Japanese Books

This is not a book for just WWII buffs. I guarantee that anyone who appreciates fascinating and well-written non-fiction with an original angle will love They Can't Take That Away From Me. What sold me was the unique and artistic style employed in this POW memoir; it brought a fresh perspective to Ralph Rentz's struggle, triumph and the invincibility of his nightmare.

They Can't Take That Away From Me truly is an odyssey of one, rather atypical, American POW. However, it is more than just a "Sentimental Journey". This memoir is unlike any other WWII story, in that it reaches beyond the prosaic collage of nostalgic gore and glory and invites the reader to hear the song inside the bruised head of a musician who finds himself without his band, his saxophone and clarinet, without his freedom and even his own sanity, but never without his music. It is a tough tale, but it is softened with a lyrical literary style that makes it flow like the Pacific. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading about music, adventure and inimitable tragedy.

This interesting and beautiful book was designed by Heidi Haeuser.

Though it's an annotated translation of an Edo-period album, this book also makes a great introduction to the workings of Heian-era poetry. For each poem presented, the notes clearly and thoroughly explain the wordplays, associations and allusions it draws on.
Very well organized, and yes, the pictures are lovely.

This modest, moving book is the best (powerful, readable, closely observed) single saga I've found of the life of a Japanese immigrant family. Japanese Americans might seem so successful today that it's hard to imagine what they went through as immigrants as late as the 1940s. And it's not just about internment camps in World War II. It's more about things like laws that prohibited Japanese from ever becoming American citizens or owning farmland in California. Which isn't to say this book is basically about social injustice. It's much more complex and honest than that. It's as much about all the predictable crazy ways people will shoot themselves in the foot if someone else hasn't already shot them there. It's about America as the product of millions of dreams gone so wildly wrong that, if they knew how it was going to end up, they probably would have stayed home. But they came, were stuck, struggled, hung on. And somehow, the next generation grew, struggled too, and found that this country is home. Take Me With You When You GoNutty to Meet You! Dr. Peanut Book #1

This is an excellent book!

This is quite a good book for those who would like to study or entretain themselves with japanese proverbs. Its organization (alfabetic order) lets you quickly find any kotowaza you need regardless the subject. Also the fact that it comes with hiragana and kanji gives even a richer information for those who appreciate japanese culture.
Worth the money.

Most Japanese proverbs books contain more cute drawings than proverbs. This book is different. Not only does it contain more proverbs than the other books on the market, it also contains usage examples for some of them. This is a Japanese proverbs book that was written for serious students of the language, rather than readers who simply have some passing cultural curiosity in the kotowaza.

From time to time, I will provide a little review of books relating to Japan. I got the idea from the Asian Bookshelf in the Japan Times. One of my favorite gaijin authors, Donald Richie, writes a book review each week for J.T. Right now I have over 206 books on Japanese history, language, and culture, and one day I will get around to writing reviews for each one. Enough of my boring introduction, on with the review.
Tokyo Central: A Memoir by Edward Seidensticker
One day, when I was teaching Conversational English to a mixed-bag collection of students at the Nova school in Toyonaka, I happened to pass by the bookstore and went in. I bought a copy of Kansai Time Out and saw that Edward Seidensticker would be at Doshisha University in Kyoto. It would be on a day that I had to work. So, I pretended to be sick that Monday and actually did call in sick that Wednesday just to see him.
I arrived at the college and just walked into an empty auditorium because I had arrived several hours early. No one came until just before the start. Then suddenly I must have fallen asleep because just a moment ago the whole place was empty and now was full. I looked around and it was mostly women. I later learned that Doshisha is a womans' university. Anyway, Edward Seidensticker appeared on stage, with two extremely cute nurses, and talked about the difficulties in translating. He spoke the most about translating The Tale of Genji and spending almost an entire decade on it. I listened and afterwards got his autograph.
Now it has been a few years, since I met him at the autograph session, and I saw his book about his life as a translator and had to get it.
In Tokyo Central, Seidensticker talks about growing up in Colorado, studying at the Navy's Japanese Language School, where Donald Keene once studied, and finally his first year in Tokyo as a "Scholar-Diplomat" like Sir George Sansom.
He didn't really take to diplomat life so he started teaching and translating great works of Japanese literature. The book really shines in his thoughts on such great modern writers such as Tanazaki Junichiro and Kawabata Yasunari. I was amazed and envious to learn that he was taken out to expensives dinners by both men.
Seidensticker is never boring and his writing sucks you into that time in his life that you are reading. The 244 pages seem to go by quickly; yet despite the small pages, it is the weight of ideas and compression of 80-years of his life that causes you to think and reflect on what has happened to Tokyo before and what is going on now.
Here is a remarkable story of someone who didn't set out to be a translator and how ended up sharing the stage with Kawabata Yasunari recieving the Nobel Prize
A good quick read for the summer and highly recommended to anyone interested in Tokyo history and the life of a engaging academic who is never boring.

