The Non-Fiction Book Club Nominations List

Cycle 1 Winner 🏆

History/Culture/Linguistics.

Note: There is the orignal 2011 version and a new updated 2021 version to reflect the current society.

Cycle 1 Nomination

Republished magazine column stories written by a guy having to lead building a major MMO from the ground up.

FFXIV, the story behind its initial failure and eventual mega-success.

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Art History, Culture.

It doesn’t go too into the streams and groups that existed, or much of the characteristics of the art itself that identifies it as ukiyo-e or its symbolism, but it still gives a bit of intro to some of these things and there’s plenty of cultural references from what was drawn, cute explanations of what you see, sometimes there are also legends or characters that are known in very specific contexts and etc.

Cycle 1 Nomination

History/sociology.

bungakushoujo read and reviewed it and it sounded really interesting: “Initially, I expected a pop-science book about the brain and concentration limits based on the somewhat misleading vibe of the title and cover. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find it was more like reading a thesis that covered a very wide range of topics, starting with the history of reading and labor in modern Japan from the Meiji era onwards. It moves through time, finally examining the present-day labor market in Japan (and much of the developed world) and exploring what it means to exist as a worker and engage with knowledge and information in the current hyper-competitive global capitalist economy.”

Cycle 1 Nomination

Life Sciences.

It’s an easy read (other than all of the vocabulary necessary) but if you do remember any of your high school biology it’s quite a bit easier to read. There’re lots of different subjects in the series.

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Sociology? Self-help? But it’s listed as essays.

It was referenced by a few random Japanese people and audiobook.jp at least calls it a best seller. The tag line is 見えない「壁」がわかると世の中が見えてくる。気が楽になる。 and it seems kind of generally about the walls that divide people which I think is an interesting topic. It’s also fairly short at only 204 pages.

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Linguistics.

It’s fun to read about Japanese in Japanese and see what points of it confuse native speakers as opposed to learners.

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Art history/Japanese history/Economics.

It seems super interesting! Expecting a mix of art history of both European Impressionism and Japanese woodblock prints and some interest Meiji and late 1800s era French history + some economic stuff? It also seems a bit “poppy” and looks like it’d be lighter and easier to read than a serious type of history book!

Cycle 1 Nomination

Anime history.

An anime critic writing all about the history of anime and certain anime masterpieces + what makes the masterpieces. Even if you don’t watch anime often it’s an interesting cultural topic.

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Memoir.

This appears to be a collection of essays about the authors experience learning Chinese starting from the age of 36 and interacting with a foreign culture. I suspect a lot of us here on natively would relate to some aspects of it or maybe even get some tips!

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Investigative journalism, history.

This is kind of on the line of true crime given it is about an island known for human trafficking (historically, but not currently). It should steer clear of the more problematic aspects of that genre as it seems to be taking on the topic through a journalistic and historical lens.

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Autobiographical novel.

Volume #1 played at the time of WW2, the author 角野栄子 was evacuated somewhere north of Tokyo. It ends with the end of the war and her finishing elementary school. イコ is the author’s pseudonym in these two books. Volume #2 - this book - continues from there, she got optimistic again, goes to junior high and on up to university and afterwards starts traveling, which is if we can trust the title the main contents of this book. We get some first hand impressions about life in Japan and at least one other country at 1945 1948 onwards.

Btw: though the MC of the first book is just ten years old, the target group of these two books are not children, as e.g. the first book has old kanji and just minimal furigana.

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Memoir/Disability/Society.

Minorities and societal issues, it likely suffers from “inspiration porn”.

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Linguistics, Manga Essay.

The layout is typical for the genre with an essay on one page and a related manga on the other.

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Mathematics, history.

Found his way of explaining things quite easy to understand.

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Mysterious aspects of human history.

The first book by this Youtuber who makes very engaging videos with the graphics and presentation, and it seems the physical book shares a similar style with images and a nice presentation to keep the audience engaged. When there is a sensitive topic or when he occasionally speculates he does so very smoothly and dances around it in a way that most people would have no issue and rather spark wonder.

His presentations very engaging with the style and thought provoking with the content. It is something really different from all other content that most people are exposed to.

Cycle 1 Nomination

History.

To learn about Himiko and Yamatai. There is a second book as well, that covers from where this one finishes until a few years ago.