Asia Books

For anyone who has lived in Japan, there are way way too many books that attempt to explain away what we witnessed as severe problems via complex cultural blah-blah about the "Japanese exception."

The great value of this book is to explain the corruption and autocratic impulses as the product of a rather straightforward politican machine - there is nothing exceptional that offers anything of intrinsic value beyond understanding it for what it was: just a moment in time that a corrupt leader, Tanaka, was able to create a seat for himself at the center of power. As Schlesinger argues, with all that power, the great failure of Tanaka was that he did so little with it in terms of serving the public interest: instead, it just served him and his cronies. As such, now that the machine has been watered down, many needed reforms are far more difficult to implement (and the need for remedies, after decades of neglect, is worse than ever).

This is the product of a truly intelligent and thoughtful journalist. I knew him briefly in Japan, and was always impressed with his clear sightedness and willingness to question anything, in addition to his humor. It is a great pleasure to read this book and recognise the original mind that I knew.

Warmly recommended.

Concise and well written, it opens up postwar Japanese politics. Incredulous happenings! Maybe we should send some of our congressmen to Japan to check this out.-- Short shrift is given, however, to the all-pervading involvement with, and use of, the criminal organisations where the police seem powerless. Also, it should have photographs of the main actors to make it more three-dimensional.

This is a far better book than the more theoretical approach by Karel van Wolferen in 'The Enigma of Japanese Power'.
After reading this book there is no enigma anymore.

Jacob M. Schlesinger reveals extremely clearly how the Japanese system worked and who pulled the strings. He shows that Japanese politics in the last half of the 20th century was firmly controlled by four men, with Kakuei Tanaka as the most predominant tycoon.

Tanaka's tactics were very simple: use his home base as a platform for his political career by lavishy spending state money in his election district and by buying votes; use his financial clout to control the Japanese majority party; become still richer by corrupting the state bureaucracy, bid-rigging (200 % and more margin) and briberies (by private companies).

In fact, the author shows clearly that the whole system was controlled by a corrupt oligachy.
The men in power were not afraid of racket type interventions. One example: the ruling government proposed stiff taxes on automobiles. After the automobile industry paid heavy contributions to the party in charge, the bill was watered down.

This book is an exemplary analysis of a corrupt political system. Not to be missed.

Why has Japan changed its prime ministers with such frequency through much of the post-war period? Why did those prime ministers seem powerless to affect real change to the political system? "Shadow Shoguns" answers these questions by way of a brilliantly told story of the Liberal Democratic Party's most powerful political faction called the "gundan".

The story of the "gundan" - which means "army corps" -- is primarily the story of the man who created and ruled over it for much of the 70s and 80s, Kakuei Tanaka. Jacob Schlesinger spends more than half of "Shadow Shoguns" examining Tanaka's life, including his roots in the construction business, his entry into politics, how he made money work for him in consolidating political power, and finally, his fall from power.

Tanaka was a fascinating figure. In many ways he was a combination of LBJ and Boss Tweed. His appetite for power and money was huge, and his experience in the construction industry gave him the ability to amass both. Coming from one of the poorest prefectures in Japan, he fought hard to bring huge pork barrel construction projects back to his constituents, and they in turn gave him unflinching support even when he was charged with crimes and became a national symbol of corruption.

A scandal removed Tanaka from the prime minister's seat in 1974, but due to his constituents' support, it did not remove him from the parliament. From then until the mid-80s, Tanaka would be the power behind the throne, using money from construction projects to strengthen his faction, and his faction to strengthen his hold over national politics.

What finally removed Tanaka from his position as leader over Japan's most powerful faction was not angry voters, other factions or their political leaders, but his own underlings. Tanaka had attracted some of the most talented politicians in Japan to his faction, and handling those egos was a full-time job. After a stroke in 1985, Tanaka was unable to reassert his power, and three of his protégés (Shin Kanemaru, Noburu Takeshita, and Ichiro Ozawa) wrenched the faction away from him.

The final third of the book focuses on those protégés, their strengthening of the faction, and finally the fall of their machine as Japan's economy began to flounder. As Schlesinger tells it, the success of the faction was always predicated on continued strong economic growth. When the Japanese economy faltered throughout the early 1990s, so did the mechanism by which the "gundan" governed Japan.

This is a book that gives vivid life to a political system and to politicians many people find boring. Schlesinger shows that because Japan's most capable and interesting politicians operated out of the limelight for much of the last three decades, their story is a compelling one as well as the key to understanding the history of the modern Japanese political system.

