The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories

I don’t like the difficulty with the names of people and things but I’ll get over it because I really want to get into the Japanese way and understand it. Their culture is so beautiful!

This a wonderful collection of short stories and the editor (Jay Rubin) did a good job of organizing the short stories into various categories. Murakami Haruki did a good job with his introduction (as well as his two short stories included). I read this on my I phone normally waiting while my wife shopped or I had a few moments to kill waiting for someone. I had no problem reading the e version of the stories. As another reviewer stated there is no need to read these stories in order (and in fact I did not do this I picked stories at first based on length and interest from the title). I enjoyed reading these stories and highly recommend this collection.

Stories with marvelous twists and turns. Some good, some surprising, some bad. The good and surprising make up for the bad. I loved reading about the impact of the Atom bomb on the lives of those who lived during that horrendously dark time in humanity. It gave me a real feeling of what innocent people went through because of the arrogance of those in power, and a sense of sadness that it is hardly mentioned in the west since it happened, almost like a non event. It is a pity that history like this is not taught in schools.

You don't need to read this from beginning to end. It is not a conventional collection of stories that should be rushed through. You can read the stories of this book in any order. Take your time. Jay Rubin did an excellent job editing this collection using interesting topic headings such as: NATURE AND MEMORY, MODERN LIFE AND OTHER NONSENSE, and DREAD. Murakami has written a worthy and interesting introduction. Excellent book!

If you want to get your feet wet reading Japanese authors, this is a good place to start. Although the lion's share of stories are those translated by Jay Rubin, there is enough translated by others to give a well-rounded look at what is available out there in the world of Japanese fiction. From here, the sky is the limit!

always love that book of short stories for my short attention span...this book really hit the spot

Maybe others are interested in reading all the gory details of ritual suicide. Not I. Only one story interesting. Translation is difficult

This volume deserves a prize for its design, which is gorgeous, My only problem is lack of general knowledge of modern Japanese literature, which it illustrates, albeit In piecemeal fashion. One can work through it, to one’s profit.

Para conhecer um pouco do Japão antigo

This book was great, it's unlikely you'll find any story inside this book that will make your heart melt, and say to yourself 'what an amazing book' , The attraction for me towards this book is the overall style of Japanese stories, there is no forceful desire to make the stories interesting, each story is laid down as it is, meant to convey an event that occurred or emotions of the characters of each story. It's rare to find books like these, each story in it was polished, yet at the same time, didnt feel forceful in trying to make them interesting.I read the stories during my time off work each day, just to relax and soothe my mind, if you read in between the lines and give each story some thought in your free time, you'll realize each story in it is meant to convey a set of morals and experiences. I'd go through my day and sometimes find it funny how some stories would overlap with moments in my life. I'm glad I grabbed this book. The translations are well done.If you do buy it, dont forget to read the long foreword in it by Jay Rubin and Haruki Murakami before you start !

Love these short stories, great variety of stories and writers. The one on the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima is so powerful and horrific.

Love this book!

Das sind ausnahmslos interessante, spannende, unterhaltsame Kurzgeschichten. Lohnende Lektüre.