Here are 70 books that Cherry Whip fans have personally recommended if you like
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Japan is endlessly fascinating. Many foreigners who have spent a year or two engaging with Japanese culture have published memoirs. But there are also many who have lived here longer, perhaps marrying and raising families and retiring in Japan. The stories of long-term foreign residents dig deep into the culture and share unique challenges and triumphs. My own memoir, Squeaky Wheels is about my experience raising a biracial daughter who is deaf and has cerebral palsy in off-the-beaten-track Japan. It also details our mother-daughter travels around Japan, to the United States, and ultimately to Paris. It is ultimately a story of my attempt to open the world to my daughter.
Anton, a former columnist for The Japan Times, grew up in New York City, one of three children raised solely by an African American father. (Her mother was institutionalized due to mental illness.) She studied dance with Martha Graham, modeled for the pages of LOOK magazine at a time when African American models were few and far between, and copy-edited for Joseph Heller. Later, she traveled to Europe where she met Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton when she interviewed to be their house-sitter in Gstaad, fell in love and gave birth in Denmark, then later journeyed overland from Europe to Asia with her childhood friend and future husband, Billy. Any one chapter of her life could have been the basis for an entire book. Anton is an engaging storyteller with an exceptional story -- an unbeatable combination. I highly recommend this memoir to anyone interested in Japan, multicultural families,…
GRAND PRIZE Winner 2022 Memoir Prize GOLD PRIZE Winner SPR Book Awards (2020) Book Readers Appreciation Group (B.R.A.G.) MEDALLION (2021)
Crossing Borders and Cultures, Creating Home The View From Breast Pocket Mountain is a unique and previously untold story, a treasure trove of experiences crossing borders and cultures, creating a life, and finding contentment in a far-off country.
To those who've ever wondered what their lives would be if they'd taken that road without a map, this is the book you need to read. The View From Breast Pocket Mountain gives us a glimpse of a life not designed or…
As an adrenaline junky—years of kitesurfing, skydiving, bungee jumping, Zero Gravity training—I have a passion for thrills and adventure, coupled with the love for my soulmate, Virginia, since we were kids, I live what I write and write what I live. Of course, I filter it all through my vivid imagination to raise the stakes and pull you in.When I look for a great book, it’s tough to get my blood flowing, to get me excited, but these books are the nearest thing to the thrill of freefalling and having your first chute fail to open (been there, done that. Thank, God for the reserve chute!). These books are truly unique, putting you on the edge of your seat and leaving you wanting more.
This was the first book I read twice. It was groundbreaking back in the ’80s. A mixture of cultures, assassins, adventure, thrills, love, sex, and passion. A huge bestseller at the time. His detail of Japanese philosophy, fighting styles, honor, and code in a modern-day world is beyond captivating.
While he went on to a huge success with dozens of bestsellers, nothing topped this. It was a lifetime of daydreaming and research that he poured out onto the page.
I read it in two days on the beach under the sun and stars. Five days later, I read it again. I couldn’t get the story out of my head.
In this New York Times–bestselling thriller, a martial artist’s past returns to haunt him—in the form of a murderous ninja.
Raised in Japan by a British father and a Chinese mother, young Nicholas Linnear felt at home only in the dojo, where he gave himself over to mastering ninjutsu—the ancient art of the ninja. Over years of training, he ascended to the highest ranks imaginable—until a confrontation over the very meaning of ninjutsu changed his approach to martial arts forever, sending him on a journey that would take him across the globe.
Japan has been my home for many decades. I know the world of business and finance inside out, and have an obsessive interest in art, film, and literature. I’ve written several books, fiction and non-fiction, and countless articles on Japan-related subjects, as you can see on my blog. I think I may have actually been Japanese in a previous life…
Though non-fiction, Whiting’s romp through the secret history of post-war Japan is more eye-popping than most novels. The “hero” is a rogue called Nick the Greek who brought pizza to Japan, amongst other more nefarious accomplishments. I myself knew Nick, loved his thick crust Margherita and believed at least half his stories of gangster showdowns, heists, and con jobs. They don’t make them like that anymore - thank God.
A riveting account of the role of Americans in the evolution of the Tokyo underworld in the years since 1945.
In the ashes of postwar Japan lay a gold mine for certain opportunistic, expatriate Americans. Addicted to the volatile energy of Tokyo's freewheeling underworld, they formed ever-shifting but ever-profitable alliances with warring Japanese and Korean gangsters. At the center of this world was Nick Zappetti, an ex-marine from New York City who arrived in Tokyo in 1945, and whose restaurant soon became the rage throughout the city and the chief watering hole for celebrities, diplomats, sports figures, and mobsters.
