Books selected by the participants ofJune 20, 2023
Title

BL metamorphosis

AuthorGenre

TSURUTANI Kaori

Manga, Boys' Love, Slice of LifeIn this heartwarming and award-winning manga originally known as Metamorphose no Engawa, an elderly
woman and a high school girl develop a beautiful friendship through their shared passion for Boys’ Love.
Ichinoi, a seventy-five-year-old woman living a peaceful life, unwittingly buys a boys’ love manga one day,and is fascinated by what she finds inside. When she returns to the bookstore to buy the next volume, thehigh school girl working there—Urara, a seasoned BL fan—notices a budding fangirl when she sees one.
When Urara offers to help Ichinoi explore this whole new world of fiction, the two dive into the BL fandom
together, and form an unlikely friendship along the way.
*Physical book available at JFT Library.

Manga, Boys' Love, Drama,
LGBTQIA+, Romance
An LGBT+ manga exploring love and gender at a high school drama club. Taiga dreams of becoming anactor, so the first thing he does upon entering high school is join the drama club. There, he meets thebeautiful, enigmatic Maria and immediately falls in love with her. Not long after, Taiga is told that she isactually a boy--but is that all there is to Maria’s story? The late PEYO debuted with this beautifully
illustrated, single-volume tale exploring the nature of personal expression and the fluidity of the power oflove.
*Not in JFT Library Collection.
Manga, Drama, School Life,Boys Run the Riot
GAKU Keito
LGBTQIA+, Coming-of-age
Boy Meets MariaPEYOA transgender teen named Ryo finds an escape from the expectations and anxieties of his daily life in theworld of street fashion. This personal, heartfelt, fictional story from a transgender manga creator madewaves in Japan and will inspire readers all over the world!
*Physical book available at JFT Library.

Breast and Eggs
夏物語

KAWAKAMI Mieko

Novel, Psychological Fiction

Breasts and Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate
journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road tofinding peace and futures they can truly call their own.
It tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’sdaughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement
procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent, finding herself unable to voice
the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with growing up. Her silence proves a catalyst for eachwoman to confront her fears and frustrations.
*Physical book [EN & JP] and ebook[EN] available at JFT Library.

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TitleConfessions of a MaskAuthor

GenreMISHIMA Yukio

Novel, Bildungsroman, LGBTQIA+The story of a man coming to terms with his homosexuality in traditional Japanese society has become amodern classic. Confessions of a Mask tells the story of Kochan, an adolescent boy tormented by hisburgeoning attraction to men: he wants to be “normal.” Kochan is meek-bodied, and unable to participate
in the more athletic activities of his classmates. He begins to notice his growing attraction to some of theboys in his class, particularly the pubescent body of his friend Omi. To hide his homosexuality, he courts awoman, Sonoko, but this exacerbates his feelings for men. As news of the War reaches Tokyo, Kochan
considers the fate of Japan and his place within its deeply rooted propriety.
*Physical book available at JFT LibraryEarthlings
地球星人

MURATA Sayaka

Novel, Magical Realism,
Coming-of-Age,
Psychological Suspense

As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit into her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy
hedgehog named Piyyut who has explained to her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on aspecial quest to help her save the Earth. Each summer, Natsuki counts down the days until her family
drives into the mountains of Nagano to visit her grandparents in their wooden house in the forest, a placethat couldn’t be more different from her grey commuter town. One summer, her cousin Yuu confides to
Natsuki that he is an extraterrestrial and that every night he searches the sky for the spaceship that mighttake him back to his home planet. Natsuki wonders if she might be an alien too. Back in her city home,
Natsuki is scolded or ignored and even preyed upon by a young teacher at her cram school. As she grows
up in a hostile, violent world, she consoles herself with memories of her time with Yuu and discovers asurprisingly potent inner power. Natsuki seems forced to fit into a society she deems a “baby factory” buteven as a married woman she wonders if there is more to this world than the mundane reality everyone
else seems to accept. The answers are out there, and Natsuki has the power to find them.
*Physical book [EN & JP] and ebook[EN] available at JFT Library.
Kanada no sekushuaru
minoriti-tachi
カナダのセクシュアル・マイノリティたち= Canada's sexual minorities