Prior to this book, I didn't know much about the Jews who fled to China during WWII. This was an interesting and eye opening book. The story line follows a young girl and her family as they flee Austria and move to Shanghai, China. When the Japanese take over Shanghai, Jews are forced to live in an isolated part of the city guarded by soldiers. The living conditions are horrid. Many die. I highly recommend this book to anyone, young and old, studying the Holocaust.

Sometimes fiction is truer than memoir. In reading a memoir, the reader is outside the story, looking in; but in good fiction, the reader enters the story and experiences it almost as if there. With her newest book: Shanghai Shadows, Lois Ruby conjures up the magic of "being there." The setting of the book may be Shanghai, but the real story is human nature.
Ilse, her older brother Erich, and their mother and father have come to the awful realization that Austria is no place for a Jewish family. It is time to get out, but to where? There is only one possible place, Japanese occupied China--or Shanghai. At first, conditions are tolerable. As the political situation deteriorates and the United States enters the war, the immigrant population is imprisoned in a ghetto where the inhabitants have to deal with near starvation and an odious, cruel, but eccentric keeper of the gate. But it is the relationship that develops between Ilse and the little Chinese street-boy, Liu that make this refuge story so outstanding. Filled with daring resistance activities in which she and her brother participate, and inhabited by wonderfully drawn characters like Ilse's parents-- once proud and proper upper class Viennese Jews who evolve realistically as their fortunes change--this book is highly recommended.
Ages 11-14.
Reviewed by Rachel Kamin

Shanghai Shadows is another great read from Lois Ruby. The plot and setting are novel as well as well-researched. The main character Ilse is complex--at times not too admirable but always honest.

Recommended for mature readers--too old for most young children.

For suspense and surprises, twists and turns, no one invents plots like Lois Ruby. Shanghai Shadows covers six years in the life of Ilse Shpann, her brother, Erich, and their parents - six years as "stateless refugees" in Shanghai, to which they have fled from Nazi-occuped Vienna. Amidst intensely realistic evocations of the sights, sounds, smells, and diverse population of the city, Ilse matures from a willful child to a courageous, self-sacrificing (but still willful) young woman. Her acerbic sense of humor and love of adventure sustain her as conditions of life for Jews and everyone else go from bad to worse. Ilse and Erich both work for a resistance group; their father, an unemployed violinist, grows apathetic; their proper mother is the iron will that keeps together and alive until a secret from Mrs. Shpann's past shatters the family. So eventful a plot is held together by sparkling dialogue and superb characterization, with major and minor characters all interacting believably as well as coherently. The grimness of the Shpann's six years in Shanghai never overwhelms the story because it is mitigated by flashes of humor, humanity, and Ilse's indomitable spirit. Ruby is the author of Swindletop and The Moxie Kid among other books. The talent that was glimpsed in those reaches fulfillment here, in a historical novel that should not be missed! Highly recommended for grades 6 - 9.
Reviewed by Linda R. Silver
Association of Jewish Libraries Newsletter, Sept./Oct. 2007

I'd been aware of Shunga, also known as "Images of Spring", an ancient Japanese euphemism for erotic art, for many years. It wasn't until I actually began collecting Shunga engravings that I could recognize which books were the better sources for information about the art. This finely printed volume includes many of the rarer, lesser known, and often shocking, by western standards, classic Japanese artworks. Like many people I began collecting this art form because it was beautiful, erotic, always over a century old, and relatively inexpensive because nobody actually knows how many examples of these pillow-book engravings still survive. World War II and the American Occupation led to many of the works being destroyed either by actual bombings and firestorms or by the imposition of Puritan values on the traditional Japanese culture. Although highly erotic in nature, a few of these Shunga engravings are among the most famous images in art history. Some, like "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" by Katsushika Hokusai are credited with introducing a whole new sexual language to the non-Japanese world. If a person only has time to examine a single book on the subject, this would be one of the better choices among many good volumes on the art form. Shunga art was done by the same master artists of the more well-known Japanese scenic woodblock prints.

Shunga are literally "images of spring." That is the time of recreation and procreation, the time that inspires man and woman to couple, as if anyone needed an excuse. Shunga appeared prominently in the works of Hokusai, Utamaro, and many other revered woodcut artists. This lovely book summarizes that honored tradition.

It starts with the early shunga of Settei (1710-1780) and Jihei (active 1680), and works up to the dawn of the 20th century (1899). The presentation, sequenced by time, creates an order that the originators could never have seen. The less important order has to do with drawing and coloring.

