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Japanese Healing Fiction

Japanese healing fiction is a genre of Japanese literature that’s meant to soothe, comfort, and emotionally heal readers. These stories are designed to bring a sense of peace, hope, and emotional restoration.

Dinner at the Night Library

by Hika Harada

The Night Library is no ordinary library. Within it are found the rarest and most unusual collections - the books of deceased famous writers: the books they wrote; the books that inspired them; the books they loved. All Otaha Higuchi wants to do is work with books. However, the exhausting nature of her work at a chain bookstore, combined with her paltry salary and irritating manager quickly bring reality crashing down around her. She is on the verge of quitting when she receives a message from somebody anonymous, inviting her to apply for a job at 'The Night Library. There, Otoha meets the other staff, a group of likeminded literary misfits, including a legendary chef who prepares incredible meals for the library's employees at the end of each day. Night after night, she bonds with her colleagues over meals in the café, each of which are inspired by the literature on the shelves. But as strange occurrences start happening around the library that may bring the threat of its closure, Otaha and her friends fear that the peace they have found there will forever be lost to them. Will their faith in the value of books strong enough to save it? And what will remain if it isn't?

What You Are Looking for Is in the Library

by Michiko Aoyama

For fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, a charming, internationally bestselling Japanese novel about how the perfect book recommendation can change a readers' life. What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo's most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is able to sense exactly what each visitor to her library is searching for and provide just the book recommendation to help them find it. What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is about the magic of libraries and the discovery of connection. This inspirational tale shows how, by listening to our hearts, seizing opportunity and reaching out, we too can fulfill our lifelong dreams. 

The Kamogawa Food Detectives

by Hisashi Kashiwai

What's the one dish you'd do anything to taste just one more time? Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that's not the main reason customers stop by . . . The father-daughter duo are 'food detectives'. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person's treasured memories - dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility. A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal--

We'll Prescribe You a Cat

by Syou Ishida

Tucked away in an old building at the end of a narrow alley in Kyoto, the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul can only be found by people who are struggling in their lives and genuinely need help. The mysterious clinic offers a unique treatment to those who find their way there: it prescribes cats as medication. Patients are often puzzled by this unconventional prescription, but when they take their cat for the recommended duration, they witness profound transformations in their lives, guid...

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

If you could go back, who would you want to meet? In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a cafâe that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee--the chance to travel back in time. Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the cafâe in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn't so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold--

The Lantern of Lost Memories

by Sanaka Hiiragi

From acclaimed Japanese author Sanaka Hiigari comes a heartwarming, life-affirming novel about a magical photo studio, where people go after they die to view key moments from their life--and relive one precious memory before they pass into the afterlife. The Lantern of Lost Memories will sweep you away to a world of nostalgia, laughter, and love.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles

by Hiro Arikawa

With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner Satoru as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe. With his crooked tail--a sign of good fortune--and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love--

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop: The Heart-Warming Korean Sensation

by Hwang Bo-Reum

The Korean smash hit available for the first time in English, a slice-of-life novel for readers of Matt Haig's The Midnight Library and Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of AJ Fikry.

Yeonnam-Dong's Smiley Laundromat

by Kim Jiyun

Yeonnam-Dong's Smiley Laundromat is a place where the extraordinary stories of ordinary people unfold. Situated at the heart of rapidly gentrifying district of Seoul, the laundromat is a haven of peace and reflection for many locals. And when a notebook is left behind there, it becomes a place that brings people together. One by one, customers start jotting down candid diary entries, opening their hearts and inviting acts of kindness from neighbors who were once just faces in the crowd. But there is a darker story behind the notebook, and before long the laundromat's regulars are teaming up to solve the mystery and put the world to rights.--

The Dallergut Dream Department Store

by Miye Lee

In a mysterious town hidden in our collective subconscious there's a department store that sells dreams. Day and night, visitors both human and animal shuffle in to purchase their latest adventure. Each floor specializes in a specific type of dream: childhood memories, food dreams, ice skating, dreams of stardom. Flying dreams are almost always sold out. Some seek dreams of loved ones who have died.