TOKYO — The problem with recent lists of best books about Japan written by non-Japanese is they focus almost exclusively on recent publications — Bending Adversity, Dogs and Demons, Pure Invention, Ghosts of the Tsunami, The People Who Eat Darkness, Tokyo Vice, and a host of other fine works — while ignoring some of the great classics that have been written over the years. As a result, I’m going to give my own list of top books published before the 21th century.
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