Somehow I wound up reading the memoirs of Genji's translator before tackling Genji itself. Perhaps that alone is testament to the clear and interestling writing style of Seidensticker himself, one of the great observers of Japanese culture.

The story is much more than just about Tokyo, though. It starts in Colorado, weaves through his introduction to Japanese language through the US military in WW2, and only then hits his life in post-WW2 Japan during the reconstruction. It covers his introduction to Japanese fiction, as well as his translation. Finally, the book wraps up with his return to US, and introduction to academia.

The book reads rather well for the first biographical (autobiographical at that) work of a translator. Although Seidensticker made his name in translations, we also learn of his attempts at fiction and other writing.

Perhaps one complaint is repetitive word usage. For instance, the word "eminent" is very overused for such an "eminent" translator. I'd expect better. But that is not nearly enough to stop anyone from reading these memoirs.

It is almost as though we were with Christopher Dresser in Japan in 1877. He sketches, describes, and lives in the Japan of the 19th century. Tying together the art, architecture, and religious symbols, he educates us about the sources and inspirations of Japanese (and other Asian) art and decoration. What a wonderful book for anyone interested in history, art, architecture, Japan, or good writing. His description of his first Japanese meal is a kick, also. Don't miss this one.

Fascinating, evocative, and illuminating. It is almost as though we were with Christopher Dresser in Japan in 1877. He sketches, describes, and lives in Japan of the 19th Century. Tying together art, architecture, and religious symbols, he educates us about the sources and inspirations of Japanese (and other Asian) art and decoration. What a wonderful book for anyone interested in history, art, architecture, Japan, or good writing. His description of his first Japanese meal is a kick, also. Don't miss this one.

It is beautiful, you should have a coloring book like this one.

Ming-Ju Sun is a favorite paper doll artist of mine, and this book helps show why. The lovely lines and clean colors show why the kimono, while no longer a part of a modern Japanese wardrobe, will forever be concidered a wonderful artform.
My only wish with this book is that it had other clothing besides the formal kimono. Perhaps "Traditional Kimono Fashions" would have been a better name. Still, Ming-Ju Sun remains high on my list.

As a teacher of Japanese literature, I am thrilled to have this resource. Everything one needs for a serious study of pre-modern Japanese literature in translation is here. It is an "everything in one place" book around which one can plan a great college course.
I am one of the translators included in this volume, and I am aware of the immense amount of hard work, on the part of the editor and the many translators involved, that has gone into this project. It is a resource that will be invaluable in our field for years to come.

A comprehensive selection of Japanese texts from the ancient, Heian and medieval periods, this book is a very valuable addition to the existing range of anthologies of classical Japanese writing available in English. It far exceeds any other anthology of its kind in terms of both the breadth of its selections and the depth of its secondary supporting material.

