Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Bicycle Days

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Cover artist
  
Scott Hunt

Publication date
  
1989

Pages
  
255

Author
  
John Burnham Schwartz

Country
  
United States of America

3.2/5
Goodreads

Language
  
English

Media type
  
Print

Originally published
  
1989

Page count
  
255

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Publisher
  
Summit Books (US) Heinemann (UK)

Similar
  
Claire Marvel, The Commoner, Northwest Corner, Reservation Road

Bicycle Days is the debut novel by American author John Burnham Schwartz published in 1989 on his 24th birthday. It began as an undergraduate thesis for Harvard's East Asian Studies department and became a critically acclaimed bestseller. It was inspired by his time living in Japan.

Contents

Plot Introduction

The book follows Alec Stern as he arrives in Tokyo, newly graduated from Yale. He starts a new job, living with a Japanese family; the book portrays his life in Japan as he adapts to the culture, made far easier by his ability to speak Japanese...

Reception

Reviews were generally positive :

  • The New York Times, "Reminiscent of A Good Man in Africa...or one of Kingsley Amis's gentler comodies of manners."
  • Publishers Weekly called this a "promising, if overly self-absorbed debut novel."
  • People commented "it's too bad Schwartz wrote his intimate story in the third person. As it is, Schwartz outlines the most incidental happenings of Alec's life without letting us get inside his mind. It's as if a great deal yet not nearly enough has been revealed in Bicycle Days."

    • Publication history

  • 1989, US, Summit Books, ISBN 0-671-66600-2, Pub date May 1989, Hardback
  • 1989, UK, Heinmann, ISBN 0-434-67778-7, Pub date Nov 1989, Hardback
  • 1990, US, Plume Books, ISBN 0-452-26421-9, Pub date May 1990, Paperback
  • 1990, UK, Minerva, ISBN 0-749-39132-4, Pub date Nov 1990, Paperback
  • 1999, US, Vintage, ISBN 0-375-70275-X, Pub date Apr 1999, Paperback
  • 1999, UK, Phoenix, ISBN 0-753-80764-5, Pub date Nov 1999, Paperback

    • References

    Bicycle Days Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA