Well, with the obvious caveats that I'm a much better reader in English and it's all a matter of personal taste anyway, blah, blah, blah, here's the shortlist:
Yoshimoto Banana, whom I think everyone knows already, but she has written a lot of good stuff. My three favorites are Kitchen, Utakata, and Tokage.
Ekuni Kaori (江國 香織), especially Kirakira Hikaru and Suika no Nioi. She also cowrote Calmi Cuori Appassionati, which I must admit to not having finished yet.
Yamada Eimi (山田詠美), especially Shikisai no Musuko, which is a weird mixture of Japanese storytelling and Shirley Jackson.
Ishida Ira (石田衣良), especially Angel, which has a really cool premise that I might totally rip off for fanfic one of these days.
Miyabe Miyuki (宮部みゆき), who has written five hundred billion books, mostly genres I don't usually read. Ryuu wa Nemuru and Yoru wa Nemurenai were fun reads.
Yamamoto Fumio (山本 文緒) also wrote a pretty cool book called Blue Moshiku wa Blue, which creeped the bejeebus out of me, but something just didn't click for me with the story on the whole. I'm going to reread it one of these days and see if my opinion changes.
I also read a lot of BL novels and other light reading series (12 Kingdoms, Four Dragon Island), but I'm guessing that's not what you were asking about. As soon as I finish my current crop of books I'm going to try my hand at some supernatural stuff, and perhaps some jidai mono too.
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Yoshimoto Banana, whom I think everyone knows already, but she has written a lot of good stuff. My three favorites are Kitchen, Utakata, and Tokage.
Ekuni Kaori (江國 香織), especially Kirakira Hikaru and Suika no Nioi. She also cowrote Calmi Cuori Appassionati, which I must admit to not having finished yet.
Yamada Eimi (山田詠美), especially Shikisai no Musuko, which is a weird mixture of Japanese storytelling and Shirley Jackson.
Ishida Ira (石田衣良), especially Angel, which has a really cool premise
that I might totally rip off for fanfic one of these days.Miyabe Miyuki (宮部みゆき), who has written five hundred billion books, mostly genres I don't usually read. Ryuu wa Nemuru and Yoru wa Nemurenai were fun reads.
Yamamoto Fumio (山本 文緒) also wrote a pretty cool book called Blue Moshiku wa Blue, which creeped the bejeebus out of me, but something just didn't click for me with the story on the whole. I'm going to reread it one of these days and see if my opinion changes.
I also read a lot of BL novels and other light reading series (12 Kingdoms, Four Dragon Island), but I'm guessing that's not what you were asking about. As soon as I finish my current crop of books I'm going to try my hand at some supernatural stuff, and perhaps some jidai mono too.