehow get into the thinking of the people around me.

The Convenience Store Woman is a good choice if you want a book that you can finish even in one sitting. I found myself thinking about how there are such differences in how we can see success and how unsettling these concerns could be.

Strange Houses by Uketsu

This one definitely is meant to be read by a younger audience who are into solving a good mystery. Strange Houses is written like a series of puzzles and dialogues that let you see curious differences around oddly designed houses. Each chapter feels like a small mystery, which will keep you wanting to read more and see the story until the end.

This book is perfect, even if you just read a chapter and put it down. There is still that satisfaction of getting new information, but at the same time, wanting to know more. It may have that sense of horror in the writing, but this is more than that.

Uketsu is also an interesting storyteller, as I learned that he uses YouTube for his stories. The images in the book definitely lingered, and the idea about our living spaces and their secrets was a refreshing plot to explore.

Fun Fact: I read this in English, while my husband bought a copy of the Japanese book way before. We read them and found that the ending for the English is different from the original ending in the Japanese version. But my husband said that reprints of the revised ending are also available in Japanese. It’s interesting to see this kind of reading experience with translated books.

These three books perfectly fit into my schedule and didn’t leave me disappointed. So, if you are looking to get back into reading, maybe a short Japanese novel or a story collection is the right pick.