Japanese Books

"Burial in the Clouds" by Hiroyuki Agawa is as good if not better, than his book entitled: "The Reluctant Admiral."

"Burial in the Clouds" is a historical novel written in the form of an on-going diary by young "Jiro Yoshino." This book is actually somewhat of a parallel to the author's own life in WWII.

"Jiro Yoshino" is pulled from his academic loft at the Univerisity and thrown into the muddy political and military quagmire of war and death as a pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy.

By the time he is finally called upon to act out his oath, he fully understands that the war has long since been lost for Japan. There is no rational reason for him to continue, and yet; duty and sacrifice are ingrained so deeply into his soul that...he can not escape the "song of the Siren."

An excellent book filled with historical truths, human frailties, and deep spiritual devotions.

Agawa's novel brings the "fallen cherry blossoms" across the green waters of the pacific; the wide chasms of time and space, directly into the living room and ...heart of the reader.

A truly moving piece of literature and a book well worth the price.

Although the country itself is larger than France, the Burma campaign of World War Two has remained poorly documented. Like the Russian front for Germany in Europe, Burma proved to be a step too far for the invading Japanese force, but not before inflicting terrible casualties and destruction on the country.

Written as a narrative, Latimer outlines the basics of the war in Burma, from Imperial British roots, through to Japan's eventual surrender, but lets the men who actually fought there fill in the details. Using diary entries and interviews, Latimer paints a picture of the incredible horror, boredom and occasional humour of war, and the awful conditions endured by soldiers. For example, a soldier in the town of Phek described the natives carrying a headless Japanese body "...like a trussed pig, jolting and swaying." The victim had raided the village, but then fallen sick with dysentery. Such was the nature of war, the British would pay the natives in salt for any enemy equipment or heads. Another British quote describes how the heat caused severe sweat rashes, which became infected and bled.

The conflict is often thought of as a war between the Japanese and British, but huge numbers of natives and immigrants, speaking over 120 languages, fought on both sides of the conflict, for any number of reasons. Natives were often forced into labour for both sides. The Japanese struggled to build a railway link from Thailand to northern Burma, as preparation for an invasion of India. The British had suffered heavy defeats, but the rugged and unforgiving Burmese landscape aided their struggle to slow the Japanese advance, which eventually slowed to a bogged down stalemate. The Japanese were never defeated in Burma, but neither were they fully victorious.

Latimer presents a human side in this book, which is shocking and real, even sixty years after the war. His style is easy to read, unlike many academic texts. The detail of the various battles and personalities of the war in Burma is backed up with highly detailed maps, a number of photos, and almost 200 pages of footnotes and bibliography.

This audio product clearly deserves 5 stars. Infofount has hit another home run, with "Bushido - Japanese Art of War."

This audiobook on CD is entertaining, educational, and very easy to listen to as well as follow along with. The production quality is excellent and the narration is intermingled with musical clips and intermittent sound effects (gongs, drums, cymbals, bells, birds singing, etc) in appropriate places.

Ross Armetta is the main narrator for this, and I think he does a great job overall. He does his best to use voice inflection, tone, and volume, as well as changes in reading rate and rhythm, in order to keep his narrations lively and interesting. At some points, Ross changes his voice to create different male and female characters, and he even uses various different accents.

After listening to many of Infofount's audio CD's, I've come to appreciate Ross' desire to bring variety and contrast to his recordings, as well as even humor and quirkiness in some places. The effect of all of this is to continuously keep the listener engaged, and prevent boredom and disinterest.

I find this approach to be superior to simple plain voice narration, since it breaks up the monotony of many other audio CD's and audio books, which contain single narration with no accompanying music or sound effects.

"Bushido" is not Ross' liveliest-sounding audio CD set, in comparison to some others. He plays it mostly straight-up on this one, and his voice has a serious tone to it throughout most of the recording. However, given the subject matter, I think this is probably appropriate. Check out his recording entitled "As You Think So You Are", which is an adaptation of As A Man Thinketh, by James Allen, to hear some really zany and quirky narration and sound effects. Like I said though, I really appreciate this, since Ross really helps keep my attention and prevent boredom while listening.

