Author: Yoko Ogawa (Japan)

Book: Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales (originally published in 1998)

Highlight stories: “Afternoon at the Bakery,” “Old Mrs. J,” “Sewing for the Heart”

In “Old Mrs. J,” a young woman moves to a remote seaside apartment to focus on her writing. She starts taking an interest in her landlady, a kind but mysterious elderly widow who grows prize-winning carrots in the shape of human hands. The young writer soon discovers that even the most unassuming of us have secrets that refuse to stay buried.

In “Sewing for the Heart,”a skilled artisan is given a near impossible challenge: to create a bag for a grotesque human heart. This is a story of obsession and limits we go to achieve sheer perfection. In the end, the bag is beautiful, fated for this singular heart. And the bag maker refuses to let anything come between her and the fulfillment of her creation.

Why it’s gothic: Ogawa is a master of subtle horror and is often praised for bringing forth the macabre from everyday life. Each story in this collection appears at first to be a simple, ordinary story, but then Ogawa inserts some unexpected detail that suddenly transforms the entire piece into a nightmare. Characters are often sketched in broad strokes (no one is who they seem), while the setting and time period are both everywhere and nowhere, rooted in the present yet drifting somewhere outside of time. Less may not always be more, but Ogawa makes it clear that one out of place detail can inspire more terror than an onslaught of monsters and gore. It’s the kind of horror you can’t look away from—because it’s all around you. .