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A fun visual delight, this bestselling, award-winning book teaches over 1,000 kanji and their different readings.

What is the best way to learn Japanese characters? You could learn through hours of repetition, writing and rewriting each character, as some children are taught to in Japan. Instead Kanji Pict-o-Graphix takes the more natural and accessible approach of learning through association, with each character given a mnemonic pairing based on its meaning.

This book features over 1,000 kanji—as well as hiragana and katakana—along with a helpful memorization tool and their Chinese (on-yomi) and Japanese (kun-yomi) pronunciations. It's the perfect companion for any student of Japanese.

A revealing look at contemporary Japanese culture.

This masterfully written collection of short essays by the acknowledged Western expert on Japanese culture and film spans thirty years and ranges broadly over subjects as diverse as the Noh theater, fashion, television, Tokyo Disneyland, language, the kiss, and, of course, film. Donald Richie's twenty-eight essays present cross-sections of Japan's enormous creative accomplishments during the nation's rise to economic and cultural power.

In detailing the affair between a garden designer and his client's wife, this stylistic Japanese novel explores the roots of passion.

Mizue is a Japanese housewife. Kase is a garden designer hired by her husband to landscape their home. As the garden takes shape, Mizue awakens to a new sensuality and desire. A disturbing tale of seduction, based on Japanese aesthetics and the artistic pursuit of destructive beauty.

Tachihara Masaaki (1926-1980) was an award-winning Japanese novelist, essayist, poet and literary critic of Korean descent, active during the Shōwa period. Wind and Stone is his only full-length novel in English.

Enjoy delicious Japanese food in some of Kyoto's most tucked-away and spectacular townhouses.

Machiya, or townhouses, are traditional wooden dwellings in Kyoto that evoke the elegance and culture of Japan's old capital with their architectural details, beautiful gardens, and intimate rooms. Many have been converted into restaurants to create unforgettable dining experiences.

Enjoying healthy food in a historic, traditional Kyoto environment is a rare pleasure. Here are some 130 restaurant listings (food, decor, hours, addresses, prices, maps, and index) and a photographic guide to machiya architecture, culture, and aesthetics.

Tenryu-ji: One of Kyoto's most revered Zen temples and a monument to Japanese history, viewed through its monks, gardens, prayers, and art.

This illustrated study of Tenryuji, ranked number one among the five great Zen temples of Kyoto and a major destination for tourism and worship, weaves together history, design, culture, and personal reflection to reveal the inner workings of a great spiritual institution.

Looking at Tenryuji's present as a mirror to its past, and detailing the famous pond and rockwork composition by renowned designer Muso Soseki, Norris Brock Johnson presents the first full-length "biography" of a Zen temple garden.

The Gundam creator's own vision of his spectacularly successful cult franchise, new fans and old will find something in this essential reimagining of Mobile Suit Gundam.

In the world of the near future, an epic war rages between the Earth Federation and the rebel space colonies that call themselves the Principality of Zeon. The most fearsome weapons of the new era are the robotic vehicles known as mobile suites, armored giants with the firepower of battleships.

The Federation has pinned its hopes for victory on its advanced mobile suit prototypes, but when a young cadet named Amuro Ray becomes the pilot of the Gundam mobile suit, he discovers that machines alone will not be the decisive factor in the conflict. For a new stage of human evolution is dawning, and the future—if humanity has a future—may well belong to the Newtypes.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Awakening, Escalation, Confrontation returns to the Universal Century timeline, following the characters of Amuro Ray and Char Aznable. Tomino, Gundam's creator, provides a new take on the events of the original series in this novelization.

The little-known true story of how a flamboyant circus promoter helped introduce Japan to the West in the late 19th century.

"Professor" Risley (Richard Risley Carlisle) introduced the Western circus to Japan in 1864. Three years later, this former acrobat gave many in the West their first glimpse of Japan when he took his "Imperial Japanese Troupe" of acrobats and jugglers on a triumphant tour of North America and Europe. Over the next few years, the Troupe performed before presidents, monarchs, and ordinary citizens.

Frederik L. Schodt argues compellingly that such early popular entertainments helped stir a curiosity about all things Japanese that eventually led to japonisme, The Mikado, and, in our time, the boom in manga and anime. Schodt's depiction of Risley and his troupe is enlivened by portraits of the circus demimonde and supported by nineteenth-century photographs, posters, and drawings, many in color.

His accounts of these first meetings between Westerners and Japanese shed new light on how different cultures meet, mingle, and influence each other. Descriptions of crowds, dazzling routines, and superstar troupe performers like the famous Little All Right are a delightful revelation to anyone interested in Asia, the circus, and popular entertainment.

This updated edition of the best-selling travel guide to China is your ticket to the trip of a lifetime.

Compact, affordable, reliable, a delight to read—these qualities are what has made China Survival Guide so popular with first-time and seasoned China travelers.

This third edition has a brand new section on train travel, plus updates and fresh recommendations. Includes practical strategies for lodging, walking, haggling, medical and bathroom emergencies, etiquette, crowds, and learning the twin arts of patience and persistence.

From fascination to disillusionment and back, a memoir of one man's quest for Zen and spirituality in America and Japan.

In 1971, when Greg Shepherd was in his early twenties, he left New Jersey and joined the Koko An Zendo community in Hawaii. What began as a quest for enlightenment became Greg's confrontation with his own inner demons: his need for approval, his distrust of authority, and his ego-driven fixation on achieving the profound spiritual breakthrough of kensho ("the Big K"). Later, in Japan, he struggled with prejudice and cultural rigidity and found his deeper meditations leading to actual panic attacks over fear of losing himself. Ultimately, he broke with Zen and his teachers to pursue a career in music.

This frank memoir traces Greg Shepherd's meandering path from seeker to disillusionment, and, over a decade later, his way back to Zen and inner peace. We experience Zen practice in Japan and Hawaii and meet Zen masters Yamada Koun Roshi and Robert Aitken, the "dean of American Buddhism" (who had once pegged Greg as his successor). And we understand why Zen was so appealing to the American counterculture and how its profound lessons of focus and detachment remain insightful and important.

Gregory Shepherd has studied Zen since the early 1970s in Hawaii and Japan. He is associate professor of music at Kauai Community College.

A fascinating guide to themes and films in the expanding Japanese megaverse.

For fans, culture watchers, and perplexed outsiders, this expanded edition offers an engaging tour of the anime megaverse, from older artistic traditions to the works of modern creators like Hayao Miyazaki, Katsuhiro Otomo, Satoshi Kon, and CLAMP.

Examined are all of anime's major themes, styles, and conventions, plus the familiar tropes of giant robots, samurai, furry beasts, high school heroines, and gay/girl/fanboy love. Concluding are fifteen essays on favorite anime, including Evangelion, Escaflowne, Sailor Moon, Patlabor, and Fullmetal Alchemist.

An American sake expert takes you to a whole new level of insider knowledge and expertise.

With today's sake drinkers increasingly informed and adventurous, now is the time for a truly expert guide to take you deeper into appreciation of this complex but delightful Japanese beverage, brewed from rice and enjoyed both warm or chilled. And what better mentor than John Gauntner, the "Sake Guy" and the world's leading non-Japanese sake educator and evangelist? 

Here in over two dozen no-holds-barred essays, John reveals "the truth about sake" from a connected insider's perspective. No other book or website presents such a knowledgeable, practical, and concise yet complete guide to sake idiosyncrasies, misperceptions, and controversies. 

Sake Confidential is the perfect FAQ for beginners, experts, and sommeliers. Indexed for easy reference with suggested brands and label photos.

Award-winning Japanese landscape architect Marc Peter Keane traces the history and design of tea gardens from T'ang China to present day.

Almost every Japanese garden is influenced by the tea garden. Drawing on his impressive career of garden construction across the United States and Japan, Marc Peter Keane describes the history, design, and aesthetics of tea gardens, from T'ang China to the present day, with over 115 stunning photographs, floor plans, and illustrations. The most extensive book on this genre ever published in English, The Japanese Tea Garden is a rich resource for garden lovers, historians, and landscape architects.

The heartwarming true story of a wrong-way humpback whale who is helped and cheered back to freedom in San Francisco.

Humpback whales are magnificent creatures that sing beautiful songs to each other underwater. In the whole world there are very few of them, so each one is quite special.
And they are intelligent. Every winter they travel south, every summer they head north, and they always know the way.
But even whales can make mistakes . . .

