Allison Markin Powell

Tsukiko, thirty-eight, works in an office and lives alone. One night she encounters her now retired former high school teacher "Sensei" in a local bar. Despite the 30 year age difference, their relationship develops and grows into love.

"Hiromi Kawakami tells the story of an enigmatic man through the voices of ten remarkable women who have known him. Each woman has succumbed, even if only for an hour, to the seductive, imprudent, and furtively feline man who drifted so naturally into their lives. Still clinging to the vivid memory of his warm breath and his indecipherable silences, ten women tell their stories as they attempt to recreate the image of the unfathomable Nishino."--Publisher...

A young writer is assigned a difficult task by his editor: he is to write an investigative biography of a death row inmate named Yudai Kiharazaka, a thirty-five-year-old photographer who has been convicted of the murders of two women. Kiharazaka's victims--or his "models"--had been burned alive while the photographer tried to capture the perfect picture of their essences. But trying to unearth the truth about Kiharazaka will force the writer to grapple...

"Winner of the Akutagawa Prize, Japan's most prestigious literary award. An unnamed Tokyo taxi driver has experienced a rupture from his everyday life. As he picks up fares that take him through Tokyo's night streets, offering him glimpses into the lives of his passengers, he can't escape his own nihilistic thoughts. Almost without meaning to, he puts himself in harm's way; he can't stop daydreaming of suicide, envisioning himself returning to the...

"Does for mental clutter what Marie Kondo has done for household clutter." —Publishers Weekly
Relax and find happiness amid the swirl of the modern world with this internationally bestselling guide to simplifying your life by the renowned Zen Buddhist author of Don’t Worry.
In clear, practical, easily adopted lessons—one a day for 100 days—renowned Buddhist monk Shunmyo Masuno draws on centuries of wisdom to...

This "gentle, humorous novel" follows a young Japanese woman as she yearns for the love of a reluctant coworker (The Wall Street Journal).
The objects for sale at the Nakano Thrift Shop appear as commonplace as the staff and customers who handle them. But like those staff and customers, they hold many secrets. If examined carefully, they show the signs of innumerable extravagances, of immeasurable pleasure and pain, and of the deep...

"This second half of 'Lady Joker,' by Kaoru Takamura, the Grand Dame of Japanese crime fiction, concludes the breathtaking saga introduced in Volume I. Inspired by the real-life Glico-Morinaga kidnapping, an unsolved case that terrorized Japan for two years, Lady Joker reimagines the circumstances of this watershed episode in modern Japanese history and brings into riveting focus the lives and motivations of the victims, the perpetrators, the heroes...