Colors, since the 1700s could well have faded. Even the best-preserved prints may have retreated into shades of orange and black, if those were the stablest dyes. Some, like p.29, simply omit color altogether, with no loss. Later prints, from the 1820s and on, show rich blues and greens. Some historians attribute these colors, at least some times, to imports of synthetic dyes. Other prints from the era use mica for a glistening effect, or use "blind" impressions of un-inked blocks to create depth. A print fan may only regret the loss of information regarding technical issues of image creation.

The rest of us, however, take the greatest pleasure in the egagement of the sexes, epitomized in a sumo fight of man vs. woman (p.57). Most of the prints show basic couplings of man and woman, complicated only by their improbable angles and their exaggerated organs. Others show man and woman at play with each other's genitals (p. 135, 156), or sometimes a woman at play by herself (p.112, 127, 139, 164, etc). At least one (p.56) displays man engaged with man, showing very different social gender even for the same physical sex. Some pictures demand three- or more-way couplings (p.31, 46-7), others suggest that tied partners sometimes enhanced an ecounter (p.76-7, 137). Still others, like Hokusai's octopus (p.115), invoke a uniquely Japanese mythology, leaving an image that a Western eye can only see in very strange ways. Others (p.118) express a humor that works wherever men and women exist together.

As the years advanced, I found the images sucessively more enticing because of the increasing nvolvement of the female characters. Early on, up to the mid-1700s, the woman was entirely passive, a receptacle (however grand) for the male advance (however grand). Koryusai and Shigemasa display women with needs and interests of their own. Toyokuni and Hokusai promote women to center stage, with fondlings, genital kisses, and other activities that focus wholly on the ladies' fulfillment, sometimes at their own hands (p.112, 127, 168).

This is a lovely book. I admit, I have given short shrift to its text, even though I found it interesting and informative in those few places I stopped to read. This book is about its pictures, carefully organized and captioned, and in historical order.

It is beautiful. I truly hope that you can see it for the cultural sample that it is, and also for the expression of physical happiness that it is.

//wiredweird

The print quality is almost as good as original
Japanese books.And if you want to know what I mean
you better go to Tokyo.

Marco Fagioli's "Shunga:The Erotic Art of Japan" is an incredible collection of prints and histories. He provides the reader with approx. 22 pages on the (well researched) history of Shunga, that include key names, dates and translations. The pieces shown in the book, give a wonderful overview/representation of the different schools within Shunga. All of the pieces are reproduced with great care, all in vivid color and clear detail. 90 percent of the pieces include a thoughtful caption about the artist, the piece itself, it's relationship to the period and to shunga as a whole. Some of the captions include translations of any text within the piece as well. Marco Fagioli has done a spectacular job of choosing and displaying these pieces so that both, a first time viewer and a great lover of Shunga, can see the intamacy, skill and grace that it has offer. This book is wonderful for a coffee table, home library, or as a late night picture book for lovers. It is not the best for research material, aside from the wonderful prints, but it can definately serve as a spring-board for further studies. I highly reccomend this book to any with even the slightest interest in Shunga or the art of Japan.

This book has got all that you need to avoid reinventing the wheel. A must for Sikh history researchers.

This book is specialy interesting and instructive to be read by the sikhs
and those who have allready some knowledge of Sikhism.

I bought this book expecting to read articles with a bigoted, mis-informed view of the Sikh culture and people from an anti-Sikh western viewpoint, or worse, pure ignorance. I was pleasantly surprised by the detailed and fascinating detail on the circumstances of Sikh people and life during the periods covered. I appreciate that there are gaps in coverage, but that adds to the authencity of the accounts and helps you formulate a view in your mind how the Sikh's could've changed from a small band of warriors under Bhanda Singh to the organised armies under Ranjit Singh. What I liked were the commentaries by the narrators who put the writer's circumstances into context before putting the writer's actual account before the reader. This helps the reader appreciate the limitations of the writer's perspective, and appreciate the actual gems of insight where they are to be found. The book also gives a glimpse into the past when it wasn't necessary to be 'man with turban' to be sikh, but there were other ways to be spiritually sikh without donning the appearance of a Khalsa sikh.

Overall, a gr8 read. Now onto Patwant Singh's book...

Well done to the authors and all who supported them in this long overdue project.

Amandeep and Paramjeet have attempted to write this book in an unbiased fashion, and I must say, have succeeded. This is a rare acheivement for authors of history and historians, as the biased historical accounts of the early Europeans in India show.

The accounts (some apparently eye witness) of Banda Bahadur are particulary informative as to the culture, opinions, attitudes and politics of the rulers and the Sikhs in the early eighteenth century.

It's a shame that there is still a gap in mid eighteenth century Sikh history, although there are accounts of this, they are still very limited in content and historians rely heavily on the hearsay of the time.