In October 1985 a forty-five-foot long, forty-ton humpback whale wandered into San Francisco Bay and for twenty-six days struggled mightily to find his way back to the ocean. This true, illustrated story of Humphrey's adventure has been a children's favorite for more than twenty-five years. The 2014 edition has updated news on whales but retains the beloved art and text for big-ocean-mammal lovers everywhere. Adopted for Reading Rainbow.

"Impressive, exhaustive, labyrinthine, and obsessive—The Anime Encyclopedia is an astonishing piece of work." —Neil Gaiman

With over 10,000 entries nothing comes close . . . from classics to hidden gems, all the anime you love is finally at your fingertips.

This 3rd edition of The Anime Encyclopedia brings the landmark reference work up to date with six additional years of information on Japanese animation, its practitioners and products, as well as incisive thematic entries on anime history and culture. Even the most diehard anime fans will come away with new facts about their favorite anime and hidden gems to watch.

More than just generic listings, these reviews have snark, intelligence, and a discerning point of view. Data-obsessed fans will relish the extensive credits, online links, and cross-references, and parents and librarians will appreciate the content advisories.

Winner of the 2017 - 2018 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Translation Prize

Japan's most beloved memoir, from the early 20th century, "an extraordinarily beautiful evocation of the world of childhood."

Perhaps the most admired childhood memoir ever written in Japan, The Silver Spoon is a sharp detailing of life at the end of the Meiji period (1912) through the eyes of a boy as he grows into adolescence. Innocence fades as he slowly becomes aware of himself and others, while scene after scene richly evokes the tastes, lifestyles, landscapes, objects, and manners of a lost Japan.

A celebration of JA culture: facts, recipes, songs, words, and memories that every JA will want to share.

From immigration to discrimination and internment, and then to reparations and a high rate of intermarriage, Americans of Japanese descent share a long and sometimes painful history, and now fear their unique culture is being lost.

Gil Asakawa's celebration of what makes JAs so special is an entertaining blend of facts and features, of recipes, songs, and memories that every JA will want to share with friends and family. Included are interviews with famous JAs and a look at how it's hip to be Japanese, from manga to martial arts, plus a section on Japantown communities and tips for JA's scrapbooking their families and traveling to Japan to rediscover their roots.

CEO Shigetaka Komori's own story of why Fujifilm succeeded where Kodak failed . . .

In 2000, photographic film products made up 60% of Fujifilm's sales and up to 70% of its profit. Within ten years, digital cameras had destroyed that business. In 2012, Kodak filed for bankruptcy. Yet Fujifilm has boasted record profits and continues strong.

What happened? What did Fujifilm do? What do businesses today need from their leaders? What kinds of employees can help businesses thrive in the future? Here, the CEO who brought Fujifilm back from the brink explains how he engineered transformative organizational innovation and product diversification, with observations on his management philosophy.

A timeless travel-writing classic that inspired the film, with photography by Yoichi Midorikawa.

In this acclaimed travel memoir, Donald Richie paints a memorable portrait of the island-studded Inland Sea. His existential ruminations on food, culture, and love and his brilliant descriptions of life and landscape are a window into an Old Japan that has now nearly vanished.

The book that cemented Donald Richie's reputation as a master of observation. With lucid prose, Richie searches for the heart of Japan among the waters sheltered between Japan's major islands. Included are the twenty black and white photographs by Yoichi Midorikawa that accompanied the original 1971 edition.

Winner of the 2016 Foreword INDIES Award for Graphic Novels & Comic

The official manga biography of Osamu Tezuka, Japan's "God of Manga," chronicling the birth and evolution of manga and anime.

This graphic-format biography of Osamu Tezuka—Japan's "God of Manga"—looks at one of the twentieth century's great creative artists (Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, Black Jack). It is also an anecdotal study of the evolution of Japan's early manga and anime business and its heroes.

A never-before-seen popular culture history of postwar Japan, it is sure to fascinate fans and anyone interested in manga, anime, and the potential of the graphic storytelling medium.

Can traditional Japanese life concepts—like loyalty, harmony, meticulousness—make sense in Western societies?

This little book offers readers a provocative tour through seventy-six core life concepts that are at the foundation of Japanese behavior, belief, and beauty.

Japaneseness will be of particular interest to students of ethics and humanism as well as those living, working, or traveling in Japan. And it raises an intriguing question: Can traditional Japanese values—like loyalty, meticulousness, sensitivity, reverence, hierarchy, trust, and harmony—make sense in modern Western societies? You are encouraged to think about how Japanese virtues can cultivate inner strength, mindfulness, and long-lasting relationships at your own homes and workplaces.

A fun way to learn about China in a visual, informative comic-style history.

Who founded China? Are Chinese people religious? What is Chinese culture and how has it changed over time? The accessible and fun Understanding China Through Comics series answers those questions and more.

For all ages, Foundations of Chinese Civilization covers China's early history in comic form, introducing philosophies like Confucianism and Daoism, the story of the Silk Road, famous emperors like Han Wudi, and the process of China's unification.

Includes a handy timeline. This is volume one of the Understanding China Through Comics series.

Jing Liu is a Beijing native now living in Davis, California. A successful designer and entrepreneur who helped brands tell their stories, Jing currently uses his artistry to tell the story of China.

Of special interest to scholars and students of Zen classics, a glossary of specialized vocabulary to aid understanding and practice.

Over the course of Zen's development in China and Japan, the sayings and episodes of the masters have formed a huge collection of literature. Designed to put these writings within easy reach of serious students for inspiration and understanding, this glossary provides 5,500 entries on Zen terms, names of persons, texts, idiomatic expressions, references to Chinese classics, general Buddhist terms, and even particles and other parts of speech considered important in grasping the original intent and meaning.

Hisao Inagaki received a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and is a professor at Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan.

Thirty years after its first publication, Womansword remains a timely, provocative work on how words reflect female stereotypes in modern Japan.

Short, lively essays offer linguistic, sociological, and historical insight into issues central to the lives of women everywhere: identity, girlhood, marriage, motherhood, work, sexuality, and aging. Cherry uses Japanese society, from folklore to pop culture, to illuminate female identity, simultaneously teaching us about both.

A new introduction shows how things have—and haven't—changed.

The second volume in this fun, comic-style series that explores China's transition from the Three Kingdoms to the Tang Dynasty.

Who founded China? Are Chinese people religious? What is Chinese culture and how has it changed over time? The Understanding China Through Comics series answers these questions and more.

Division to Unification in Imperial China is series volume two. It explores one of China's more chaotic periods when Chinese culture flourished while civil wars and foreign invasions repeatedly thwarted attempts at unification.

A handy supplement to studying characters in class or independently that teaches useful tricks for remembering words and tones.

From one of the authors of Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar comes Speak and Read Chinese, a simple, fun guide that helps language learners remember pinyin, tones, and characters of essential Chinese words.

Students and teachers rate pinyin, tones, and characters as some of the most difficult aspects of learning Chinese. This book addresses this issue by organizing easy memorization tricks for the three hundred most basic characters in popular textbook series like Integrated Chinese and New Practical Chinese Reader.

Japanese characters served up with histories and cultural clues to help you decorate your skin/body/life with just the right word!

Bold, visual, profound, symbolic: Japanese kanji characters communicate powerful graphic messages that look great on skin, walls, stationery, T-shirts, and more Here are dozens of edgy, targeted characters hand-picked to help you find the inner you and express yourself in a distinctive stylish way. With cultural clues, readings, font varieties, and ideas for proper use. Don't embarrass yourself with bad ink!

Tokio Whip is a distinctly stylistic tour-de-force that asks you to navigate language and meaning as you would the backalleys and train lines of Tokyo.

This is the story of Roberta and Lang and their friends, and their experience of the great Japanese city Tokyo in all its many manifestations to their inquiring, observing, and wandering minds as they banter over the details of a party, a film, the Songs Common to Dreams, Tokyo’s history, the Names of Love.

Arturo Silva is an author and film scholar who lived in Tokyo for 18 years. Tokio Whip is the culmination of that experience. The author's notes, charts, and images—available on his website—add yet another layer to this intricate novel . . . even its title is a puzzle to be solved.

This fun, comic-style series that explores China's relationship with its barbarian neighbors. The Mongols!

Who founded China? Are Chinese people religious? What is Chinese culture and how has it changed over time? The Understanding China Through Comics series answers these questions and more.

The third volume of the Understanding China Through Comics series, Barbarians and the Birth of Chinese Identity, tells of the founding of the Song Dynasty and its attempts to reinvigorate a flagging economy and government while defending against barbarians and the eventual invasion of China by Genghis Khan and the Mongols.

Marc Peter Keane's personal journey through 100 Japanese gardens, looking at them with a designer’s eye.

