Shopping - Gavin Kramer

This is absolutely my favourite "Japan novel". A brilliant look at East-West culture shock and the extremes of acceptance and rejection, Shopping is essential reading for anyone who's ever found themselves wondering why Japanese taxi drivers wear white gloves. Genius.
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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

If you're looking to get into Japanese literature but you're not sure what to expect, start here. This superb book is complex, fascinating, tense and beautiful - possibly the best work of (dare I say it?) Japan's greatest living novellist. Highly recommended.
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A Wild Sheep Chase : A Novel - Haruki Murakami

Trademark Murakami: nameless narrator, bizarre characters, surreal situations, unfathomable quests. And a sheep with a strange mark on its back. Electrifying, fantastical and brilliant.

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South of the Border, West of the Sun - Haruki Murakami

I don't normally read "love stories" (never enough car chases), but Murakami takes what should be formulaic and makes it his own. Melancholy and quietly moving.
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Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami

To be perfectly honest, I didn't really like this one. But you might. It was the first Murakami I read, and I'm thinking maybe I ought to go back and give it a second chance. See Amazon for a proper review.
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Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto

Actually two short stories rolled together, combining to form a sad, sentimental look at loneliness and loss.
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Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids - Kenzaburo Oe

A real wake-up call after the mysticism of Murakami or the sentimentality of Kitchen. The story of a group of young offenders left to fend for themselves during World War II, this tale is bleak, harrowing and powerful. Highly recommended.
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Number9dream - David Mitchell

It doesn't quite live up to the promise of his phenomenal debut novel, Ghostwritten (Amazon.com / .co.uk / .co.jp), but this is still a spellbinding story, riddled with dream sequences, homages to cyberpunk, and ten-pin-bowling zakuza gangsters. The plot collapses a little under its own weight near the end, but engrossing nevertheless.
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Coin Locker Babies - Ryu Murakami

Dark and dramatic introduction to the work of the other Murakami.
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