The packaging of Infofount's products is adequate. The CD's come in paper sleeves and the printing and design are not the most high-tech, glossy, nor professional. However, this does not detract from the overall value of the audio products, in my opinion. Also, Infofount has great customer service. I've called and emailed them a couple of times with questions about their products, and I've always gotten prompt and friendly service and replies. (Infofount's phone number and email, as well as additional product information, can be found on their website, infofount.com.)

The contents of this audio CD set, "Bushido - Japanese Art of War" are:

Disc 1 (total time = 77 min 10 sec)

1. Infofount Theme
2. We hope you benefit from the following
3. Contents
4. Bushido as an Ethical System
5. Sources of Bushido
6. Rectitude or Justice
7. Courage, the Spirit of Daring and Bearing
8. Benevolence, the Feeling of Distress
9. Politeness
10. Veracity or Truthfulness
11. Honor

Disc 2 (total time = 75 min 18 sec)

1. The Duty of Loyalty
2. Educational and Training of a Samurai
3. Self-Control
4. The Institutions of Suicide and Redress
5. The Sword, the Soul of the Samurai
6. The Training and Position of Woman

Disc 3 (total time = 34 min 45 sec)

1. The Influence of Bushido
2. Is Bushido Still Alive?
3. The Future of Bushido
4. End Thank you for your Purchase


Get this! You won't be disappointed!!

After taking Azuma-sensei's class at the University of Utah, I can honestly say from experience that this is an excellent text book.
I only wish I had it when I was living and working in Japan.

Lynne Strugnell and Micheal Jenkins deserve credit for making a excellent book. This book teaches everything you need to know to communicate in a more business style, but can still be used as a beginner book. I enjoy this book because it includes the dialouge in both kana and romanji, and there are enough exercises to make sure you don't forget what you learned. I also enjoy the way they teach on this book.It doesn't seem to confuse you at all. Excellent book it deserves more than 5 stars. Make sure you stick to this book and finish it, you won't regret it.
I also recommend along with this book is pimsleur japanese programs.

it is comrpised of 50 lesson units. In my opinion, it is not designed for elementary learners. it is far from that. Every unit contains new japanese words and compound words and then their equivalents in English supplied with example sentences for every new kanji. And you find reading exercises only in Japanese and it rest with your level of Japanese proficiency to translate them into English. No key for translations whatsoever. However this bokok deserves 5 stars and I recommend it for at least intermediate learners.

Of the many textbooks on business Japanese, this is pedagogically the best for people who already know a good deal of Japanese grammar and know quite a few kanji (say a thousand or so), but need to to develop a vocabulary for reading newspapers, books, magazine articles, etc. related to business.
Unlike the earlier book, "Reading Financial Newspapers" this book introduced kanji in groups of 20 or so per chapter and gives systematic practice reading them before moving on to the next chapter--i.e. it is not in the "random brute force" school of teaching Japanese that is still all too prevalent.
The readings get progressively harder grammatically as well and are quite demanding by the end--leaving you quite able to tackle books and professional articles by the end.
I review it frequently to "tighten up" my own knowledge and need (and want) to buy a new one because I have used it so much over the last few years. Ideally, it should have a more solid, flexible binding--like a dictionary!

The Candidate for Goddess Volume 1 is a book for anime/manga and sci-fi fans alike. The book starts the story out at a slow pace, like the anime. However the background story is more complete. Be advised that some pictures in this book are for teenagers and up. I would recomend this for any sci-fi or anime/manga fan. Especially if you are a fan of sereis like Gundam or Evangelion.

From the dustjacket...

Commander Donald Giles, Sr., the Vice Governor of Guam, faced a Japanese invasion of the island shortly after Pearl Harbor. He and his comrades became some of the first American POWs in WWII.

"Captive is based on a memoir written by Giles and discovered after his death by his son, Donald T. Giles, Jr." "...one of the most cogent accounts every published on the fall of Guam and en ensuing four years of brutality." It details atrocities, survival, the fates of of all personnel who died or were captured on Guam, and "inspires the reader on both a military and a human level." The book also documents Giles' readjustment to America after the war.

All the book titles of CLAMP have been amazingly drawn and contains a good story and background as well as a plan to what the story ends like. I have seen the anime and the manga and both are really well made. If you don't like these series, I suggest you buy Tsubasa, if your up too more serious manga.