Matching some 400 color photographs to brief, informed observations, renowned garden designer Marc Peter Keane walks us through 100 Japanese gardens, stopping along the way to note essential elements of design, technique, and culture. Covering everything from large-scale aspects of space and balance to subtle elements that are often overlooked, this is an innovative, stunningly visual guide for planning and inspiration.

An American girl of Japanese ancestry is exiled in her own country after Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.

After Pearl Harbor, little Marie Mitsui, who considers herself a typical American girl, sees her life of school and playing with friends in San Francisco totally upended. Her family and 120,000 others of Japanese ancestry are forcibly relocated to internment camps far from home. Living conditions in the camps are harsh, life after camp is similarly harsh, but in the end, as she and her family make their way back to San Francisco, Marie sees hope for the future.

Told from a child’s perspective, The Little Exile deftly conveys Marie’s innocence, wonder, fear, and outrage. Though names and some details have been altered, this is the author's own life story. She believes that underlying everyone's experience, no matter how varied, are threads of humanity that bind us all. It is her hope that readers of all ages are able to find those threads in her story.

A powerful and thought-provoking novel that raises important questions about World War II, war memory, and US imperialism and blowback.

In the Woods of Memory is a powerful, thought-provoking novel that focuses on two incidents during the Battle of Okinawa, 1945: the sexual assault on Sayoko, 17, by four US soldiers and her friend Seiji’s attempt at revenge.

Narrations through nine points of view, Japanese and American, from 1945 to the present day reveal the full complexity of events and how war trauma inevitably ripples through the generations.

An unforgettable memoir of the horrors suffered by a Japanese family trapped in Changchun, China, at the end of WW2.

Over 150,000 innocents died of starvation in Changchun, northeastern China, after the end of WW2 when Mao's army laid siege during the Chinese Civil War. Japanese girl Homare Endo, then age seven, was trapped in Changchun with her family. After nomadic flight from city to city, Homare eventually returned to Japan and a professional career.

This is her eyewitness, at times haunting account of survival at all costs and of unspeakable scenes of barbarity that the Chinese government today will not acknowledge.

The fourth volume in this fun, comic-style series that explores China's move to modernization!

Who founded China? Are Chinese people religious? What is Chinese culture and how has it changed over time? The Understanding China Through Comics series answers these questions and more.

The fourth volume in the Understanding China Through Comics series The Making of Modern China, covers the stunningly productive Ming dynasty and its fall to the Manchus under the Qing, the last Chinese dynasty. The book also addresses Wang Yangming's School of Mind and the painful process of modernization and conflict with the West and Japan, including the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion.

A handy supplement for learning 300 of the most common Japanese words, works with any textbook!

Modeled on the same winning format as his Speak and Read Chinese, teacher Larry Herzberg's latest book offers simple, fun, and imaginative ways to remember essential Japanese words and characters. Mastering basic vocabulary and kanji is one of the first challenges any Japanese learner faces. This book addresses this task head-on, complementing the content of all major Japanese textbooks and providing valuable tips to independent students. Includes three hundred essential words and kanji from the first two years of study, indexed for quick reference.

The Japan travel classic and cultural guide gets you wandering from downtown quarters to remote mountaintop temples....

This revised and updated edition of the Japan travel classic and cultural guide gets you wandering from downtown quarters to remote mountaintop temples and features expanded information on new museums and gardens now open year-round for viewing.

Judith Clancy's expert research weaves a rich narrative of Kyoto's history, local lore, and artistic and religious background to guide you through your journey.

Includes:

• 31 explorations including 5 mountain routes, 17 World Heritage Sites, Arashiyama, Kiyomizu-dera, Philosopher's Walk, the city's 6 Zen temple complexes, and much more
• Detailed maps tracing each route
• Over 30 descriptive photos
• Tips on etiquette and behavior
• A full index to all sites and attractions

Married to a Zen monk in training, an American woman in Japan chronicles her own year of growth and discovery

In February 2004, when her American husband, a recently ordained Zen monk, leaves home to train for a year at a centuries-old Buddhist monastery, Tracy Franz embarks on her own year of Zen. An Alaskan alone—and lonely—in Japan, she begins to pay attention.

My Year of Dirt and Water is a record of that journey. Allowed only occasional and formal visits to see her cloistered husband, Tracy teaches English, studies Japanese, and devotes herself to making pottery. Her teacher instructs her to turn cup after cup—creating one failure after another. Past and present, East and West intertwine as Tracy is twice compelled to return home to Alaska to confront her mother’s newly diagnosed cancer and the ghosts of a devastating childhood. 

Revolving through the days, My Year of Dirt and Water circles hard questions: What is love? What is art? What is practice? What do we do with the burden of suffering? The answers are formed and then unformed—a ceramic bowl born on the wheel and then returned again and again to dirt and water. 

2018 Foreword Indie Awards Winner

Going to Japan? This unfussy modern guide guarantees you keep it polite and get it right!

This guide to common courtesy, acceptable behavior, and manners is essential for any visitor to Japan. Japanese are unfailingly polite and will never tell you if you've crossed the line. But by knowing how to act in every situation you'll gain the respect of your hosts and in the end get even better service and enjoyment during your travels. Covered here are all the essentials—like travel, greetings, dining—plus subtle niceties like tone of voice, body language, cell phone usage, city vs. country styles, and attire (and what to do about your tattoos!).

The author, a 25-year resident of Japan and tourist adviser who lives on the fabled Inland Sea, knows just what foreign visitors need and delivers it in a smart, compact, and delightfully illustrated package for quick use and reference.

Recipient of the 2018 William F. Sibley Memorial Subvention Award for Japanese Translation

A new, definitive translation of the postwar classic known to the west as No Longer Human—a tortured vision inspiring the likes of Junji Ito and Bungo Stray Dogs

Osamu Dazai is one of the most famous—and infamous—writers of 20th-century Japan. A Shameful Life (Ningen Shikkaku) is his final published work and has become a bestselling classic for its depiction of the tortured struggle of a young man to survive in a world that he cannot comprehend. 

Paralleling the life and death of Dazai himself, the delicate weaving of fact and fiction remorselessly documents via journals the life of Yozo, a university student who spends his time in increasing isolation and debauchery. His doomed love affairs, suicide attempts, and constant fear of revealing his true self haunt the pages of the book and reveal a slow descent into madness. This dark tale nevertheless conveys something authentic about the human heart and its inability to find its true bearing.

Gibeau's translation cements A Shameful Life's place in the existentialist literary canon from Dostoevsky to Camus. Fans of Bungo Stray Dogs will recognize Osamu Dazai as one of the characters named after the giants of Japanese literature. Those familiar with the numerous adaptations in graphic novels and animation can experience the source material in faithful, modern prose.

A remarkable cross-cultural history that rescues the swastika, an ancient Buddhist symbol, from its deployment by the forces of hate.

The swastika has been used for over three thousand years by billions of people in many cultures and religions—including Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism—as an auspicious symbol of the sun and good fortune. However, beginning with its hijacking and misappropriation by Nazi Germany, it has also been used, and continues to be used, as a symbol of hate in the Western World. Hitler's device is in fact a "hooked cross." 

Rev. Nakagaki's book explains how and why these symbols got confused, and offers a path to peace, understanding, and reconciliation.

Please note: Photographs in the digital edition of the books are in color. Photographs in the print edition are in black and white.

Two women. Two cultures. One music.

The word sensei in Japanese literally means “one who came before,” but that’s not what Janet Pocorobba’s teacher wanted to be called. She used her first name, Western-style. She wore a velour Beatles cap and leather jacket, and she taught foreigners, in English, the three-stringed shamisen, an instrument that fell out of tune as soon as you started to play it. 

Vexed by the music and Sensei’s mission to upend an elite musical system, Pocorobba, on the cusp of thirty, gives up her return ticket home to become a lifelong student of her teacher. She is eventually featured in Japan Cosmo as one of the most accomplished gaijin, “outside people,” to play the instrument.

Part memoir, part biography of her Sensei, The Fourth String looks back on the initial few years of that apprenticeship, one that Janet’s own female English students advised her was “wife training,” steeped in obedience, loyalty, and duty. Even with her maverick teacher, Janet is challenged by group hierarchies, obscure traditions, and the tricky spaces of silence in Japanese life.

Learn the basic Japanese syllabary from every angle: reading, writing, and real-world examples.

A complete handbook for learning to read and write Japanese hiragana, the syllabary that is the first of Japan's three writing systems introduced to all beginning students. Using real-world examples, illustrations, quizzes, and practice squares, this book teaches correct stroke order as well as examples of how hiragana are used for question words, adverbs, special words, and pronunciation of difficult characters.