A wide range of primary texts is included, with extensive excerpts not only from major classics such as The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari), The Pillow Book (Makura no soshi), or The Tales of the Heike (Heike monogatari), but also passages from texts less commonly included in anthologies of Japanese literature, such as the Hitachi Province Gazetteer (Hitachi fudoki) or The Essentials of Salvation (Ojo yoshu). Other genres represented include poetry in Chinese, setsuwa, noh, kyogen, linked verse, and sermon-ballads (sekkyo-bushi). Some texts in this volume have been selected to complement each other: for instance, one can read the account of the death of Taira no Atsumori in The Tales of the Heike, read a dramatization of the event in the noh Atsumori, and also read a letter from Honen, the founder of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, to Kumagai, the man who killed Atsumori ("Reply to Kumagai Naozane, the Monk Rensei"). Likewise, the anthology includes both the famous essay An Account of a Ten-Foot-Square Hut (Hojoki) and part of the less widely read Record of a Pond Pavilion (Chiteiki), which addresses similar themes. Selections from poetry anthologies such as New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems (ShinKokinshu) are accompanied by passages from critical works on poetry such as Essentials of Poetic Composition (Eiga no taigai); similarly, the anthology includes both noh plays and excerpts from noh treatises such as Teachings on Style and the Flower (Fushikaden).

In addition to its careful selection of primary texts, the anthology also features well-written and informative introductions to the translations and, more generally, to the historical and cultural background of the texts included. The general introduction to the volume treats broad themes such as "Language and Writing", "Love and Eroticism", and "Performance and Narration", while there are separate introductory essays to each of the major historical periods covered and then more specific introductions to the texts and genres included. These introductions are invaluable in placing the works in their historical and social context within the almost one-thousand-year span of history covered by this anthology.

These features--the selection of texts and the introductions--not only give the casual reader a more multidimensional view of the works included, but make the anthology a extremely useful teaching tool. This anthology should be of great interest to scholars and instructors in the field, and to students or to any reader wishing to gain a comprehensive understanding of early and medieval Japanese literature.

This anthology of traditional Japanese poetry, presents a grand collection of more than 1,100 poems assembled by Steven D. Carter, and translated by Carter and his colleague, Helen Craig McCullough. Carter trace's Japan's poetic tradition from the poets of early courts, as recorded in the Kojiki (712 A.D.) and Man'yoshu (759 A.D.) through the beginnings of the Modern Age (early 1900's), in both transliterated Japanese (romaji) and English, headnotes with brief biography on each poet, and extensive footnotes and appendices on many aspects of the poetry. Carter, Professor of Japanese at the University of California, Irving, has provided us with a solid reference for exploring the great cross-section of one of the world's most fascinating subjects. I purchased my paperbound copy several years ago, and keep it at hand.

Stephen Carter is one of the better translators of Japanese poetry, and his anthology presents a good history of traditional Japanese poetry from the Manyoshu to modern era. Also appreciated are the Japanese versions of poems in the margin, albeit in romaji. For those who have no knowledge of Japanese, the translations and notes enable understanding, but having the original poems included provides those who know Japanese an opportunity to read them for themselves and compare them to the translation.

I am a Japanese and love pickles. This book shows me how to make many kinds of vegetable pickles which I can't get recepi in Japan.

I've been a fan of Japanese food, especially sashimi and tsukemono, since the 70's and was delighted to find this book. It is well writted and provides historical, nutritional and equipment information, as well as pictures and recipes. Recipes include complex processes for making Umeboshi (pickled plums)and Takuan-zuke (rice bran pickled daikon) as well as quick and easy cucumber, radish, turnip and cabbage pickles. It also has a section on Pacific Rim pickles such as Vietnamese pickled bean sprouts and Korean Kim Chee. All in all a very well written and informative book about Asian pickles and the art of making them. A must for Asian food lovers and your cook book library. Thank you Kay Shimizu and might we expect another book from you soon? Now for that bowl of hot rice and some Hakusai-zuke .............