I am a New Englander, born and bred, 5th generation chicken keeper, and lifelong gardener. I currently live on a small farm in Maine where I raise chickens, ducks, and geese and grow all kinds of vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers. I love cooking and baking with fresh produce from my garden and fresh eggs from my chicken coop. Eggs, in particular, are a favorite ingredient of mine because they are so plentiful, versatile, delicious, and nutritious. Breakfast for dinner is obviously a favorite at our house.
This gorgeously photographed cookbook by baker Sarabeth Levine, James Beard Award winner for Outstanding Pastry Chef and founder of Sarabeth’s restaurants shares many of the recipes that have made her famous brunches coveted worldwide. The wide range of recipes have been created with the home cook in mind, and there’s sure to be something that catches your eye.
The only thing better than brunch at one of Sarabeth s restaurants is brunch in her home. In this must-have collection of more than 130 classic morning recipes, Sarabeth delivers the comforting dishes she makes for family and friends, from fluffy scrambled eggs to warm sticky buns. Over thirty-five years ago, she launched her first restaurant s wildly popular weekend brunch. Today, morning lines still snake around the block at her New York City locations, as well as at her Florida and Japan outposts. Her fans will be thrilled to re-create the warmth and joy of brunch at Sarabeth s…
In my reading and writing, I’m drawn to complex characters, who embody the unpleasant impulses and mixed motivations we all have. I especially love well-drawn antiheroines, as women tend to be judged more harshly for being badly behaved, in life. All my books revolve around women who fit this description, from the wives and girlfriends of notorious serial killers in The Love of a Bad Man to the inner-circle of Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple in Beautiful Revolutionary to Paulina Novak, the reckless, alcoholic murder victim at the heart of The Newcomer. To me, fiction is a playground for exploring the extremes of human thought and behaviour.
Writing about the internet is notoriously difficult but Sudjic swings it, sublimely. Although ostensibly set between London and New York, Sympathy almost transcends setting with its focus on millennial Alice Hare’s online haunting of writer Mizuku Himura. After becoming infatuated with Mizuku over Instagram, Alice maneuvers an IRL friendship, which spirals into sexual obsession and possessiveness. It’s a brilliant character study and meditation on alienation, online personas, and the algorithmization of attraction.
THE DEBUT OF 2017THAT EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT FROM ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS
'A gripping odyssey into one woman's online-addled inner life' -- Independent
'Reads likeThe Talented Mr Ripley for the 21st century' --Vice UK
At twenty-three, AliceHare arrives in New York looking for a place to call home. Instead she finds Mizuko Himura, an intriguing Japanese writer, who she begins to follow online,fixated from afar and increasingly convinced this stranger's life holds a mirror to her own. But as Alice closes in on her 'internet twin', fictional and real lives begin to blur, leaving a…
While the subject matter of the books on my list may vary, the thing that ties them together is the suspenseful tension that builds and keeps the reader on edge. The unexpected twists and turns are the "secret sauce" that adds flavor and fervor. I like the way each of these books keeps your mind from wandering by combining vivid imagery with a compelling storyline. As an author myself, I am always fascinated by those who make it look so easy and effortless. And as an avid reader, I constantly search for these kind of books; the kind that make you feel as if you just have to keep reading.
Jazz Baby is one of the best books I've read in a while. It easily takes the reader back in time to the days of prohibition and speakeasies. Emily Ann, Jazz Baby, just wants to sing. That's all. But it seems everything and everyone is against her. Family, friends, and the culture of the day conspire to keep her from her dream. On the other hand, Emily Ann is not really innocent in the matter. She constantly flirts with danger, embraces it, and even thrives on it. And in the end... sorry, can't give that away.
While all of Mississippi bakes in the scorching summer of 1925, sudden orphanhood wraps its icy embrace around Emily Ann "Baby" Teegarten, a pretty young teen.
Taken in by an aunt bent on ridding herself of this unexpected burden, Baby Teegarten plots her escape using the only means at her disposal: a voice that brings church ladies to righteous tears, and makes both angels and devils take notice. "I'm going to New York City to sing jazz," she brags to anybody who'll listen. But the Big Apple--well, it's an awful long way from that dry patch of earth she'd always…
I learned how to write poetry by reading. Books have always been my main teachers. I try to read all kinds of work because there are so many different kinds of minds to learn from. When I discovered poetry as a teenager, it fascinated me on the level of the line. I spent a lot of time just looking at poems, without necessarily even reading them—let alone understanding them—because the form on the page was a revelation. It amazed me that people were allowed to do that! That I could choose to do that with words—to explode a sentence across the white space or smash all the words together.
I love prose poems, and they are a great introduction to poetry for those unfamiliar with the genre. I admire Sean Singer's singular sensibility, as he weaves the dailiness of driving a taxi with intimations of jazz, the divine, and insights into the human condition. I find this collection mesmerizing, and return to it over and again.