Learn the second key Japanese syllabary from every angle: reading, writing, and real-world examples.

A complete handbook for learning to read and write Japanese katakana, the syllabary that is the second of Japan's three writing systems introduced to all beginning students. Using real-world examples, illustrations, quizzes, and practice squares, this book teaches correct stroke order as well as examples of how katakana are used for words borrowed from other languages, for emphasis, and in advertising for its “cool” factor.

An intoxicating, illustrated guide to Japan's ritual of hot-tub bathing.

Since its first publication in 1992, this book has become a curious classic, taking a simple (yet often incorrectly performed) activity and depicting it with a graphic, manga-style edge. In twelve drawings a young Japanese man is shown preparing, rinsing, soaking, communing, relaxing, contemplating—all an encouragement to readers to slow down, ease into the hot water, and enjoy this timeless ritual of purity and release.

Essential essays on all things Chinese that inform and entertain travelers, students, and anyone working or living in China.

How is China organized politically? What are the issues that young people face in today's China? What is China doing about its problem with pollution? Is the Chinese internet like our internet? What's China's role in the world today? And how much do you know about China's great woman emperor or the Chinese explorer whose voyages may have inspired the legend of Sinbad the Sailor? What are the major Chinese holidays, their superstitions regarding numbers, and the true nature of the Chinese written language?

In nearly 60 brief essays, long-time China expert Larry Herzberg tackles important facts and myths about China, its history, people, and culture, as well as its contemporary society. Anyone dipping into this book will emerge that much smarter about China, whether visiting, conducting business, studying the language, or simply being fascinated by one of the world's greatest and most influential civilizations.

A deeply eccentric novel about lives and connections—and a cat of course—in 1980s Tokyo: witty, offbeat, and strangely profound.

Oh, Tama! describes the haphazard lives of Natsuyuki Kanemitsu and his loosely connected circle of dysfunctional acquaintances and family. Natsuyuki is prevailed upon by his friend Alexandre, an occasional porn-film actor, to adopt the very pregnant cat Tama, who gives birth and remains throughout the novel as a silent observer of her human hosts.

Further complications arise surrounding the mystery of who the father of Alexandre's sister Tsuneko's unborn child is, with Tsuneko (a bar owner) happy to collect money from anyone who may be responsible. One of these possible dads turns out to be Natsuyuki's half-brother, abandoned and forgotten long ago as easily as Tama has parted with her kittens. 

A "fast and comedic novel," Oh, Tama! plays out against a backdrop of cramped apartments and cheap food and drink where everyone seems to have an opinion on film, photography, and fashionable French art theory. It is part of the author's esteemed series of "Mejiro" novels, named after the northwest area of Tokyo that so richly informs their urbanity and outlook.

One of the most spectacular vendettas ever: the history and haiku behind the mass-suicide featured in the 2013 film 47 Ronin

A remarkable and true tale of loyalty, vengeance, and ritual suicide. . . . In the spring of 1701, the regional lord Asano Naganori wounded his supervising official, Kira Yoshinaka, during an important ceremony in the ruling shogunate's Edo Castle and was at once condemned to death. Within two years, in the dead of winter, a band of forty-seven of Asano's retainers avenged him by breaking into Yoshinaka’s mansion and killing him. Subsequently, all the men were sentenced to death but allowed to perform it honorably by seppuku.

This incident—often called the Ako Incident—became a symbol of samurai honor andat once prompted stage dramatization in kabuki and puppet theater. It has since has been told and retold in short and long stories, movies, TV dramas. The story has also attracted the attention of foreign writers and translators. The most recent retelling was the 2013 Hollywood film 47 Ronin, with Keanu Reeves, though it was wildly and willfully distorted.

What did actually happen and how has this famous vendetta resonated through history? Hiroaki Sato's examination is a close, comprehensive look at the Ako Incident through the context of its times, portraits of the main protagonists, and its literary legacy in the haiku ofthe avengers. Also included is Sato's new translation of Akutagawa Ryunosuke's short story about leader Oishi Kuranosuke as he awaited sentencing.

Introducing the works of a major Chinese writer—liberal, cosmopolitan, and lyrically exotic—once banned but now embraced, and newly "discovered" in the West.

Xu Xu 徐訏 (1908-1980) was one of the most widely read Chinese authors of the 1930s to 1960s. His popular urban gothic tales, his exotic spy fiction, and his quasi-existentialist love stories full of nostalgia and melancholy offer today’s readers an unusual glimpse into China’s turbulent twentieth century.

These translations--spanning a period of some thirty years, from 1937 until 1965--bring to life some of Xu Xu’s most representative short fictions from prewar Shanghai and postwar Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The Afterword illustrates that Xu Xu’s idealistic tendencies in defiance of the politicization of art exemplify his affinity with European romanticism and link his work to a global literary modernity.

2022 Skipping Stones Honor Awards Recipient | 2021 NCTAsia Freeman Award Honorable Mention

The true story of how one Japanese village suffered and survived the mercury poisoning of its waters.

A powerful graphic novel/manga that tells the story of "Minamata disease," a debilitating and sometimes fatal condition caused by the Chisso chemical factory's careless release of methylmercury into the waters of the coastal community of Minamata in southern Japan. First identified in 1956, it became a hot topic in Japan in the 1970s and 80s, growing into an iconic struggle between people versus corporations and government agencies.

This struggle is relevant today, not simply because many people are still living with the disease but also because, in this time of growing concern over the safety of our environment—viz. Flint, Michigan—Minamata gives us as a very moving example of such human-caused environmental disasters and what we can do about them.

The event is also the subject of the 2020 Andrew Levitas directed Johnny Depp film, Minamata.

A unique behind-the-scenes look at Japanese business and how the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki were introduced to the world.

This highly entertaining business memoir describes what it was like to work for Japan’s premiere animation studio, Studio Ghibli, and its reigning genius Hayao Miyazaki. Steve Alpert, a Japanese-speaking American, was the “resident foreigner” in the offices of Ghibli and its parent Tokuma Shoten and played a central role when Miyazaki’s films were starting to take off in international markets. Alpert describes hauling heavy film canisters of Princess Mononoke to Russia and California, experiencing a screaming Harvey Weinstein, dealing with Disney marketers, and then triumphantly attending glittering galas celebrating the Oscar-winning Spirited Away. 

His one-of-a-kind portraits of Miyazaki and long-time producer Toshio Suzuki, and of sly, gruff, and brilliant businessman Yasuyoshi Tokuma, capture the hard work and artistry that have made Ghibli films synonymous with cinematic excellence. And as the lone gaijin in a demanding company run by some of the most famous and influential people in modern Japan, Steve Alpert tackles his own challenges of language and culture. No one else could have written this book.

Tokyo Stroll is the best guidebook for travelers who want to wander the streets and discover the city as it unfolds before their eyes. There is no "start at point A and go to point B" prescribed route. Instead you are invited to wander as whimsy takes you. This guide includes:

• Over 600 locations to satisfy any interest including historical sites, art museums, upscale ryotei dining, traditional craft shops, shrines and temples, and remarkable architecture both traditional and stunningly modern
• 22 neighborhoods of Tokyo to experience, from the bright, bustling Shibuya to the serene shrines and temples of lesser-known Yanesen

• 150 maps to help you navigate, download the map markers for locations in Tokyo Stroll to your phone or tablet for easy access
• 75 full-page photos
• Practical advice on preparing your trip, with information on the best times of year to go, as well as how to use public transport and change money when you get there
• A primer on useful phrases and etiquette so you’re never left wondering
• Day trips to get you out of the city with advice on transportation
• A focus on history and businesses that have stood the test of time, often over 100 years
• A glossary of Japanese terms and an index

Introducing the works of a major Chinese writer—liberal, cosmopolitan, and lyrically exotic—once banned but now embraced, and newly "discovered" in the West.

Xu Xu 徐訏 (1908-1980) was one of the most widely read Chinese authors of the 1930s to 1960s. His popular urban gothic tales, his exotic spy fiction, and his quasi-existentialist love stories full of nostalgia and melancholy offer today’s readers an unusual glimpse into China’s turbulent twentieth century.

These translations--spanning a period of some thirty years, from 1937 until 1965--bring to life some of Xu Xu’s most representative short fictions from prewar Shanghai and postwar Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The Afterword illustrates that Xu Xu’s idealistic tendencies in defiance of the politicization of art exemplify his affinity with European romanticism and link his work to a global literary modernity.

A unique behind-the-scenes look at Japanese business and how the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki were introduced to the world.

This highly entertaining business memoir describes what it was like to work for Japan’s premiere animation studio, Studio Ghibli, and its reigning genius Hayao Miyazaki. Steve Alpert, a Japanese-speaking American, was the “resident foreigner” in the offices of Ghibli and its parent Tokuma Shoten and played a central role when Miyazaki’s films were starting to take off in international markets. Alpert describes hauling heavy film canisters of Princess Mononoke to Russia and California, experiencing a screaming Harvey Weinstein, dealing with Disney marketers, and then triumphantly attending glittering galas celebrating the Oscar-winning Spirited Away. 

His one-of-a-kind portraits of Miyazaki and long-time producer Toshio Suzuki, and of sly, gruff, and brilliant businessman Yasuyoshi Tokuma, capture the hard work and artistry that have made Ghibli films synonymous with cinematic excellence. And as the lone gaijin in a demanding company run by some of the most famous and influential people in modern Japan, Steve Alpert tackles his own challenges of language and culture. No one else could have written this book.

A delicious collection of essays, recipes, and practical plant information exploring Japan's thriving culture of foraged foods.

From bracken to butterbur to "princess" bamboo, some of Japan's most iconic foods are foraged, not grown, in its forests, fields, and coastal waters—yet most Westerners have never heard of them.

In this book, journalist Winifred Bird eats her way from one end of the country to the other in search of the hidden stories of Japan's wild foods, the people who pick them, and the places whose histories they've shaped.

A cultural and personal journey into the famous sutra that teaches "form is emptiness; and emptiness is form."

The Heart Sutra is the most widely read, chanted, and copied text in East Asian Buddhism. Here Frederik L. Schodt explores his lifelong fascination with the sutra: its mesmerizing mantra, its ancient history, the “emptiness theory, and the way it is used around the world as a metaphysical tool to overcome chaos and confusion and reach a new understanding of reality--a perfection of wisdom. Schodt's journey takes him to caves in China, American beats declaiming poetry, speculations into the sutra's true origins, and even a robot Avalokiteśvara at a Kyoto temple.

An accessible compendium of the most important aspects of Japanese arts, culture and history, for quick reference or a longer, in-depth read, for actual and armchair travelers alike..

This friendly guide offers concise but detailed demystifications of more than 85 aspects of ancient and modern Japan.

It can be read in sequence, or just dipped into, depending on the moment’s need. Explanations go much deeper than a typical travel guide and cover 1,500 years of history and culture, everything from geisha to gangsters, haiku to karaoke, the sun goddess to the shogunate . . . and anime to Zen.

A critical biography of a modern Japanese literary giant, whose brilliant career ended in a spectacular ritual suicide.

Yukio Mishima (b. 1925) was a brilliant writer and intellectual whose relentless obsession with beauty, purity, and patriotism ended in his astonishing self-disembowelment and decapitation in downtown Tokyo in 1970. Nominated for the Nobel Prize, Mishima was the best-known novelist of his time (works like Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion are still in print in English), and his legacy—his persona—is still honored and puzzled over.

Who was Yukio Mishima really? This, the first full biography to appear in English in almost forty years, traces Mishima's trajectory from a sickly boy named Kimitake Hiraoka to a hard-bodied student of martial arts. In detail it examines his family life, the wartime years, and his emergence, then fame, as a writer and advocate for traditional values. Revealed here are all the personalities and conflicts and sometimes petty backbiting that shaped the culture of postwar literary Japan.

Working entirely from primary sources and material unavailable to other biographers, author Naoki Inose and translator Hiroaki Sato together have produced a monumental work that covers much new ground in unprecedented depth. Using interviews, social and psychological analysis, and close reading of novels and essays, Persona removes the mask that Mishima so artfully created to disguise his true self.

Women, Magic, Wisdom: Explore a Japanese myth through the words and images of key scholars and artists.

Alluring, nurturing, dangerous, and vulnerable the yamamba, or Japanese mountain witch, has intrigued audiences for centuries. What is it about the fusion of mountains with the solitary old woman that produces such an enigmatic figure? And why does she still call to us in this modern, scientific era? 

Co-editors Rebecca Copeland and Linda C. Ehrlich first met the yamamba in the powerful short story “The Smile of the Mountain Witch” by acclaimed woman writer Ōba Minako. The story revealed the compelling way creative women can take charge of misogynistic tropes, invert them, and use them to tell new stories of female empowerment.

This unique collection represents the creative and surprising ways artists and scholars from North America and Japan have encountered the yamamba.

60 years of observation: an American journalist’s memoir about Tokyo’s modern urban transformation, its criminal underworld and, oh yes, baseball.

Tokyo Junkie is a memoir that plays out over the dramatic 60-year growth of the megacity Tokyo, once a dark, fetid backwater and now the most populous, sophisticated, and safe urban capital in the world.

Follow author Robert Whiting (The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, You Gotta Have Wa, Tokyo Underworld) as he watches Tokyo transform during the 1964 Olympics, rubs shoulders with the Yakuza and comes face to face with the city’s dark underbelly, interviews Japan’s baseball elite after publishing his first best-selling book on the subject, and learns how politics and sports collide to produce a cultural landscape unlike any other, even as a new Olympics is postponed and the COVID virus ravages the nation.

A colorful social history of what Anthony Bourdain dubbed, “the greatest city in the world,” Tokyo Junkie is a revealing account by an accomplished journalist who witnessed it all firsthand and, in the process, had his own dramatic personal transformation.

Your favorite Japanese foods, home-cooked, packaged, or served in restaurants, and how they came to delight the American palate.

Tabemasho! Let's Eat! is a tasty look at how Japanese food has evolved in America from an exotic and mysterious—even "gross"—cuisine to the peak of culinary popularity, with sushi sold in supermarkets across the country and ramen available in hipster restaurants everywhere. The author was born in Japan and raised in the U.S. and has eaten his way through this amazing food revolution.

Recipient of the 2021 Northern Lights Book Awards Poetry Category

Haiku tell the story of the poet Basho and the diaries he wrote while walking throughout Japan in the 1600s.

The seventeenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho practically invented the haiku. He's most famous for his travel journals. But how did he come to be such a traveler in the first place?

This delightful volume—composed entirely in haiku based on the poet's written travelogues and illustrated with vibrant hand-painted scenes—tells the true story of Basho's decision to abandon his comfortable city life and of the five great journeys he then took across the length and breadth of Japan.

How China became the China we know today, through war and societal transformation.

China entered the 20th century as an agrarian society, weakened under internal and external pressures. Revolutionaries came together to bring down the last imperial dynasty but quickly split over the direction of reconstruction. Civil wars ensued, followed by WWI. 

The fate of the country appeared to be in the hands of industrial powers like Britain, Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, and the United States. All seemed lost when Japan seized all Chinese seaports, railways, industries, and fertile farmland. Yet Chinese resistance continued for eight years and the entire society was mobilized. After decades of struggling, China finally regained independence that laid the foundation for its own modernization.

In Kanazawa, the first literary novel in English to be set in this storied Japanese city, Emmitt’s future plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of negotiations to purchase their dream home. Disappointed, he’s surprised to discover Mirai’s subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo, a city he dislikes. 

Harmony is further disrupted when Emmitt’s search for a more meaningful life in Japan leads him to quit an unsatisfying job at a local university. In the fallout, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa’s most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English.

While continually resisting Mirai’s efforts to move to Tokyo, Emmitt becomes drawn into the mysterious death thirty years prior of a mutual friend of Mirai’s parents. It is only when he and his father-in-law climb the mountain where the man died that he learns the somber truth, and in turn discovers what the future holds for him and his wife.

Packed with subtle literary allusion and closely observed nuance, with an intimacy of emotion inexorably tied both to the cityscape and Japan’s mountainous terrain, Kanazawa reflects the mood of Japanese fiction in a fresh, modern incarnation.

A renowned designer of Japanese gardens contemplates wildness, humanity, beauty, the liquid state of the world.

From his vantage point as a garden designer and writer based in Kyoto, Marc Peter Keane examines the world around him and delivers astonishing insights through an array of narratives. 

How the names of gardens reveal their essential meaning. A new definition of what art is. What trees are really made of. The true meaning of the enigmatic torii gate found at Shinto shrines. Why we give flowers as gifts. The essential, underlying unity of the world.

60 years of observation: an American journalist’s memoir about Tokyo’s modern urban transformation, its criminal underworld and, oh yes, baseball.

Tokyo Junkie is a memoir that plays out over the dramatic 60-year growth of the megacity Tokyo, once a dark, fetid backwater and now the most populous, sophisticated, and safe urban capital in the world.

Follow author Robert Whiting (The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, You Gotta Have Wa, Tokyo Underworld) as he watches Tokyo transform during the 1964 Olympics, rubs shoulders with the Yakuza and comes face to face with the city’s dark underbelly, interviews Japan’s baseball elite after publishing his first best-selling book on the subject, and learns how politics and sports collide to produce a cultural landscape unlike any other, even as a new Olympics is postponed and the COVID virus ravages the nation.

A colorful social history of what Anthony Bourdain dubbed, “the greatest city in the world,” Tokyo Junkie is a revealing account by an accomplished journalist who witnessed it all firsthand and, in the process, had his own dramatic personal transformation.

An American student in 1970s Kyoto rambles among the city's beauties and traditions, learning as he goes.

Don Ascher is a young American living in Kyoto in the 1970s. He is a student of Japanese. He also teaches English, works at a shabu-shabu restaurant, and hangs out in the company of gangsters, hostesses, housewives, tea teachers, and fellow foreigners. Set amidst the timeless beauty of the ancient capital and its garish modern entertainments, this collection of fanciful episodes from Don’s life is a window into Japanese culture and a chronicle of romance and human connections.

An informal yet informed journey through the classic works of Japanese cinema and their directors.

This is a passionate, personal journey through one of the world’s greatest national cinemas, beginning with the classic directors who came to the fore in the postwar period and became legendary names on the art house circuit: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Kobayashi, Naruse, and Oshima, among others. Japanese Cinema traces the common themes explored by these directors as well as the impact of important historical and cultural issues, including World War 2, the representation of women, and the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s. 

Finally, Peter Cowie surveys the state of contemporary Japanese film and its greatest living practitioners, Hirokazu Kore-eda among them, as well as the international face of Japanese animation, Hayao Miyazaki. Cowie brings a lifetime’s commitment to film to bear on the human relationships so well explored by these Japanese auteurs.

A groundbreaking document of rural Japanese life, stories, and traditions from 1850-1960.

Tsuneichi Miyamoto (1907-1981), a leading Japanese folklore scholar and rural advocate, walked 160,000 kilometers to conduct interviews and capture a dying way of life. This collection of photos, vignettes, and life stories from pre- and postwar rural Japan is the first English translation of his modern Japanese classic. From blowfish to landslides, Miyamoto's stories come to life in Jeffrey Irish's fluid translation.

How the mindset of traditional Japanese society can guide our own efforts to lead a green lifestyle today.

If we want to live sustainably, how should we feel about nature? About waste? About our forests and rivers? About food? Just Enough is a book of stories and sketches that give valuable insight into what it is like to live in a sustainable society by describing life in Japan some two hundred years ago, during the late Edo period, when cities and villages faced many of the same environmental challenges we do today and met them beautifully and inventively.

Prolific, award-winning translator of classical and modern Japanese poetry Hiroaki Sato recorded his thoughts on American society in mainly two columns across 30-plus years, collected here for the first time.

This anthology of over 60 of Sato’s commentaries reflect the writer’s wide-ranging erudition and his unsentimental views of both his native Japan and his adopted American homeland. Broadly he looks at the Pacific War and its aftermath and at war (and our love of it) in general, at the quirks and curiosities of the natural world exhibited by birds and other creatures, at friends and mentors who surprised and inspired, and finally at other writers and their works, many of them familiar—the Beats and John Ashbery, for example, and Mishima—but many others whose introduction is welcome.

Sato is neither cheerleader nor angry expatriate. Remarkably clear-eyed and engaged with American culture, he is in the business of critical appraisal and translation, of taking words seriously, and of observing how well others write and speak to convey their own truths and ambitions.

The 20th anniversary edition of the best-selling guide to self-reflection.

A unique blend of the spiritual and psychological to help you examine your life, renew your relationships, and reshape your future.

Drawing on Eastern spiritual and psychological traditions, Naikan is an effective method of self-reflection for cultivating self-awareness, gratitude, empathy, and a path for moving forward in our lives. Naikan began as a spiritual practice in the Buddhist tradition and is now recognized by psychologists as an effective tool for helping people navigate the path of personal relationships, addictions, and other mental health challenges.

This edition commemorates the 20th anniversary of this influential work’s first publication. Author Gregg Krech, now after 30+ years of teaching Naikan, shares the depth of his experience with essays, parables, poems, quotations, and recommended reflection exercises, and includes new material on relationships, a 7-day practice program, and an updated appendix for counseling professionals.

The unique structure of Naikan illuminates truths that we may otherwise overlook and that can have a dramatic impact on our understanding of life, our relationships, and our daily experience of being alive. More than a philosophy, Naikan is a deep and transformative practice that can open us up to a different understanding of how we have lived and where to go from here.

A new and remarkable look at the sake produced in Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture.

This book is the first of its kind, a deep-dive into a single sake-producing region to highlight its delicious brews as well as the people, land, and culture behind them. Brewing in Yamaguchi — in southern Honshu, Japan — reflects the whole history of sake in Japan, from boom to bust to resurgence, and many of its brands, including the fabled Dassai, are now at izakaya and fine restaurants around the world. 

Expert Jim Rion takes us on a tour of all 23 Yamaguchi breweries to introduce the character of each and its brewmasters’ best picks. Along the way he provides background on such topics as rice farmers, drinkware, brewing methods, and the controversy over sake “terroir” (does it exist?). An added bonus for travelers is a mini sightseeing guide to the region and its many delights. Illustrated with photographs and quick-reference sake labels.

2024 International Rubery Book Awards Winner | 2023 American Writing Awards Finalist | 2023 Foreword Indies Awards Finalist | 2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist

Joiner's second novel set in the fabled Kanazawa area is an intimate yet understated look at an American who seeks recovery after his marriage to a Japanese woman has failed.

After Nozomi abandons Sedge and their marriage, taking all their money and leaving him with a ceramics shop he can’t manage alone, her brother and his wife offer him a lifeline at their Japanese hot spring inn until he can get back on his feet. As he proceeds forward from this devastation in his life, he becomes involved with the wife of the man Nozomi ran off with as well as her stepson, a troubled 16-year-old whose jealousy and potential for violence contrasts with his interest in birds, origami, and the haiku of Matsuo Basho. What unfolds in the shadow of “the immortal mountain of cranes” will change their lives forever.

Set in Kanazawa and Yamanaka Onsen near the Sea of Japan, The Heron Catchers explores the importance of recognizing suffering both in others and in oneself, of being compassionate, and of trusting those who offer love in the shattering wake of loss.

The Heron Catchers is the second in a series of novels set in and around the Japanese city of Kanazawa.

2023 FOREWORD INDIES BOOK OF THE YEAR GOLD WINNER FOR TRAVEL

Observations on the people, culture, and history of Japan from a long-time resident riding the rails along the less-traveled western coastline.

This journey the length of Japan takes the reader off the beaten tracks to explore some of the country's remoter regions along the Japan Sea—from Wakkanai in northern Hokkaido to Ibusuki in southern Kyushu—in a fascinating mix of travelogue, anecdote, and personal memoir. At each of the thirty stops along the journey the author, who has lived in Japan for thirty years, goes in quest of the spirit of place, determined to highlight what makes it special. Mixing comments on landscape and culture, the author was inspired by Alan Booth and Donald Richie and brings a contemporary perspective to his writing. The text provides some practical information on travel by rail and railway lines, but goes into far more depth and personal observation than a conventional guidebook for tourists.

Essays on the nature, production, and presentation of art, craft, and architecture in Japan, inspired by the author’s experiences in Kyoto.

Illusory Dwellings is not a guide concerning what to see in Kyoto, but a philosophical meditation on how to travel and observe in this capital of traditional Japanese art. 

Both intimate and scholarly, the book accompanies the reader on visits to famed gardens like Ryōan-ji, investigates the complex symbolism of the tea ceremony and the important role of the tea room, reveals the beauty of Japanese cuisine, and delves into the world of contemporary ceramics. It also provides context for the tensions and harmony between traditional and modern forms of art and craft in Kyoto and throughout Japan, and contrasts these with how they are received at home versus their treatment by Western museums in modernist contexts. 

Altogether this is an erudite and provocative analysis of artist and observer, a book to shape the reader’s aesthetic worldview and provide numerous occasions for discussion and debate. With over 50 black and white photographs.

Winner of the Sakutaro Hagiwara Prize and the Murasaki Shikibu Prize

Caught between two cultures, award-winning author Hiromi Ito tackles subjects like aging, death, and suffering with dark humor, illuminating the bittersweet joys of being alive.

