What are your fave. Japanese books.

[Nothingness]

What are your fave. Japanese books.

Mine are: Musashi, Master Assassin (1 and 2), and books by Laura Joh Rowland: The Sano Ichiro Series. (There is like 10 Books out there)

[mad pierrot]

Bushido, Inazo Nitobe.

(He's the guy on the 5,000 yen Bill.)

[GookanGohan]

My fav book is MUSASHI by Eiji Yoshikawa!!!!! and I also like Memoirs of a Geisha by Aurthor Golden (not written by a Japanese person, but Japanese based story and kick @$$)

[senseiman]

I like the old war stories from the middle ages like the Heike monogatari and the Taiheiki. In more recent works I like Haruki Murakami.

[Citizen]

Musashi is a great book. I also enjoy The Book of Five Rings by Musashi. I want to read The Art Of War, but my friend isn't done with it yet :P

[Gord]

hey, I own the art of war

[sayuri]

Murakami Haruki does kick ***! I love him!
The books i'd recommand would be:
-The wind up bird chronicles
-Norwegian wood
-Sputnik sweetheart
-The elephant vanishes
(all of the above were written by Murakami)

-Kitchen, Yoshimoto Banana (she has written othe short stories and novels, but this one is one of my favourites)

-Twinkle, twinkle, Ekuni Kaori

These were my favourites, but i have read lots of other novels, most of them by japanese authors, but there were few good ones written by americans (about Japan of course). If any of you are interested, i could recommand more books....

[duff_o_josh]

Originally Posted by Citizen

Musashi is a great book. I also enjoy The Book of Five Rings by Musashi. I want to read The Art Of War, but my friend isn't done with it yet :P

and you never will read the art of war... ..my favourite books so far are musashi(even though im only on the third..which ive been stuck on for almost a year now lol)rashomon and of course five rings is awsome. i have diary of a geisha and memoirs of a giesha but i havent read them at all yet...one day

[ashuri2]

musashi is definitely my favorite, esp. the last couple of paragraphs! that's one of the few books i'll never forget!

[orochi]

The Art of War is Chinese...

[kiyo]

Dazai Osamu's The Setting Sun (tr. Keene) and Natsume Soseki's Kokoro (tr. McClellan) are couple of favorites of mine but these are works in modern settings.
Since the original poster's interest seems to be the warring-states(sengoku jidai) period although in retrospect, I'll try to focus there.

Let's see. The historical novelist Shiba Ryotaro certainly counts among my favorite authors, but I don't think any of his works has come out in English yet. The short novel Fukuro no Shiro is a gripping ninja tale during the time of Hideyoshi the tycoon[tai-kun]. This has been made into the film, The Owl's Castle(1999) directed by Shinohara Masahiro, though I've not seen it.

Another fabuolous writer of period pieces is Ryu Keiichiro. One of his unfinished works, the Shinu koto to mitsuketari is about a samurai who prepares himself for death by basically visualizing(image-training) every day on different manners in which he might get killed. This work is based on Hagakure, available in English translation, which is regarded as a bushido textbook of a sort.
The Ichimuan Furyuki is about Maeda Keiji(ro), and it is the novel on which the comic book "Hana no Keiji" by Hara Tetsuo is based. I recently saw an installment of "Hana no Keiji" translated into English, in a magazine similar to the English-language Jump -- but I forgot the exact title. Sorry.
If you can read Japanese, try his Yoshiwara gomenjo and its sequel Kakuresato kugaigyo which concern a bloody history around the founding of the officially sanctioned red light district. Musashi's foster child, Iori (who is the secret child of the Emperor Go-Mizunoo in this story) is recruited to be the protector/bodyguard. The gomenjo is the license letter given by Ieyasu to the kugai (gypsy-like tribes of entertainers and acrobats), which contains something embarassing to the Tokugawa clan, and so the Yagyu is dispatched to seize the letter.