10 must-read Japanese books: the essential list, and what level of Japanese each one needs

TL;DR: These ten books span the eleventh century to 2020, from The Tale of Genji through
to the contemporary Japanese fiction now filling UK translation charts. In English, all of them
are readable. In Japanese, they aren’t. The easiest by some distance is Before the Coffee
Gets Cold, while the hardest is The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and for most of them no
learner edition exists at all. The table below rates every book on both counts and tells you
which ones have furigana.

Reading Japanese literature is a great entrance into understanding more of the country’s
culture and rich heritage. However, it is a challenge even to more experienced students of
Japanese. This list works on two levels: the books worth reading in English translation, and
how hard each one is to read in the original Japanese. The table below covers both,
alongside the translator, the page count and whether a furigana edition exists.


The 10 books

A note on names: we have used given name first throughout, as English-language
publishers do, with two exceptions that are always written the other way round. Natsume
Sōseki’s family name is Natsume, and Murasaki Shikibu is a court nickname rather than the
author’s personal name.


1. コンビニ人間 Konbini ningen — Convenience Store Woman,
Sayaka Murata

Convenience Store Woman is the one book on this list that genuinely serves both advanced
and early readers. Famous enough to justify reading in English, it is also the most
approachable full literary novel we tested in Japanese, at 3,751 unique words. It won the
Akutagawa Prize in 2016 and has since sold over two million copies in more than 30
languages.

There is no furigana in the book, but it remains accessible for those with a strong level of
Japanese. It is also a key book for those who still want to read in English.

The book starts with a simple premise. A 36-year-old remains happily employed at the
convenience store where she has worked for 18 years. She carefully copies the speech and
behaviour of her colleagues. However, problems arise when friends and relatives pressure
her to find a husband and pursue a supposedly respectable career.


2. コーヒーが冷めないうちに Kōhī ga samenai uchi ni — Before
the Coffee Gets Cold, Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is a book with a fascinating premise. Customers in a Tokyo
café can travel into the past under a peculiar set of rules. They cannot leave their seat, their
actions will not change the present, and they must return before their coffee becomes cold.
Toshikazu Kawaguchi uses this premise to tell four connected and emotional stories.

Kawaguchi has since expanded the series to five follow-up books, all set in the same café.

Importantly for those who want to learn the language, this is the easiest book on the list to
read in Japanese. The average sentence runs to just 21.1 words, which keeps it
manageable.

Nielsen BookScan figures published by the Booker Prize Foundation make Before the
Coffee Gets Cold, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot, the best-selling work of translated
fiction in the UK in both 2022 and 2023.


3. ノルウェイの森 — Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami

Norwegian Wood is not a small novel. Some Japanese learners are put off by the size of the
book alone. Despite running to over 120,000 words, its average sentence length is a
manageable 25.1. This means that the book does carry challenges, but it is still very much
readable for learners.

The plot introduces us to Toru Watanabe. He hears the Beatles song “Norwegian Wood” and
is transported back to his student years in late-1960s Tokyo. His memories centre on two
very different women: the emotionally vulnerable Naoko (the former girlfriend of his late best
friend) and the lively, outspoken Midori.

Jay Rubin’s translation, the authorised international edition, is widely available for those
wanting to read Norwegian Wood in English. Alfred Birnbaum’s 1989 translation was only
ever sold in Japan and has since been discontinued.

4. 密やかな結晶 Hisoyaka na kesshō — The Memory Police,
Yōko Ogawa (1994)

Yōko Ogawa published 密やかな結晶 (Hisoyaka na kesshō) in Japan in 1994. It did not
appear in English until Stephen Snyder’s translation was published in 2019. That 25-year
delay is striking given the novel’s later international success. It was shortlisted for the 2020
International Booker Prize and was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for
Translated Literature.

The book is set on an island where objects regularly disappear. The inhabitants then lose
their memories of it, while the feared Memory Police ensure that no forbidden traces remain.

It is a challenging read, but not beyond anyone tackling it in the original Japanese. Equally,
the premise is fascinating enough that it warrants reading in translation.


5. —こころ Kokoro, Natsume Sōseki (serialised 20 April – 11
Aug 1914)

Kokoro was originally serialised between 20 April and 11 August 1914, and has several
competing translations. The canonical edition by Edwin McClellan (1957) is still in print with
Pushkin Press. Meredith McKinney also published a translation with Penguin Classics in
2010.