The first novel to appear in English by award-winning author Hiromi Ito explores the absurdities, complexities, and challenges experienced by a woman caring for her two families: her husband and daughters in California and her aging parents in Japan. As the narrator shuttles back and forth between these two starkly different cultures, she creates a powerful and entertaining narrative about what it means to live and die in a globalized society.

Ito has been described as a “shaman of poetry” because of her skill in allowing the voices of others to flow through her. Here she enriches her semi-autobiographical novel by channeling myriad voices drawn from Japanese folklore, poetry, literature, and pop culture. The result is a generic chimera—part poetry, part prose, part epic—a unique, transnational, polyvocal mode of storytelling. One throughline is a series of memories associated with the Buddhist bodhisattva Jizo, who helps to remove the “thorns” of human suffering.

Winner of the Sakutaro Hagiwara Prize and the Murasaki Shikibu Prize

Caught between two cultures, award-winning author Hiromi Ito tackles subjects like aging, death, and suffering with dark humor, illuminating the bittersweet joys of being alive.

The first novel to appear in English by award-winning author Hiromi Ito explores the absurdities, complexities, and challenges experienced by a woman caring for her two families: her husband and daughters in California and her aging parents in Japan. As the narrator shuttles back and forth between these two starkly different cultures, she creates a powerful and entertaining narrative about what it means to live and die in a globalized society.

Ito has been described as a “shaman of poetry” because of her skill in allowing the voices of others to flow through her. Here she enriches her semi-autobiographical novel by channeling myriad voices drawn from Japanese folklore, poetry, literature, and pop culture. The result is a generic chimera—part poetry, part prose, part epic—a unique, transnational, polyvocal mode of storytelling. One throughline is a series of memories associated with the Buddhist bodhisattva Jizo, who helps to remove the “thorns” of human suffering.

Included in The New Yorker's Best Books of 2023

Stories from a Japanese master of transformative fiction, where reality, myth, and human foibles meet shifting dimensions of gender, biology, and destiny.

From the bestselling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo comes this otherworldly collection of eight stories, each a masterpiece of transformation, infused with humor, sex, and the universal search for love and beauty—in a world where the laws of time and space, and even species boundaries, don’t apply. Meet a shape-shifting con man, a goddess who uses sex to control her followers, an elderly man possessed by a fox spirit, a woman who falls in love with her 400-year-old ancestor, a kitchen god with three faces in a weasel-infested apartment block, moles who provide underground sanctuary for humans who have lost the will to live, a man nurtured through life by his seven extraordinary sisters, and a woman who is handed from husband to husband until she is finally able to return to the sea.

Included in The New Yorker's Best Books of 2023

Stories from a Japanese master of transformative fiction, where reality, myth, and human foibles meet shifting dimensions of gender, biology, and destiny.

From the bestselling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo comes this otherworldly collection of eight stories, each a masterpiece of transformation, infused with humor, sex, and the universal search for love and beauty—in a world where the laws of time and space, and even species boundaries, don’t apply. Meet a shape-shifting con man, a goddess who uses sex to control her followers, an elderly man possessed by a fox spirit, a woman who falls in love with her 400-year-old ancestor, a kitchen god with three faces in a weasel-infested apartment block, moles who provide underground sanctuary for humans who have lost the will to live, a man nurtured through life by his seven extraordinary sisters, and a woman who is handed from husband to husband until she is finally able to return to the sea.

Winner of the PEN Center USA Award for translation

Award-winning author Junzo Shono weaves a stunning tapestry of everyday life in this collection of short stories.

A young man, having failed his college entrance exams, becomes obsessed with a family card game. A businessman stays overnight at an inn and drinks with the innkeeper. A family parakeet seems to be dead but then climbs back on its perch.

This delicate collection of thirteen linked tales reveals the flow of daily life in the modern Japanese family. Junzo Shono's artful layering of commonplace events, images, and conversations has been compared to haiku poetry crossed with an Ozu film.

The first and only collection in English of the brilliant and troubled haiku poet Hosai Ozaki.

Right under the big sky, I don't wear a hat presents colloquial haiku and occasional essays by an eccentric and disturbed personality who spent his last lonely years at a small Buddhist temple off the coast of Shikoku. Burdened by a lifetime of self-destructive habits, Ozaki's free-verse haikus alternate between desperation and serenity. Award-winning haiku poet and former president of the Haiku Society of America Cor van den Heuvel provides the foreword.

The tale of English teacher Peter Meadowes, who flees to Kyoto for a summer vacation and finds himself lusting after every woman he sees . . .

Hot and sticky describes the ancient Japanese city of Kyoto in summer. And that is just the situation Peter Meadowes finds himself in when he flees to Kyoto for his summer vacation. During the rest of the year the middle-aged Meadowes teaches in Tokyo, a circumstance which conveniently enables him to leave his commanding wife (who hates Japan) back in England.

In the old capital Meadowes also expects to find relief from Noriko, his grim Japanese mistress. But in the small wood-and-paper Japanese house he has rented, he finds something unexpected: another woman to desire. Kazumi is seductive, yet she always manages to slip away. Then Noriko arrives, oddly possessive but sharing giggles with Kazumi—perhaps about Meadowes's prowess? Next on the scene is Miss Goto, polite, apologetic, a serious lover of theater who turns an elaborately staged seduction into a comedy of errors. When wife Monica shows up from England, Meadowes must choose . . . and fast.

John Haylock's novel vividly evokes the languid torpor of summer in the fabled city of temples and gardens. Yet hidden within this steamy farce about obsessive lust is an underbelly of duplicity, discontent, and fear. When making his choice, Peter Meadowes confronts the love-hate relationship that afflicts the typical gaijin—foreigner—in Japan. Remaining in Japan may be impossible, but escaping only creates the desire to return.

A stimulating exploration of the haiku masterpiece.

Matsuo Basho (1644-94) is considered Japan's greatest haiku poet. Narrow Road to the Interior (Oku no Hosomichi) is his masterpiece. Ostensibly a chronological account of the poet's five-month journey in 1689 into the deep country north and west of the old capital, Edo, the work is in fact artful and carefully sculpted, rich in literary and Zen allusion and filled with great insights and vital rhythms.

In Basho's Narrow Road: Spring and Autumn Passages, poet and translator Hiroaki Sato presents the complete work in English and examines the threads of history, geography, philosophy, and literature that are woven into Basho's exposition. He details in particular the extent to which Basho relied on the community of writers with whom he traveled and joined in linked verse (renga) poetry sessions, an example of which, A Farewell Gift to Sora, is included in this volume.

In explaining how and why Basho made the literary choices he did, Sato shows how the poet was able to transform his passing observations into words that resonate across time and culture.

A luminous translation of the classic Buddhist poem

Japan's capital city of Kyoto was devastated by earthquake, storm, and fire in the late 12th century. Retreating from "this unkind world," the poet and Buddhist priest Kamo-no-Chomei left the capital for the forested mountains, where he eventually constructed his famous "ten-foot-square" hut.

From this solitary vantage point Chomei produced Hojoki, an extraordinary literary work that describes all he has seen of human misery and his new life of simple chores, walks, and acts of kindness. Yet at the end he questions his own sanity and the integrity of his purpose. Has he perhaps grown too attached to his detachment?

A stunning historical graphic novel depicting the lives of four Japanese immigrants living in San Francisco between 1904 and 1924.

A singular and significant achievement, a "documentary comic book" published in San Francisco in 1931, depicting the true adventures of four young Japanese men in America between 1904 and 1924. Written and illustrated by Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama (ヘンリー木山義喬)—who emigrated from Japan at the age of 19, this is a stunning historical source that depicts the immigrant experience in California in what is one of the earliest examples of the graphic novel.

Translated with copious notes and a foreword by Frederik L. Schodt, the translation works to preserve the multilingual character of the original, which included Japanese, Cantonese, and English text.

A masterpiece of quiet lyricism set against a backdrop of change and renewal in suburban Tokyo.

The most celebrated work by one of Japan's master literary stylists, Evening Clouds is a book filled with delicate images of ordinary life, richly and precisely observed. A family moves into a new home on a windswept hilltop in western Tokyo. Around them are forests and farms. But the developers are coming, and the children are growing up. There are meals, quandaries, conversations...Life appears comfortable and serene, yet Shōno's portrayal has a strange and evocative undercurrent, as the most minute details slowly resonate out through a universe that is changing and unforgiving. Evening Clouds combines the crafted naturalism of haiku with the Ozu-like clarity of film to produce a story that is wistful and real. Read Shōno slowly, a luxuriate in his vision.

