Read The Tale of Genji

A Tokyo dilettante and a geisha at a hot-spring town; Kawabata's Nobel novel.

Toru, Naoko and Midori in 1960s Tokyo; the Murakami without magic that made him famous.

Two moons over Tokyo in 1984 and a cult; three volumes.

Austen's witty romance of Elizabeth and Mr Darcy (1813).

A married woman, a cavalry officer and a train; "all happy families are alike".

The decline of an aristocratic Qing family through a boy and his cousins; the greatest Chinese novel.

Visit Kyoto, Japan's former imperial capital. Explore the Fushimi Inari Shrine (famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates), see the golden Kinkaku-ji temple (a Zen Buddhist pavilion covered in gold leaf), stroll through the historic Gion district (known for geisha culture and traditional machiya houses), and admire the rock garden at Ryoan-ji (a UNESCO World Heritage site).

Visit the iconic Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, known for its top two floors completely covered in gold leaf and surrounded by beautiful gardens