Vintage Classics Japanese Series – serie

'Mishima's greatest novel, and one of the greatest of the past century' The TimesA band of savage thirteen-year-old boys reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical, and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call 'objectivity'. When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship's officer, he and his friends idealise the man at first; but it is not long before they conclude that he is in fact soft and romantic. They regard this disillusionment as an act of betrayal on his part - and the retribution is deliberate and horrifying.VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS - five masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions.

His memory lasts eighty minutes. The bond they form lasts far longer. He is a brilliant maths Professor with a peculiar problem: ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory. She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, hired to care for him. Each morning, the Professor and the Housekeeper must be introduced again. He cannot remember what he had for breakfast, but his mind is still alive with elegant mathematical equations from the past. When the Housekeeper’s son begins visiting after school, the Professor gives him the nickname Root and welcomes him into a world of numbers, baseball, meals and small rituals of care. Ogawa writes with the same clarity and restraint as the equations the Professor loves. This is Japanese literary fiction in its most tender : a novel where mathematics becomes a way of noticing, caring and making a fragile world briefly whole. VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS: five masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions. 'This is one of those books written in such lucid, unpretentious language that reading it is like looking into a deep pool of clear water...Dive into Yoko Ogawa's world and you find yourself tugged by forces more felt than seen' New York Times

Four sisters live under the fading name of an old Osaka family. As modern Japan gathers pace, the Makioka sisters hold fast to custom, family and one another. In the years leading up to the Second World War, four sisters live in dilapidated houses in Osaka and Ashiya, each navigating her own complex relationship to the fading lustre of the Makioka family name. Rich with breathtaking descriptions of ancient customs and an ever-changing natural world, Junichiro Tanizaki evokes in loving detail a long-lost way of life even as it withers under the harsh glare of modernity. At the centre are the sisters themselves, bound by family duty, private longing and the expectations of a social world already passing away. Marriage negotiations, domestic rituals, seasonal beauty and quiet disappointments become part of a larger portrait of change. Tanizaki finds drama in the quiet pressures of domestic life. The sisters’ hopes, compromises and obligations reveal the fading power of an old Osaka family, and the beauty of customs that can no longer fully protect those who live by them. TRANSLATED BY EDWARD SEIDENSTICKER VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS: five masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions. 'An exquisite novel about four sisters living though a turbulent decade...I'd put it in the 10 greatest books of the 20th century' David Mitchell 'A near-perfect novel' Hanya Yanagihara

Enter the surreal and enchanting world of Haruki Murakami.Toru Okada's cat has disappeared. His wife is growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has recently been receiving. As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out. He embarks on a bizarre journey, guided by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell.'Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original' The Times VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS series - five masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions.

In the Tokyo suburbs four women work the graveyard shift at a factory. Burdened with heavy debts, alienated from husbands and children, they all secretly dream of a way out of their dead-end lives. A young mother among them finally cracks and strangles her philandering, gambling husband. She confesses her crime to her colleagues and unexpectedly, they agree to help. But then the dismembered body parts are discovered, the police start asking questions and more dangerous enemies begin to close in.OUT is a psychologically taut and unflinching foray into the darkest recesses of the human soul, an unsettling reminder that the desperate desire for freedom can make the most ordinary person do the unimaginable.'Grimly satisfying - like no one you've ever read before' Kirkus ReviewsVINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS - five masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions.

A beautifully designed special edition of the must-read dystopia from one of Japan's most urgent literary voices. On an unnamed island, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses. . . To the people on the island, a disappeared thing no longer has any meaning. It can be burned in the garden, thrown in the river, or handed over to the Memory Police. Soon enough, the island forgets it ever existed.When a young novelist discovers that her editor is in danger of being taken away by the Memory Police, she desperately wants to save him. For some reason, he doesn't forget, and it's becoming increasingly difficult for him to hide his memories. Who knows what will vanish next?VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS - nine masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions.'Beautiful... Haunting' Sunday Times'This timeless fable of control and loss feels more timely than ever' Guardian 'A dreamlike story of dystopia' Jia TolentinoWHAT READERS ARE SAYING‘I cried. . . cracking ending’ 5* reader review‘I loved it!’ 5* reader review‘A must read’ 5* reader review‘Worth 6 stars… what a novel!’ 5* reader review‘Dark and unsettling - a fantastic read’ 5* reader reviewTRANSLATED BY STEPHEN SNYDER

A beautiful special edition of the haunting, enigmatic love story which is Murakami's bestselling title throughout the world. Autumn 1969, and soon I would be 20.When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire – to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS - nine masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions.‘Such is the exquisite, gossamer construction of Murakami’s writing that everything he chooses to describe trembles with symbolic possibility’ Guardian'Poignant, romantic and hopeless, it beautifully encapsulates the heartbreak and loss of faith' Sunday Times'A masterly novel' New York TimesTRANSLATED BY JAY RUBIN

A luxurious special edition of one of the greatest romances in Japanese literature. Tokyo, 1912. Love blooms in the rule-bound world of Japan's aristocracy. Kiyoaki falls for the exquisite and spirited Satoko. Although he has been raised by an aristocratic family, he does not belong in this world as she does. As the world around them changes and traditional powers wane, Kiyoaki is torn between the old and the new. Only when Satoko becomes engaged to a royal prince does Kiyoaki realise the magnitude of his passion.‘An austere love story, probably my favourite of his novels’ David MitchellVINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS - nine masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions.TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL GALLAGHER