Essential essays by the inimitable Donald Richie, who wrote on with unparalled acuity on Japanese art and culture.

No one has written more, or more artfully, about Japan and Japanese culture than Donald Richie. Richie moved to Tokyo just after World War II. And he is still there, still writing.

This book is the first compilation of the best of Richie's writings on Japan, with excerpts from his critical work on film (Richie helped introduce Japanese film to the West in the late 1950s) and his unpublished private journal, plus fiction, Zen musings, and masterful essays on culture, travel, people, and style. With a critical introduction and full bibliography.

The first book in English to apply ancient Japanese Shinto traditions to daily spiritual fulfillment.

Complementing Buddhism, Shinto is Japan's 2,000-year-old worship tradition that celebrates the relationship of humans to the natural world. This modern-day collection of Shinto-inspired devotions shows the reader how to commune directly with Great Nature for health, wisdom, and serenity.

These litanies inspired by ancient Shinto rituals are a series of calls-and-response that directly address the awesome power of the natural world to heal and restore the soul. Readers are invited to stand before rivers, stones, and trees, to listen to thunder, and to be touched by the wind and rain in order to cultivate a spirit of reverence for Nature and awaken the cosmic content within the human. Included are steps for conducting misogi (waterfall purification) and resources for learning more about Shinto practice in North America.

In Japanese gardens, composition follows from placement of the first stone; all elements and plantings become interconnected. These eight essays on Kyoto gardens similarly begin with keen description and build into richly meditative excursions into art, Buddhism, nature, and science.

Landscape architect Marc Keane shows how Japanese gardens are both a microcosm of the natural universe and a clear expression of our humanity, mirroring how we think, worship, and organize our lives and communities. Filled with passages of alluring beauty, this is a truly transcendent book about "experiencing" Japanese design.

The true story of a half-Chinook, half-Scot adventurer who entered feudal Japan in 1848 and helped pave the way for its modernization.

How Japan, after 250 years of self-imposed isolation, began the process of modernization is in part the story of Ranald MacDonald. In 1848 this half-Scot, half-Chinook adventurer from the Pacific Northwest landed on an island off Hokkaido. Although promptly arrested and imprisoned for seven months in Nagasaki, the intelligent, well-educated MacDonald fascinated the Japanese and became one of their first teachers of English and Western ways.

Based on primary research in Japan and North America, this book chronicles the events leading to MacDonald's journey and his later struggle to obtain recognition at home.

A simple guide to over 160 key spiritual concepts behind yoga and other branches of Eastern wisdom.

Joseph Campbell called Sanskrit “the great spiritual language of the world.” Designed by ancient Indian holy men to express the states of enlightened consciousness through syllabic sounds, Sanskrit is widely used in the West during yoga practice to channel spiritual pathways and to discuss important meditative and philosophical concepts.

This book introduces 180 Sanskrit words (including chakra, karma, om, namaste, veda, nirvana) with Devanagari scripts, pronunciations, chants and brief cultural/historic explanations. A practical reference that makes an excellent gift book for any student of yoga, meditation or Eastern religion.

The hottest directors, their coolest films . . . A complete guide to today's Japanese movie renaissance

An eye-opening portrait of a vibrant film culture, The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film is the most comprehensive study of the Japanese filmmaking scene yet written. Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp explore the astounding resurgence of Japanese cinema, both live action and animated, profiling 19 contemporary Japanese filmmakers, from the well-known (Kitano, Miike, Miyazaki) to the up-and-coming (Naomi Kawase, Satoshi Kon, Shinya Tsukamoto) and reviewing 97 of their recent films. With 100+ images from behind and in front of the camera, this is a book any film lover will savor. Foreword by Hideo Nakata, director of Ring.

A fun, visual approach to mastering Japanese with real manga panels and easy-to-understand explanations.

Japanese difficult? Study boring? No way! Not with this “real manga, real Japanese” approach to learning. Presenting all spoken Japanese as a variation of three basic sentence types, Japanese the Manga Way shows how to build complex constructions step by step. Every grammar point is illustrated by an actual manga published in Japan to show how the language is used in real life, an approach that is entertaining and memorable. As an introduction, as a jump-start for struggling students, or (with its index) as a reference and review for veterans, Japanese the Manga Way is perfect for all learners at all levels.

The author of Wabi Sabi explores the intersection of beauty and design at an extraordinary flower shop in Vienna.

If beauty is defined as a quality encompassing both extraordinary sensoriality and exemplary human behavior, then possibly the most beautiful flower shop in the world is located in Vienna's low-key but hip 4th District. Blumenkraft (literally, "Flower Power") is a place of inspiration, refuge, and virtue that will inform and enlighten anyone involved in design and modern commerce.

Mixing analysis, anecdote, and observation, Leonard Koren once again reveals the key principles of practical wisdom at work in the world. His concise and lucid text is illustrated by his own photographs.

An American diplomat traveling the world over is grounded by a chance encounter with a haiku group.

Abigail Friedman was an American diplomat in Tokyo, not a writer. A chance encounter leads her to a haiku group, where she discovers poetry that anyone can enjoy writing. Her teacher and fellow haiku group members instruct her in seasonal flora and fauna, and gradually she learns to describe the world in plain words, becoming one of the millions in Japan who lead a haiku life.

This is the author's story of her literary and cultural voyage, and more: it is an invitation to readers to form their own neighborhood haiku groups and, like her, learn to see the world anew.

A vital resource for students of Buddhism and Japanese Culture, revised and expanded.

Buddhism has permeated Japanese life and thought so deeply that knowledge of it is essential for a true understanding of any aspect of Japanese culture. This dictionary, with nearly five thousand entries on Buddhist terms, personal names, ceremonies, texts, and sects, will be of special interest to scholars and students of literature. Most entries have been drawn from such classics as Shasekishu Kokon chomonju, Hojoki, Makura no soshi, Tsurezure-gusa, Heike monogatari, and Taiheiki.

Hisao Inagaki (d. 2021) received a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and was a professor at Ryukoku University in Kyoto.

Learn the art of hand-crafted carpentry in this detailed guide to Japanese woodworking tools.

Japanese tools are manufactured to perform at the high level top craftspeople demand, but they work differently from Western tools—saws cut on the pull, not the push—and need to be properly maintained to provide decades of useful service. Covering four major tool categories—plus sharpening stones—the authors guide the woodworker or hobbyist step by step, using detailed line drawings and concise how-to explanations.

A quick and simple way to deconstruct and demystify kanji.

With this book, students can learn a quarter of the two thousand characters designated for "daily use" by the Japanese government. Volume 1 concentrates on pictographs and contains some two hundred kanji with memory aids, explanatory drawings, examples of kanji formation by combining elements, and common-use word compounds. Volume 2 contains three hundred more kanji, including those of more abstract construction. Each volume is in a handy size and contains a complete stroke-count index. Recommended as a classroom supplement for all levels.

A classic essay at the intersection of art, philosophy, and tea.

Kakuzo Okakuzo was a fascinating intellectual of Japan's Meiji period. He was bilingual in English and Japanese from an early age and spent his career bridging the gap between the two cultures. Originally written in English and addressed to the Western world, The Book of Tea introduced readers to "Teaism"—the practice of drinking tea and its relationship to religion, aesthetics, and ethics. But Okakuzo goes further, issuing a corrective to the West's orientalist caricature of Japan and the "East." A fascinating document of history and philosophy rumored to have inspired Heidegger's Being and Time.

A passionate and playful guide to kanji that examines characters from every angle for an in-depth understanding.

Kanji (the most complicated Japanese script) may look daunting, but the characters are full of fun and life—if you know how to decode them. Crazy for Kanji provides a "map" to orient people by examining characters and compounds from every angle. Passionate and playful, the book is filled with enlightening discussions, fun facts, photos, exhibits, anecdotes, and games. It’s a reference source, workbook, and entertaining read all in one. Novices and kanji experts alike will find treasures in its pages.

Sure to be a classic, Donald Richie's concise, profound insights into the mysteries of Japanese Aesthetics.

This provocative book is a tractate—a treatise—on beauty in Japanese art, written in the manner of a zuihitsu, a free-ranging assortment of ideas that “follow the brush” wherever it leads. Donald Richie looks at how perceptual values in Japan were drawn from raw nature and then modified by elegant expressions of class and taste. He explains aesthetic concepts like wabi, sabi, aware, and yugen, and ponders their relevance in art and cinema today.

Donald Richie is the foremost explorer of Japanese culture in English, and this work is the culmination of sixty years of observing and writing from his home in Tokyo.