100 Books Like Fodor's Essential Japan

Lonely Planet guidebooks are almost always the first guides I buy when traveling to a new country.

I read through one almost as if I am reading a novel, taking notes about the places I want to visit and things I’d like to do. That said, the books can be overwhelming simply because they attempt to do so much.

The densely-packed design also doesn’t succeed as well as Fodor’s Essential Japan. Especially if this is your first trip, this is an excellent additional resource—but again, because of its weight you will probably want to leave it at home and take a lighter reference on your actual trip.

For booking hotels and finding transportation details, you’ll probably do better using more up-to-date and extensive internet resources.

If you find traditional guidebooks overwhelming (and I do!), this nice little primer is a great way to get your feet wet thinking about your Japanese adventure.

Unlike the weightier guidebooks mentioned above, this one picks out a more select group of sightseeing recommendations. For each one, the authors provide a nice bit of background along with details you need to know.

The book is highly readable and unconfusing, and having taken my teen daughter to Japan myself, I would recommend this for kids to read before a trip. It won’t answer every question, but will help point you in the right directions.

Even though the author remains conspicuously unidentified in this book, I found the tale of her and her husband’s two-week trip oddly intriguing.

This was the first book I read ahead of my own Japan adventure, and it attempts to be both a travel log and recommendation guide. While the recommendations seem a bit limited, I enjoyed reading about the author’s specific adventures and it definitely gave me some ideas about what my daughter and I might like to do in Japan.

It won’t replace any of the above books, but is a nice additional option if you have the time and inclination.

If you intend to travel Japan by rail—and who isn’t—this can be a tempting choice.

The book attempts to duplicate the kind of detail found in Fodor’s and Lonely Planet guides above, and largely succeeds, giving both historical context and transportation details on a wide selection of destinations.

As its title suggests, it heavily focuses on train routes, timetables, passes, costs, and other public transportation information. Especially if you are a rail buff, you will soak this up, but for the average traveler it can be a bit much.

Just as important, a lot of these details change frequently. I read the 4th edition of this book, but a newer edition is available. Even that, though, probably has been outpaced by recent changes in costs for Japan Rail Passes and other details. A good choice for the at-home library, but use the internet for the latest costs and timetables.

The Woman in the Dunes (Suna No Onna, Sand Woman) was a 1962 novel written by Kobo Abe. The story is about an amateur entomologist who ends up as a forced partner to a recently widowed woman living at the bottom of a sand dune. The story, of course, goes far deeper than that.

While reading the book I recalled the Tottori Sand Dunes on Japan’s West Coast, one of the most surprising landscapes in the island nation. After reading the book and visiting Tottori I watched the 1964 film adaption of the book directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara and starring Eiji Okada and Kyoko Kishida. It is one of the few instances where the film is at least equal to or perhaps surpasses the book version. I highly recommend first reading both books then watching the films to see how skillfully the written word can be converted… show more.

Yasunari Kawabata was the first Japanese author to ever win the Nobel Prize in Literature – and Snow Country is a perfect example of why he did.

It’s the simple tale of a Tokyo businessman who meets a geisha when he takes a trip to a rural onsen (hot springs) town. It’s a melancholy tale, and you feel for the geisha and her harrowing circumstance much more than the Tokyoite.

It’s also a slim book, but one with beautiful descriptions of the snow. You can read it in one sitting, but it will stick with you long after.

Tokyo, Form and Spirit was the catalogue for an exhibition at the Walker Center in 1986 with contributions of the most important Japanese urban writers of the 1990s: Henry Smith, Kenneth Frampton, Donald Richie, Marc Treib, Chris Fawcett to name but a few. While I never saw the exhibition, the perspective of the authors created a mental scaffolding that shaped my understanding of the transition from the feudal to modern Japan. Henry

Smith is reading the city of Edo through a bipartite scheme characterized by the sky and the water, or how the city was viewed differently from above, as incarnated by the gaze of the samurai and other authorities, and from below, typically by the commoners who enjoyed life across the city’s waterways. He then searches for this structure in today’s Tokyo where the city’s skyline is dominated by wirescape and high-rise edifices, and the water has almost evaded.… show more.

Imagine you are a respected member of the literary establishment, a prize-winning novelist, and, a rare thing in Japan, a devout Christian. A man like the real Shusaku Endo, in fact. Suddenly, rumors start circulating that you have been seen frequently in a raunchy part of town, partying into the wee wee hours with hookers and taking women to love hotels. You catch glimpses of a strange face at various events. It is your own face but wearing a horrible lewd sneer. Who is this person? What is going on? Endo has come up with a taut psychological thriller that explores the deep contradictions of the human heart. As well as being a Christian, Endo is a leading expert on the Marquis de Sade.

The mother of all otaku guides was published by current Otaku USA magazine’s honcho Macias and famous otaku writer Machiyama and reflects their tastes and idiosyncratic approach to the subject. Admittedly, you can find better, more complete, and updated otaku travel guides now (e.g. my book… wink wink) but this colorful book has a funky turn-of-the-century design and features things that you will hardly find elsewhere, like interviews with Mandarake owner Masuzo Furukawa, magazine editor Hisanori Nukata (about action figures), past cosplay queen Jan Kurotaki and Japan’s most notorious plastic model kit collector Chimatsuri. It’s a wonderful blast from the past.

Though non-fiction, Whiting’s romp through the secret history of post-war Japan is more eye-popping than most novels. The “hero” is a rogue called Nick the Greek who brought pizza to Japan, amongst other more nefarious accomplishments. I myself knew Nick, loved his thick crust Margherita and believed at least half his stories of gangster showdowns, heists, and con jobs. They don’t make them like that anymore - thank God.