Bicycle Days is the debut novel by American author John Burnham Schwartz published in 1989 on his 24th birthday.John Burnham Schwartz | Nantucket Book Festival Retrieved 2013-09-01. It began as an undergraduate thesis for Harvard's Department of East Asian Studies and became a critically acclaimed bestseller. It was inspired by his time living in Japan.PW: 'Bicycle Days' Author Returns Retrieved 2013-09-01.
Plot
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."rear cover, Minerva p/b edition, publ 1999, Publishers Weekly called this a "promising, if overly self-absorbed debut novel."Bicycle Days: John Burnham Schwartz: 9780375702754: Amazon.com: Books Retrieved 2013-09-01. 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."Picks and Pans Review: Bicycle Days : People.com Retrieved 2013-09-01.
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