The grading on the jpdb scale is 66/100. However, Kokoro is not challenging because of its
vocabulary. It is hard because Sōseki writes long sentences, averaging 29.2 words, over a
relatively small vocabulary. That’s a different problem from not knowing the kanji.

There are many reasons this is one of the best-selling novels of all time in Japan. A young
student becomes fascinated by an isolated older man whom he calls Sensei. Their initially
reserved friendship develops slowly. However, Sensei remains burdened by a dark secret,
which unfolds as the novel progresses, drawing in themes of guilt, responsibility and both
Japanese and Confucian philosophy.


6. 人間失格 Ningen shikkaku — No Longer Human, Osamu
Dazai (1948)

This is another book with multiple translations for those who want to read it in English:
Donald Keene 1958 (New Directions, 176pp), Mark Gibeau 2018, Juliet Winters Carpenter
2024 (Tuttle), plus a version from David Boyd expected from Penguin Classics in 2027.

This is not an easy book for those who don’t have a high level of Japanese. It contains 4,887
unique words, which is manageable, but the average sentence length of 40.4 words is not.
Manga adaptations are considerably easier going. Junji Ito’s version sits at L33, roughly N2,
against L41 for the novel itself. It is worth knowing that manga, light novels and literary fiction
are three different registers with three different furigana conventions, so they aren’t
interchangeable as practice material. However, reading the manga edition first could make
the novel more accessible for early readers.

No Longer Human draws heavily on elements of Osamu Dazai’s own troubled life, although
it remains a work of fiction. The main character, Yozo Oba, maintains a jovial façade, which
eventually leads to his alienation from society and inability to understand the people around
him.


7. 雪国 Yukiguni — Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata (final
form 1948)

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata is a short novel at only 31,711 words, which makes it
appear approachable. Early readers should not be deceived. It scores 71/100 on jpdb, which
gives it the highest difficulty per length of anything here apart from Kinkakuji.

The novel is also available in English with a translation by Edward G. Seidensticker. It is
regarded as an important novel in the landscape of Japanese literature and one of the three
works the Nobel Committee cited in awarding Kawabata the 1968 Prize. It is one of the most
influential Japanese books in translation.

The story centres on a wealthy man named Shimamura, who travels from Tokyo to a remote
mountain town to enjoy the hot springs. Despite being married, he pursues a relationship
with a geisha named Komako and becomes infatuated with a young woman called Yoko.

8. 源氏物語 Genji monogatari — The Tale of Genji, Murasaki
Shikibu (c. 1010)

This novel takes us centuries back in time. It is a challenging read due to the use of
Classical Japanese. The Tale of Genji was written in the early eleventh century by Murasaki
Shikibu (c. 978 – c. 1014). Britannica puts its completion at about 1010.

There are modern retellings of the book and multiple English translations that are much
more accessible. Royall Tyler’s edition is the one to buy if you want the poetry, and Edward
Seidensticker’s if you want to follow and enjoy a fast-moving plot. Seidensticker’s version,
published in 1976, was the first complete English translation. Arthur Waley’s edition,
published between 1925 and 1933, still has the larger reputation, but it omits chapter 38
entirely.

A full-furigana modern retelling exists (講談社青い鳥文庫) and this may be another option for
those trying to get their head around it.

The story follows the life and relationships of Hikaru Genji, the gifted son of an emperor. The
narrative of this large novel also follows later generations of aristocrats at the imperial court.
Alongside the plot, it is also a clever depiction of courtly life in the Heian period.

9. 砂の女 Suna no onna — The Woman in the Dunes, Kōbō
Abe (1962)

Suna no onna is a tricky book for anyone who is not a native speaker. It won the 1962
Yomiuri Prize and was turned into a film in 1964 (directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara), which
won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes. It’s a challenging but rewarding read and a translation
by E. Dale Saunders is also available through Penguin’s Modern Classics.

The novel follows an amateur entomologist named Niki Jumpei who travels to a remote
coastal region in search of insects and misses the final bus home. Local villagers offer him
accommodation in a house at the bottom of a sand pit. He discovers that a woman spends
every night shovelling sand to prevent the building from being buried. He soon figures out
that the villagers do not intend to let him leave.

10. 金閣寺 Kinkakuji — The Temple of the Golden Pavilion,
Yukio Mishima (1956)

English readers might find the translation by Ivan Morris to be the accessible way to enjoy
this book. The Japanese version contains 11,145 unique words and has a jpdb rating of
78/100, the highest of all eighteen titles we tested. It is a demanding novel for those who do
not have a fluent or native level of Japanese.

