Arcadia Public Library

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching...

"Classical guitarist Satoshi Makino has toured the world and is at the height of his career when he first lays eyes on journalist Yoko Komine. Their bond forms instantly. Upon their first meeting, after Makino's concert in Tokyo, they begin a conversation that will go on for years, with long spells of silence broken by powerful moments of connection. She's drawn by Makino's tender music and his sensitivity, and he is intrigued by Yoko's refinement...

"Unable to get around without a wheelchair, the doll-like Josee leads a solitary, housebound existence. But when she meets her new live-in caretaker, a recent college graduate named Tsuneo, everything in her life is upended. "Josee, the Tiger and the Fish" depicts the fragile, strangely erotic relationship that blossoms between these two young people. In addition to the title story, this collection also includes seven short tales centering on working...

Redoubtable middle-aged Kazu falls hopelessly in love with Yuken Noguchi, idealist politician of the Radical Party. The problem is, Noguchi cannot see practical politics for what it is: a form of ideological prostitution. Kazu who has come up in the world the hard way bears no illusions - Noguchi, for all his bookish wisdom, has a lot of them. Kazu is the proprietor of a Setsugoan, an After-Snow-Retreat, where she is in the habit of entertaining the...