Sean Singer's radiant and challenging body of work involves, much like Whitman's, nothing less than the ongoing interrogation of what a poem is. In this way his books are startlingly alive... I love in this work the sense that I am the grateful recipient of Singer's jazzy curation as I move from page to page. Today in the Taxi is threaded through with quotes from Kafka, facts about jazz musicians, musings from various thinkers, from a Cathar fragment to Martin Buber to Arthur Eddington to an anonymous comedian. The taxi is at once a real taxi and the microcosm of…
I studied retellings as I prepared to write my own take on The Secret Garden. Retelling a classic story can not only usher something like The Secret Garden or Peter Pan into our current time and place in history, but it can also awaken the wonder and magic many of us experienced when reading these tales for the first time in a new generation. It’s been so fun for me to see how modern authors put their own spin on these stories, and I hope you will enjoy them too.
This contemporary retelling of The Secret Garden sets the story in a closed-down tuberculosis sanitarium. Roo's journey to uncover the mysteries of the house and bring life to the garden tucked away inside it unfolds beautifully on the page. With well-developed characters, a deeply haunting revelation, and a setting that springs to life with vivid detail, this was a great take on a classic.
Hiding is Roo Fanshaw's special skill. Living in a frighteningly unstable family, she often needs to disappear at a moment's notice. When her parents are murdered, it's her special hiding place under the trailer that saves her life.
As it turns out, Roo, much to her surprise, has a wealthy if eccentric uncle, who has agreed to take her into his home on Cough Rock Island. Once a tuberculosis sanitarium for children of the rich, the strange house is teeming with ghost stories and secrets. Roo doesn't believe in ghosts or fairy stories, but what are those eerie noises she…
Ever since I stumbled across the story of May Dugas, who the Pinkertons described as “the most dangerous woman in the world,” I’ve been fascinated by women who were born into lowly circumstances and yearned to better themselves. How far were they willing to go to rise above their station? This question takes on added weight for women in earlier eras—when women’s choices and opportunities were limited. So I’ve long been attracted to historical fiction that examines just these questions. And I’ve enjoyed hearing readers’ reactions to May’s story when I visit book clubs. What reader isn’t fascinated by stories of transgression and daring?
What could be better than one wily, take-charge woman? How about three? This is Ariel Lawhon’s debut novel, and it is pure fun. (I have enjoyed all her novels, but this one is a real romp.) The story launches one summer night in 1930 when Judge Joseph Crater steps into a New York City cab and is never heard from again. I loved how we learn the judge is a not-so-honorable character, involved with three women: Stella, his fashionable wife, the picture of propriety; Maria, their steadfast maid, indebted to the judge; and Ritzi, his showgirl mistress, willing to seize any chance to break out of the chorus line. This is a tantalizing reimagining of a scandalous mystery that rocked the nation in 1930—Justice Joseph Crater's infamous disappearance—through the eyes of the three women who knew him best. Lawhon has a real knack for finding fascinating characters!
From the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia comes a “genuinely surprising whodunit” (USA Today)that tantalizingly reimagines a scandalous murder mystery that rocked the nation.
One summer night in 1930, Judge Joseph Crater steps into a New York City cab and is never heard from again. Behind this great man are three women, each with her own tale to tell: Stella, his fashionable wife, the picture of propriety; Maria, their steadfast maid, indebted to the judge; and Ritzi, his showgirl mistress, willing to seize any chance to break out of the chorus line.
I’ve been making up magical worlds ever since childhood, when I populated the creekbanks and vacant lots in my hometown with ghosts, fae, Land of Oz residents, and other creatures from my imagination. Fantasy and forbidden love have always been my two main allures in reading, and different varieties of sexuality and gender identity also fascinated me once I became more aware of such issues in college, through books as well as my anthropology classes. I was recently pleased to learn there’s at least one cool label for me as well—demisexual—and nowadays I love populating my fantasy novels with queer characters. Everyone deserves adventures in the otherworld!
I’m a sucker for a cool historical setting and also for romance with a social-status difference as a main obstacle, and this novel delivers on both! In 1920s-era New York City, amid Prohibition and jazz and snazzy fashions—and, in this version of things, an underworld of secret magic—wealthy Arthur meets working-class Rory, and the sparks begin. Both of the men are utterly endearing (another feature I’m soft on) and bring different paranormal powers to the problem of a lethal magical relic on its way to New York. There are two more books in the series, so if you fall for this pair, hurray! There’s more to read.
"Allie Therin built a world that came alive and flew off the pages." —Gay Book Reviews
To save Manhattan, they’ll have to save each other first…
New York, 1925
Arthur Kenzie’s life’s work is protecting the world from the supernatural relics that could destroy it. When an amulet with the power to control the tides is shipped to New York, he must intercept it before it can be used to devastating effects. This time, in order to succeed, he needs a powerful psychometric…and the only one available has sworn off his abilities altogether.
