Botchan (1906)

Botchan (坊っちゃん) is a novel written by Natsume Sōseki in 1906. It is considered to be one of the most popular novels in Japan, read by most Japanese during their childhood. The central theme of the story is morality.

• Botchan goes to Matsuyama: Eight days after Botchan graduates from a college in Tokyo, his principal calls him to his office and tells Botchan that a middle school in Shikoku needs a mathematics teacher. The salary is forty yen a month, and Botchan can not think of anything else he could become other than a math teacher.
• Botchan is disappointed with his new position.
• Fishing: Botchan recognizes that Akashatsu is a devious man when he and Akashatsu go fishing together.
• Locusts: The students tease Botchan by putting locusts in his bed.
• Uranari's transfer: By abusing his authority, Akashatsu schemes to and succeeds in transferring Uranari to another school for Akashatsu's own profit.
• At the end of the novel, revenge: Botchan and Yamaarashi get revenge on Akashatsu and Nodaiko. Both resign from their jobs and leave for Tokyo. Botchan returns to Kiyo and finds a job as a tramway engineer.

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A Wild Sheep Chase (1982)

A Wild Sheep Chase (羊をめぐる冒険 Hitsuji o meguru bōken) is a novel published in 1982 by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. It is the sequel to Pinball, 1973, and is the third book in Murakami's "Trilogy of the Rat".

This mock-detective tale follows an unnamed Japanese man through Tokyo and Hokkaidō in 1978. The passive, chain-smoking main character gets swept away on an adventure that leads him on a hunt for a sheep that hasn’t been seen for years. The apathetic protagonist meets a woman with magically seductive ears and a strange man who dresses as a sheep and talks in slurs; in this way there are elements of Japanese animism or Shinto. The manipulation of the narrator into the hunt and repeated references to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes raise connections to "The Red-Headed League."

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