Favorite stories: The Story of Tomoda and Matsunaga’ (Tanizaki); ‘Patriotism’ (Mishima); In the Box (Kono); Bee Honey (Yoshimoto); The Tale of the House of Physics (Ogawa); Mr English (Uno); Factory Town (Betsuyaku); Dreams of Love, Etc. (Kawakami); Hell Screen (Akutagawa); Filling Up with Sugar (Sawanishi); and all stories from the chapter Disasters, Natural and Man-Made.

By far the best part of this anthology was the last chapter. There isn’t much literary work (in English) about the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. The last three stories should all be required reading.

The anthology introduced me to new authors, like Mieko Kawakami, old faves like Murakami and Yoshimoto, and gave bite sized pieces of writers I’ve been intimidated to read - Akutagawa and Mishima.