Maybe a project on the Sikh Misls could be a possibilty, using all known sources!! There is a lot of misinformation about this period and the Sardaars. A comprehensive and historical records based study is much needed!

There is some very interesting information as to the practices of Sikhs which I never knew of before e.g. stirring amrit with a boars tooth, which is very believable if looked at in the context of the problems faced by the Sikhs of the time.

Unsuprisingly, there are comprehensive reports of Ranjit Singhs darbaar.

In all, this is an eye opening, inspiring and educational book.

Harcharan

Got to me in a decent enough time and nothing was wrong with the book so i would say overall pretty good.

This is the book I wish I had written. I have traveled in most of these countries and studied their history and culture. I was so thrilled to see the information pulled together and the follow-through to show the outcomes of movements and trade goods. Fascinating. Loved it!!

This book is a fantastic cultural adventure and should be read by anyone interested in cross-cultural relationships. More than a topographical description of the silk road, it is a gallop though history explaining paths taken by silk to get to Europe. It starts in prehistoric china and ends with the Karakorum highway, synthetizing in twenty chapters the reasons for the often difficult diffusion of luxury products from the Far East. The author, that evidently knows well chinese history and mentality, takes us by hand into the ancient cinese political issues as to foreign commerce, the fundamental role played by Iranians, byzantines and arabs during the Middle Ages up to the wary reciprocal opening of European and Cinese worlds due to brave and curious travelers. So we meet princesses, monks and merchants and get to know their fascinanting stories. One point of force of the book is the meticulous and modern analysis of these travel tales, so we have a critical perspective of what has come down in history and makes up our cultural background. Marco Polo get's revisited and also less well known ancient and modern travelers are cited.
Boulnois loves silk (her detailed description of materials of the old world and how they were made is enlightening)and its history, so she brings us to her country, France, and to the evolution of the silk industry in the XIX and XX century. And this somehow closes the circle of the story of this precious tissue that reached its apogeum in the last century.
The book however is much more than this and carries a great amount of information. It could be described actually as a textbook on the history of silk. It is well written even if not too easy to read, and sometimes it is a little repetitive.
I enjoyed it very much and feel enriched by its reading.

This is a fascinating coverage of a area, region call it what you may. The Silk Road has been part of the adventure stories that we have come across over many years, not knowing much about it; but we have thought that one day we might just get there ourselves.

Purchased with the idea that if I am going to visit this area, and I will in the not too distant future, this is the ideal book to read, savior and be intrigued with the Monks Warriors & Merchants that have gone before us.

If only I could pronounce the names - but then that is another book, another read.

This book is a delight to read. Thai culture comes alive with the Marsden's adept descriptions of daily life in a small village. Full to the brim with beautifully described characters, the book is worth savoring.

Marsden succeeds again with her second novel, Silk Umbrellas. It gently transports us to the world of a rural Thai girl whose artistic sensibilities are emerging even as she struggles with her family's survival issues. The descriptions of how she forms images in her mind, paints the umbrellas, and gains confidence as an artist are sure to appeal to young artists worldwide. The compelling story and details of present-day, rural life in Thailand make this story worthy of classroom study. It would be a cultural eye opener for many American children and is sure to spark discussion. Parents will want the book for home use, too-kids will treasure this inspiring read.

Silk Umbrellas is a revealing commentary on our changing world, for these changes are happening everywhere, not only in Thailand. It is also a tender story of a young girl, glimpsing a future with eyes learning to see reality. I read it in preparation for an upcoming trip to Thailand, and am enriched by it. Only one question for the author: where does the family get the umbrellas? Now I want a sequel: The Umbrella-Makers.

Noi's grandmother is an artist who paints beautiful designs on silk umbrellas and sells them at the market near their rural Thai home. Eleven-year-old Noi also longs to be an artist, and when her grandmother lets Noi add small designs to the umbrella, she seems to have natural talent: "The flit of the butterflies moved into her, then out into the brush, so the paint seemed to lay itself down."

When Noi's family falls on hard times, though, and Noi's older sister Ting is sent to work making radios at the factory, Noi fears that she, too, will be sent to work when she finishes school in just a few months. When Noi sees the stifling environment of the factory, she grows even more desperate to avoid this fate and asks her grandmother to help her learn how to paint. In secret, Noi creates dozens of decorated umbrellas, inspired by the flora, fauna and colors of the landscape. When her grandmother grows ill, will Noi be able to paint umbrellas beautiful enough to help support her family?

Set against the background of preparations for the harvest festival of Loy Krathong, SILK UMBRELLAS is not only the story of the birth of an artist, but also a loving portrayal of Thai nature and culture. Careful readers will notice subtle commentaries on the changing economic conditions in Thailand. Electronics factories replace traditional crafts; Noi's father weaves fishing baskets, not for fishermen but for Western tourists.