The story is based on the real 1950 arson of Kinkaku-ji. Mishima visited the arsonist in
prison while writing the novel, turning the historical crime into an examination of envy and
desire. It is a challenging read for early learners.


Which of these can you actually read in Japanese?

If your goal is to read Japanese classics in the original, the honest answer is that this list is likely to be a challenge. Eight of these ten are rated N1 or above, and the two that are not are both from the last decade. The most approachable of all these books is Before the Coffee Gets Cold. It is in the N3 band and the easiest of the eighteen titles we reviewed. It suits readers who do not yet consider themselves fluent but want to start reading Japanese literature.

Convenience Store Woman is second on the list. It is accessible and very well reviewed. We also see Norwegian Wood as a realistic option. Although it is long (122,390 words), it suits readers who want something both accessible and challenging.

Reading texts is an important part of learning any language. Plenty of people learn a language because they want to enjoy the literature and media that country offers. Forcing yourself through something beyond your current level is rarely the best option. It is usually better to pick something you are confident you can finish.

The difficulty with many of these books is often syntax rather than vocabulary. No Longer Human uses just 4,887 unique words, which sounds manageable, until you discover an average sentence length of 40.4 words. Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters averages 60.6 words per sentence, and all its dialogue is in Senba-kotoba, the Osaka merchant dialect. If you can read the words and still can’t understand the book, this is usually why.

Another hurdle to consider is that everything written before 1945 on this list is rated at N1 or beyond, and of the eighteen titles we tested, Sōseki’s I Am a Cat came out hardest of all.

Furigana, the small kana printed above kanji to show pronunciation, makes a real difference to whether you can get through a Japanese novel. It’s also largely missing from the books on this list. We checked eighteen canonical titles for a furigana edition or a Japanese-language graded reader, and for thirteen of them neither exists. To confirm those absences rather than assume them, we reviewed all 1,868 entries in the 講談社青い鳥文庫 catalogue. The comfortable assumption is that a famous novel will have a learner edition somewhere. For
thirteen of the eighteen we checked, it doesn’t.

The IBC Ladder Series is often recommended as a Japanese graded reader, but it is not. It is a series of graded readers in English, published for Japanese people learning English, and its Japanese-classics line is a “read the story in easy English first” on-ramp rather than a way to read the original. The actual Japanese-language equivalent is the NPO 多言語多読 graded reader collection, and these ten titles do not appear in it.

What the JLPT levels actually mean for reading novels

The figures below come from the pre-2010 grade-based specification, which is still hosted on
jlpt.jp. They are not, and have never been, official requirements for the current N1–N5
system.

The JLPT publishes no kanji list, no vocabulary list and no study-hours guidance for any of
its five levels, and its official FAQ explains why: “We believe that the ultimate goal of
studying Japanese is to use the language to communicate rather than simply memorizing
vocabulary, kanji and grammar items.”

So where does “N5 is 100 kanji and 800 words” come from? Every figure of that kind traces
back to the pre-2010 specification, when the exam ran on four grades numbered 1 級 to 4 級
rather than five levels numbered N1 to N5. Those old numbers get re-badged onto the new
levels and repeated. N3 is the clearest evidence of it, because N3 has no official numbers of
any kind. The level didn’t exist before 2010, so there’s no old specification to borrow from.

Source: the pre-2010 grade-based specification, still hosted on jlpt.jp (p.3).
The official FAQ confirms that no lists are published. The official level summaries contain no
numbers at all.

Even reaching N1 does not automatically make every Japanese novel easy. Literary texts
may use uncommon expressions, dialect, classical grammar or unusually long sentences.
Recognising individual kanji is also different from processing them quickly within complex
prose.

Japan’s official list of characters for everyday use, the jōyō kanji, contains 2,136 entries.
That figure was set by Cabinet Notification No. 2 of 30 November 2010, which added 196
characters to the previous list of 1,945, and it has not changed since. The Agency for
Cultural Affairs still publishes the list in that form. A separate list, the 1,026 kyōiku kanji
taught across the six years of primary school, has been in effect since 1 April 2020.

Memrise focuses on building vocabulary for beginners. The course is not formally JLPT-
rated, but sits at roughly N2 level.


Japanese fiction is having a moment - here are the numbers

Many Japanese novels have made a profound impact around the world. In the UK, we see
more bookshops stocking translated Japanese novels. Nielsen BookScan figures reported
by the Guardian in November 2024 put Japanese titles at 43% of the top 40 works of
translated fiction sold in the UK that year, led by Asako Yuzuki’s Butter. The same figures
put Japanese fiction at 25% of all translated fiction sales in the UK in 2022. Out of roughly
two million translated-fiction volumes sold in Britain that year, Japanese was the single most
popular source language at just under half a million, excluding manga.

