If you can give more specific dates or a more specific subject I can refer you to more specialized books. Otherwise, if you're looking for general primers on a specific time period, that is good too. Respond whenever!

A good Fiction book is The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Have you seen the AskHistorians reading list? Here's the link. This would be a great place to start, in addition to whatever suggestions you get here.

So by Imperial Japan, we're talking 1868-1945? It really depends on what you're interested in. Here are some of the more foundational texts you'd be likely to come across in a seminar on modern Japan:

• Japan Rising (foreign policy): I should probably put a disclaimer here that I'm biased because Ken Pyle is in charge of my PhD committee. That being said, I think it's an objectively good book about the forces that motivate Japanese policymaking.

• Japan's Modern Myths (state-building): this is considered a foundational text of the field and I've never come across someone who studies Japan and didn't read it at some point. It's a good look at how the idea of the "Imperial State" was shaped during the Imperial Period.

• Molding Japanese Minds (social policy): A really interesting look at the way state-society relations operated in prewar Japan; it's really useful for getting a feel for just how different the relationship between government and the people has been over the past 150 years of Japanese history.

• The Making of Modern Japan (everything): Dr. Pyle once told me that Marius Jansen described the goal of this book to him as, "to put everything I ever learned into one book." Marius Jansen learned a lot of things.

Not sure what you mean by "imperial Japan," but if you mean Japanese colonialism, there's now a ton of good books out there. Try Louise Young, Japan's Total Empire; Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity; or even the edited volumes on Japanese empire by Mark Peattie and Peter Duus from the 1980s.

For a good memoir about the Meiji Restoration, try Remembering Aizu: The Testament of Shiba Goro. It describes the hardships of his childhood in a Japan that was changing in many ways.

Shiba Goro (June 21st, 1860-December 13th, 1945) began his life as a Samurai son of a clan loyal to the Shogun during the Boshin War, an adversary of the Imperial Court. Following their defeat, Shiba Goro's Aizu clan was exiled to a less hospitable domain. The book focuses primarily on his formative years.

Shiba Goro went on to win decorations in the Imperial Japanese army, fighting in Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion. He also fought in the Russo-Japanese War, and eventually achieved the rank of General.

In a sense, he was born just before the dawn of the Japanese Empire and the Meiji Restoration, and died at it's finish at the end of World War II. More correctly, four months after it's finish. He attempted suicide on the day of surrender, and passed four months later from his wounds.