A spiky, edgy collection of five wickedly funny stories spotlighting clear-eyed and “difficult” women who are navigating their identities as workers and women in contemporary Japan—a feminist, anti-capitalist modern classic published outside Asia and in English for the first time. The Dilemmas of Working Women is Fumio Yamamoto’s darkly witty look at modern Japanese women who are ambivalent about their lives and jobs. In “Naked,” a woman who’s simultaneously lost her business and her husband finds that it is surprisingly comfortable to stay at home sewing stuffed animals, even if it makes her a “loser” in the eyes of society. In “Planarian,” a young woman recovering from breast cancer tells her friends and boyfriend that she would prefer to be the titular worm to organically regenerate her body. Each of these spiky women—as well as the three other protagonists in this groundbreaking work—chafes against social expectations that equate work with worth and demand women squeeze into the confining and sometimes dehumanizing role of employee in a world built by and for men. First published in Japan in 2000, The Dilemmas of Working Women struck a nerve with Japanese readers and became a bestselling literary sensation, selling nearly half a million copies and winning the prestigious Naoki Prize in Literature. A quarter of a century later, this brilliant modern classic—available for the first time outside Asia and in English—remains deliciously funny and astonishingly relevant.

From the nationally bestselling author of the “powerful, heartbreaking” (Shelf Awareness) The Stationery Shop, a heartfelt, epic new novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran. In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation. Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.” But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives. Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences. Written with Marjan Kamali’s signature “evocative, devastating, and hauntingly beautiful” (Whitney Scharer, author of The Age of Light) prose, The Lion Women of Tehran is a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young, and the way love and courage transforms our lives.

From acclaimed Japanese author Sanaka Hiigari comes a heartwarming, life-affirming novel about a magical photo studio, where people go after they die to view key moments from their life—and relive one precious memory before they pass into the afterlife. The hands and pendulum of the old wooden clock on the wall were motionless. Hirasaka cocked his head to listen, but the silence inside the photo studio was almost deafening. His leather shoes sank softly into the aging red carpet as he strode over to the arrangement of flowers on the counter and carefully adjusted the angle of the petals…This is the story of the peculiar and magical photo studio owned by Mr. Hirasaka, a collector of antique cameras. In the dimly lit interior, a paper background is pulled down in front of a wall, and in front of it stands a single, luxurious chair with an armrest on one side. On a stand is a large bellows camera. On the left is the main studio; photos can also be taken in the courtyard. Beyond its straightforward interior, however, is a secret. The studio is, in fact, the door to the afterlife, the place between life and death where those who have departed have a chance—one last time—to see their entire life flash before their eyes via Mr. Hirasaka’s “spinning lantern of memories.” We meet Hatsue, a ninety-two year old woman who worked as a nursery teacher, the rowdy Waniguchi, a yakuza overseer in his life who is also capable of great compassion, and finally Mitsuru, a young girl who has died tragically young at the hands of abusive parents. Sorting through the many photos of their lives, Mr. Hirasaka also offers guests a second gift: a chance to travel back in time to take a photo of one particular moment in their lives that they wish to cherish in a special way. Full of charm and whimsy, The Lantern of Lost Memories will sweep you away to a world of nostalgia, laughter, and love.

Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Emperor, Kazu’s life is tied by a series of coincidences to Japan’s Imperial family and to one particular spot in Tokyo; the park near Ueno Station – the same place his unquiet spirit now haunts in death. It is here that Kazu’s life in Tokyo began, as a labourer in the run up to the 1964 Olympics, and later where he ended his days, living in the park’s vast homeless ‘villages’, traumatised by the destruction of the 2011 tsunami and enraged by the announcement of the 2020 Olympics. Akutagawa-award-winning author Yū Miri uses her outsider’s perspective as a Zainichi (Korean-Japanese) writer to craft a novel of utmost importance to this moment, a powerful rebuke to the Imperial system and a sensitive, deeply felt depiction of the lives of Japan’s most vulnerable people.

Not long after Ougai Mori takes the reins of the Port Mafia, his right-hand man, Osamu Dazai, has a nasty run-in with a gravity manipulator named Chuuya Nakahara, leader of the Sheep gang. However, with ominous rumors about Mori’s deceased predecessor as well as the mysterious being called Arahabaki spreading throughout Yokohama, the duo must put aside their differences and get to the bottom of things. Before they achieved infamy as the fearsome pair Twin Dark, Dazai and Chuuya were just boys. Was their first encounter a harbinger of hope or an ill omen of things to come…?

