Yet another archly funny fantasy in Ingo Niermann’s endlessly inventive Solution Series, this nippophile tale is written by Scottish-born, Japan-based creative genius Momus, otherwise known as songwriter Nick Currie. Following the success of the pair’s The Book of Scotlands (shortlisted for the Scottish Arts Council’s First Book prize), this book makes a case for the rehabilitation of the idea of the “far.” We live in a time when difference and distance have been eroded and eradicated by globalization, the Internet, and cheap jet travel. The Book of Japans restores a sense of wonder – along with a plethora of imagination-triggering inaccuracies – by taking the reader on a trip not just through space but also time.