And just like that, we wrapped up the second month of 2025. How is the year so far? I hope it is brimming with positive changes, growth, development, life-changing lessons, and blessings. Otherwise, I hope the coming months will usher in positive changes and a reversal of fortune. I hope 2025 will go everyone’s way and everyone’s wishes and prayers will be answered. But before I could wave goodbye to the love month, let me share the book titles I acquired during the month. I will be dividing my book haul into two parts. Because the first quarter of the year is dedicated to works of East Asian literature, the first part of this book haul update features works of Japanese writers. Without ado, here is the first part of my February book haul.

Title: The Water Margin (also Outlaws of the Marsh, or All Men Are Brothers)
Author: Shi Naian
Translator (from Chinese): J.H. Jackson
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Publishing Date: 2023 (1592, 1641)
No. of Pages: 798

Synopsis:

The Water Margin is an epic tale set in 12th century Imperial China, one of the earliest and greatest masterpieces of Chinese fiction. Weaving historical details and memorable characters, it tells the exciting story of a rebellion against tyranny set amidst the turmoil of a crumbling empire.

In this action-packed story, a band of outlaws are drawn together by fate and a shared desire for justice. They are pursued to remote marshes by corrupt officials, where their popularity among the people grows. Through intricate scheme, epic battles and unexpected treachery, the heroes vow to fight to the death for freedom and for their loyalty to one another.

The book’s cast of characters, all folk heroes in China today, includes:

*Song Jiang: The charismatic leader, who assembles the band of outcasts and leads them into battle against overwhelmingly odds
*Sun Erniang: A brave female warrior whose courage inspires her male comrades
*Pan Jinliang: A beautiful and mysterious temptress and one of the most notorious villains in Chinese literature
*Wu Song: A fierce higher whose reputation for bravery matched only by his love of wine and women

This new edition restores bawdy passages omitted in all other English versions because they were thought to be too racy. A detailed introduction by Edwin Lowe explains how the book’s message of courage and loyalty has captured the imagination of Chinese readers and continues to resonate with them today.

Title: We Do Not Part
Author: Han Kang
Translator (from Korean): e. yaewon, Paige Aniyah Morris
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
Publishing Date: 2025 (2021)
No. of Pages: 375

Synopsis: 

Like a long winter’s dream, this haunting and visionary new novel from 2024 Nobel Prize winner Han Kang takes us on a journey from contemporary South Korea into its painful history.

Beginning one morning in December, We Do Not Part traces the path of Kyungha as she travels from the city of Seoul into the forests of Jeju Island, to the home of her old friend Inseon. Hospitalized following an accident, Inseon has begged Kyungha to hasten there to feed her beloved pet bird, who will otherwise die.

Kyungha takes the first plane to Jeju, but a snowstorm hits the island the moment she arrives, plunging her into a world of white. Beset by icy wind and snow squalls, she wonders if she will arrive in time to save the bird – or even survive the terrible cold which envelops her with every step. As night falls, she struggles her way to Inseon’s house, unaware as yet of the descent into darkness that awaits her.

There, the long-buried story of Inseon’s family surges into light, in dreams and memories passed from mother to daughter,r and in a painstakingly assembled archive documenting a terrible massacre on the island seventy years before.

We Do Not Part is a hymn to friendship, a eulogy to the imagination and above all an indictment against forgetting.

Title: Love in the Big City
Author: Park Sang Young
Translator (from Korean): Anton Hur
Publisher: Grove Press
Publishing Date: 2021 (2019)
No. of Pages: 229

Synopsis:

Love in the Big City tells the story of a gay man searching for happiness in the lonely city of Seoul. Young pinballs from his apartment to class to the beds of recent Tinder matches before returning home to his best friend and female roommate, Jaehee, to gossip and compare stories. Yet his cynical and spirited facade papers over anxieties about his ailing mother and his fear of never experiencing real love. A runaway bestseller in Korea that depicts both the glittering nighttime world of Seoul and the bleary-eyed morning after, Love in the Big City is a moving exploration of millennial loneliness and the joys of queer life.

Title: Moshi Moshi
Author: Banana Yoshimoto
Translator (from Japanese): Asa Yoneda
Publisher: Counterpoint
Publishing Date: 2016 (2010)
No. of Pages: 201

Synopsis: 

In Moshi Moshi, Yoshie’s much-loved musician father has died in a suicide pact with an unknown woman. It is only when Yoshie and her mother move to Shimokitazawa, a traditional Tokyo neighborhood of narrow streets, quirky shops, and friendly residents that they can finally start to put their painful past behind them. However, despite their attempts to move forward, Yoshie is haunted by nightmares in which her father is looking for the phone he left behind on the day he died, or on which she is trying – unsuccessfully – to call him. Is her dead father trying to communicate a message to her through these dreams?

With the lightness of touch and surreal detachment that are the hallmarks of her writing, Banana Yoshimoto turns a potential tragedy into a poignant coming-of-age ghost story and a life-affirming homage to the healing powers of community, food, and family.

Title: The Heike Story
Author: Eiji Yoshikawa
Translator (from Japanese): Fuki Wooyenaka
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Publishing Date: October 11, 2022 (January 1, 1956)
No. of Pages: 541

Synopsis:

This fast-paced novel recounts the titanic struggle between two rival Japanese clans – the Heike and Genji – as they seek to pacify a fractured nation. Written by the great Eiji Yoshikawa, this classic work brings to life the wars, intrigues, feuds and romances surrounding the most dramatic episodes in all of Japanese history.

Yoshikawa’s tale begins in the capital of Kyoto, where crime and disorder are running rampant. In despair, the Emperor’s calls for help are answered by the leaders of the Heike and Genji families. Once order is established, however, the two clans fall out over dividing the spoils of war, which plunges the country into even greater turmoil. The end result is a great war to end all wars.

This new edition has a foreword by historian Alexander Bennett. Combining raw narrative power, pageantry and poetry, The Heike Story will enthrall readers interested in the drama and spectacle of ancient Japan.