The lonely, rockbound island of Tsunojima is notorious as the site of a series of bloody unsolved murders. Some even say it’s haunted. One thing’s for sure: it’s the perfect destination for the K-University Mystery Club’s annual trip. But when the first club member turns up dead, the remaining amateur sleuths realise they will need all of their murder-mystery expertise to get off the island alive. As the party are picked off one by one, the survivors grow desperate and paranoid, turning on each other. Will anyone be able to untangle the murderer’s fiendish plan before it’s too late?

Not long after Ougai Mori takes the reins of the Port Mafia, his right-hand man, Osamu Dazai, has a nasty run-in with a gravity manipulator named Chuuya Nakahara, leader of the Sheep gang. However, with ominous rumors about Mori’s deceased predecessor as well as the mysterious being called Arahabaki spreading throughout Yokohama, the duo must put aside their differences and get to the bottom of things. Before they achieved infamy as the fearsome pair Twin Dark, Dazai and Chuuya were just boys. Was their first encounter a harbinger of hope or an ill omen of things to come…?

「文豪ストレイドッグス BEAST」入場者特典は書き下ろし小説「太宰を拾った日」

Doppo Kunikida is an idealist and a straitlaced detective at the Armed Detective Agency, an organization that takes on dangerous jobs even the police won't handle. Everything in his life is going just as he's planned...until one day, he's paired up with the agency's newest hire: a suspicious, eccentric, suicide-obsessed man named Osamu Dazai. Their first case together turns out to be far more complicated than Kunikida anticipated—and it looks like the detective agency's sworn enemy, the Port Mafia, is somehow involved, too! Set two years before the events of the manga series, this is the tale of how two seemingly incompatible personalities end up forming the partnership that has made them one of Yokohama's top detective duos!

Before joining the Armed Detective Agency, Osamu Dazai was the youngest executive with the Port Mafia, the most notorious underground crime syndicate in all of Yokohama. When one of their colleagues suddenly goes missing, Dazai and fellow Port Mafia member Sakunosuke Oda are tasked with conducting an investigation...and at last, the reason why Dazai parted ways with the Port Mafia is revealed!

It’s been roughly one year since Chuya Nakahara joined the Port Mafia, and he’s got his sights set on an executive position. But as he makes plans to move up, a man by the name of Paul Verlaine—claiming to be his younger brother—appears and vows to assassinate everyone he cares about! Now, Chuya must team up with Adam, a European A.I. investigator, to stop this lunatic before the storm swallows Yokohama once again… 

What if the Port Mafia’s Hellhound, Ryuunosuke Akutagawa, had joined the Armed Detective Agency? Likewise, what if Atsushi Nakajima belonged to the Port Mafia? In the parallel world of Bungo Stray Dogs: Beast, fledgling detective Akutagawa’s desperate mission to rescue his younger sister from the Port Mafia’s clutches brings him face-to-face with the organization’s fearsome White Reaper...a.k.a. Atsushi Nakajima. What does fate have in store for the two beasts in this alternate tale of darkness versus light...?

Not long after Ougai Mori takes the reins of the Port Mafia, his right-hand man, Osamu Dazai, has a nasty run-in with a gravity manipulator named Chuuya Nakahara, leader of the Sheep gang. However, with ominous rumors about Mori’s deceased predecessor as well as the mysterious being called Arahabaki spreading throughout Yokohama, the duo must put aside their differences and get to the bottom of things. Before they achieved infamy as the fearsome pair Twin Dark, Dazai and Chuuya were just boys. Was their first encounter a harbinger of hope or an ill omen of things to come…?

For fans of The Midnight Library and Before the Coffee Gets Cold, this charming Japanese novel shows how the perfect book recommendation can change a reader's life.What are you looking for? This is the famous question routinely asked by Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. Like most librarians, Komachi has read every book lining her shelves—but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of her library guests. For anyone who walks through her door, Komachi can sense exactly what they’re looking for in life and provide just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it. Each visitor comes to her library from a different juncture in their careers and dreams, from the restless sales attendant who feels stuck at her job to the struggling working mother who longs to be a magazine editor. The conversation that they have with Sayuri Komachi—and the surprise book she lends each of them—will have life-altering consequences. With heartwarming charm and wisdom, What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is a paean to the magic of libraries, friendship and community, perfect for anyone who has ever found themselves at an impasse in their life and in need of a little inspiration.