Books like The Tale of Genji
The loves and losses of Genji, the dazzling son of an emperor reduced to commoner rank, unfold across the Heian court in what is often called the world's first novel, before the story passes to his heirs.
Explore books like this on the map12 books for readers of The Tale of Genji
Spring Snow
A young Japanese aristocrat falls in love with the wrong woman in pre-war Tokyo, and the rigid codes of beauty and duty destroy them both.
Dream of the Red Chamber
Jia Baoyu, the sensitive heir of a great aristocratic family in eighteenth-century China, grows up among his cousins in a vast garden, as love, ambition and debt bring the household down.
Thousand Cranes
At a tea ceremony held by his late father's mistress, Kikuji is offered a bride, and begins an affair with another of his father's former lovers, Mrs Ota.
Snow Country
A Tokyo dilettante travels to a hot-spring town in snow country to visit his geisha lover, and the cold landscape mirrors the impossibility of their connection.
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
A young monk becomes so obsessed with the beauty of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto that he decides to destroy it.
The Line of Beauty
A young gay man in Thatcher-era London befriends a conservative MP's family and watches privilege, denial, and desire collide as the AIDS crisis approaches.
Anna Karenina
A married aristocrat's affair with a dashing officer unravels her life, her family, and her sanity against the backdrop of Russian high society.
Katherine
Katherine de Roet, a convent-raised orphan of fifteen, comes to the court of Edward III in 1366 and catches the eye of his son John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, on the eve of her arranged marriage to a knight.
The Museum of Innocence
In 1975 Kemal, the son of a rich Istanbul family, about to become engaged to a suitable girl, begins an affair with Füsun, a poor distant cousin who works in a boutique.
Wanderers
An ageing writer takes to the road as a labourer in rural Norway, working on farms and estates, and falls under the spell of a captain's wife at one of them.
The Setting Sun
After the war, Kazuko and her aristocratic mother lose their Tokyo house and move to a country villa, where they wait for Kazuko's brother, Naoji, to come home from the army with his addictions intact.
Norwegian Wood
In late-1960s Tokyo, a quiet student, Toru Watanabe, is torn between Naoko, his dead friend's fragile girlfriend, and Midori, who is lively and direct, as the city's student protests come and go.