Saunders Miyamatsu, Keikoサンダース 宮松 敬子

Nonfiction,Sociology of Marriage & Family

2003 年 6 月、カナダ・オンタリオ州で、ついに同性同士の結婚が認められた。地道に一歩一歩のあゆみを遂げたカナダの同性愛者たち。その権利にむかっての道のりと偏見・差別をなくす取り組みを徹底リポート。
*Physical book available at JFT Library

Our Dreams at Dusk
しまなみ誰そ彼

KAMATANI Yuhki

Manga, Coming-of-age, Drama,
LGBTQIA+, Slice of Life

Not only is high schooler Tasuku Kaname the new kid in town, he is also terrified that he has been outed asgay. Just as he’s contemplating doing the unthinkable, Tasuku meets a mysterious woman who leads him
to a group of people dealing with problems not so different from his own. In this realistic, heartfelt
depiction of LGBT+ characters from different backgrounds finding their place in the world, a search for
inner peace proves to be the most universal experience of all.
*Physical book [EN & JP] available at JFT Library.

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TitleSnakes and Earrings
蛇にピアス

AuthorGenre

KANEHARA Hitomi

Novel, Thriller,
Psychological Fiction, RomanceThis tale of sex and darkness is narrated by Lui, an alienated young Japanese woman who becomesdisastrously involved with two dangerous men. Lui first meets her boyfriend Ama in a bar after finding
herself mesmerised by his forked tongue. She immediately moves in with him and begins following him
down the path to body modification by having her tongue pierced and planning a beautiful tattoo for her
back. Ama's friend Shiba creates this exquisite tattoo and as he works on it Lui begins an illicit and brutal
sexual relationship with him. Then, after a violent encounter on the back streets of Tokyo, Ama goesmissing and Lui must face up to her choices...
*Physical book [EN & JP] available at JFT Library.

Solo Dance

Novel, Bildungsroman,
Psychological Fiction, LGBTQIA+

LI Kotomi

A powerful novel about the LGBTQ rights movement and gay love in Japan and Taiwan, from the mostimportant queer voice of East Asia’s millennial generation. Cho Norie, twenty-seven and originally fromTaiwan, is working an office job in Tokyo. While her colleagues worry about the economy, life-insurance
policies, marriage, and children, she is forced to keep her unconventional life hidden - including her
sexuality and the violent attack that prompted her move to Japan. There is also her unusual fascination
with death: she knows from personal experience how devastating death can be, but for her it is also
creative fuel. Solo Dance depicts the painful coming of age of a gay person in Taiwan and corporate Japan.
This striking debut is an intimate and powerful account of a search for hope after trauma.
*Physical book and ebook available at JFT Library.

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HyperlinkreferenceSputnik Sweetheart
スプートニクの恋人

MURAKAMI Haruki

Novel, Magical Realism, LGBTQIA+,Romance, Mystery, Suspense

Part romance, part detective story, Sputnik Sweetheart tells the story of a tangled triangle of uniquely
unrequited love. K is madly in love with his best friend, Sumire, but her devotion to a writerly life
precludes her from any personal commitments. At least, that is, until she meets an older woman towhom she finds herself irresistibly drawn. When Sumire disappears from an island off the coast ofGreece, K is solicited to join the search party - and finds himself drawn back into her world and beset
by ominous visions. Subtle and haunting, Sputnik Sweetheart is a profound meditation on humanlonging.
*Physical book [EN & JP] and ebook[EN] available at JFT Library.
Real WorldKIRINO Natsuo

Novel, Suspense, Thriller, MysteryIn a crowded Tokyo suburb, four teenage girls indifferently wade their way through a hot, smoggy summer.
When one of them, Toshi, discovers that her nextdoor neighbor has been brutally murdered, the girls
suspect the killer is the neighbor’s son. But when he flees, taking Toshi’s bike and cell phone with him, thefour girls get caught up in a tempest of dangers that rise from within them as well as from the world
around them. Psychologically intricate and astute, Real World is a searing, eye-opening portrait of teenage
life in Japan unlike any we have seen before.
*Physical book and ebook available at JFT Library.

What to Listen for in Music

Aaron CoplandNonfiction, MusicIn this fascinating analysis of how to listen to both contemporary and classical music analytically, eminent
American composer Aaron Copland offers provocative suggestions that will bring readers a deeper
appreciation of the most viscerally rewarding of all art forms.
*Not in JFT Library Collection*Book descriptions from Libby and Amazon.ca

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