It is not only Japanese fiction that is growing. Sales of translated texts in the UK rose 22% in
2022 on the year before. What’s distinctive is who’s buying: under 35s account for almost
half of all translated fiction sales, against a 31% share of the fiction market overall.

More than half of the best-selling Japanese titles of 2024 fell into the comfort or “healing”
category. This includes books that focus on cosy or comforting scenes and incidents: cats,
cafés, second chances.


Where to start

If you want to read one of these books in Japanese rather than in English, start with Before
the Coffee Gets Cold. Murakami is the usual recommendation, and it is the wrong one for a
first Japanese novel in Japanese: Norwegian Wood runs to 122,390 words, and length is
what defeats learners far more often than difficulty does.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is perhaps the best starting point if you want to read in
Japanese. The book is very well reviewed and engaging. It is also not overly challenging for
those who are looking to test themselves by reading one of the best Japanese novels
exactly as the author intended. It also falls under the “healing” genre, where characters have
a second chance to change their lives in the cosy setting of a café.

Many readers also consider Sōseki essential. His work isn’t the easiest way in, but his
impact on Japanese literature is undeniable.

Reading is just one part of the skill of learning a language. Native-speaker video clips can
provide the bridge between recognising a word and understanding it spoken. Memrise has
over 600 different videos that can provide people with a solid knowledge of how the words
are actually used in spoken conversation.



Frequently asked questions

What is the most famous Japanese book?

The Tale of Genji is the usual answer, and for good reason. Murasaki Shikibu wrote it in the
early eleventh century (Britannica puts its completion at about 1010), which makes it older
than almost any comparable work anywhere. It is often described as the world’s first
psychological novel, though that claim is genuinely contested among scholars. For modern
books, Norwegian Wood and Convenience Store Woman are also strong options.

Where should I start with Japanese literature?
Start with Before the Coffee Gets Cold if you want something that is contemporary, short and
immediately readable. If you want a canonical, classical text, then Sōseki’s Kokoro is one of
the best-selling novels in Japanese history and it is the book most Japanese readers have
actually read. Both are widely available in English, and neither requires any background in
Japanese literature to follow.

What level of Japanese do you need to read a novel?
Around N2 for a contemporary novel, and even that is a starting point rather than a
comfortable one. A small number of accessible titles suit an N3 reader, including Before the
Coffee Gets Cold. Most pre-war literary fiction is rated at level N1 or above. Be aware that
the JLPT publishes no official vocabulary or kanji figures for any level, so those bands
describe capability rather than a word count.

Which Japanese novel is easiest to read in Japanese?
Of the eighteen titles we reviewed, Before the Coffee Gets Cold is the easiest, rated L26 on
Learn Natively’s crowd-graded scale (approximately level N3) across 112 gradings. Its
average sentence runs to 21.1 words. Convenience Store Woman is next, with 373 gradings
behind it and the smallest vocabulary of any title we checked, at just 3,751 unique words.

Has a Japanese book ever won the International Booker Prize?
No Japanese-language book has ever won it. Three have been shortlisted and lost: Yōko
Ogawa’s The Memory Police in 2020, Mieko Kawakami’s Heaven in 2022, and Hiromi
Kawakami’s Under the Eye of the Big Bird in 2025. Saou Ichikawa’s Hunchback and
Kenzaburō Ōe’s Death by Water were longlisted only, in 2025 and 2016.

Do Japanese novels have furigana?
Most Japanese novels do not have furigana. Furigana is standard in children’s books, in
manga aimed at younger readers and in dedicated learner editions, but standard adult
editions of literary fiction generally print kanji unglossed. We checked eighteen canonical
titles for a furigana edition or a Japanese graded reader and found neither for thirteen of
them. If you are relying on furigana, your reading list is much shorter than the famous-books
lists suggest.

Is Haruki Murakami the best place to start?
In English, Haruki Murakami is arguably the best author to start with. Norwegian Wood is
approachable, and it is the book that made him famous outside Japan. However, if you are
reading in Japanese then the answer is no. At 122,390 words it is a long first novel to
attempt, even though its average sentence length of 25.1 words is manageable and its Learn
Natively rating of L31 puts it around N2. Start with Before the Coffee Gets Cold instead.