SILK UMBRELLAS is a slim novel that can nevertheless be read on several levels. Younger readers will enjoy witnessing Noi's artistic development and learning about Thai customs, and older readers will also grasp the larger cultural commentary in Carolyn Marsden's sensitively written novel.

---(...)

I love this book! Teaching children, and adults no less, compassion, imagination and creative thinking is of the utmost importance and the combined pleasure of a fantastic ending is a sure winner. The little drawings are not colorful but so detailed and feeling.

A poor old witch and her cat, Toraji, just want to make some yummy miso soup for their meager supper. The bonito flakes are boiling to make stock. But, wait the cranky pair have a change of heart when they look at the peacefully sleeping clams they have bought for the soup. An unexpected tale of friendship and happy, mundane magic. We like it. The Librarians Sisters, Karen and CJ

Yes, this tale does have a very strong vegan message. As the witch and her cat learn more about the clams and interact with them, they realize that the clams are living beings, too. More than that, they are fast becoming friends. You don't eat friends.

I loved that the witch (and her cat!) grew throughout the story and opened themselves to love and service to others, and became much happier beings for it.

Message books can be kind of preachy, but I really didn't find this one to be overly so. Nowhere does the author explicitly state that eating meat is bad, or even that you should want to help others in order to be a decent human being. Things just unfold naturally in the storyline.

As a vegetarian venturing into veganism myself, though, I love having this resource to begin to talk with my kids about the ethics of food choices. (My children are six and two.)

Singing Shijimi Clams is the tale of a witch, old and without her sparks, who brings home some shijimi clams for her dinner. She's taken aback, right before cooking them, to find find the clams snoring away. "Their shells were opened slightly, and their little bodies moved contentedly." Her cat, Toraji, tries to convince the witch that it's ok to boil up the clams because "(t)hey won't feel anything if you put them in quickly." But she can't do it, and witch and cat end up eating miso soup sans clams.

Eventually, the witch and Toraji start talking with the clams, and the clams cry when they learn that they aren't in the ocean anymore. The witch and Toraji have to undertake a major project to take the clams back to the sea. Along the way, the clams sing! "And every day, as the witch listened to the shijimi clams' sweet voices, she too began to feel happier, and less miserable."

I'm not such a fan of message books, and this one bears a relatively strong vegan message. But Singing Shijimi Clams is a lot of fun. The illustrations are deceptively simple, small black and white sketches rather than full page drawings. They convey the grouchy witch's gradual thawing, as she does something good for the clams. The cat is a riot, starting out callous, but by the end admitting "I will miss them when they go." The drawings of the little clams are priceless, with tiny faces, and lines to show movement and emotion.

This book grew on me. I thought that it was ok on the first read, but by the end of the second read I was quite attached to witch, cat, and clams. Because of the lack of color in the illustrations, and the relatively high text ratio, I think that this book will resonate more with kids on the older end of picture book range.

This book review was originally published on my blog, Jen Robinson's Book Page, on November 12, 2006.

this book was surprisingly good. i wouldn't say that i was surprised by the material, because you can get a pretty good idea of what to expect from the plot by reading the summary, kind of a mulan/ alanna series (tamora peirce) story about a girl who rises out of the stereotypical female role and sort of blurs the boundary we so readily assign to gender association. and this story is a good one, but because it's so over done there is a huge potential for failure. this book however, did not fail.

first off i have to say that i'm somewhat impressed. this is a story about two young girls dealing with the death of their father and brothers, and there is actually evidence of violence. it is a children's book so of course there is nothing too graphic, but it is no max and ruby! you fear for the characters and the suspense your fear creates because they could actually get hurt really increases the anticipation. the story makes you want to feel things basically :P but again, this is a novel for children. i picked it up in the 9 - 12 section of the book store and i'd say the subject matter is handled in a way appropriate for that age. more often than not, though danger is close at hand, the girls are spared what would be a scary scene (and what would have been added in the adult version of the novel with more gore and blood) leaving only a handful of actual encounters wherein they are confronted with an unpleasant confrontation.

the main characters kimi and hana were great as well. the story wasn't so much about how they 'beat the system', how they showed everyone that girls can do whatever boys can. it was a better story, side stepping that superficial attempt at feminism. it was about inner strength and fighting your own demons with what you've got. and yes kimi wants to be a samurai like nothing else, but the focus of the story is on how she reacts with strength and courage when such a bad thing has happened to her and her family. she uses her desire to become a samurai to move forward, to avenge her family, but her reason of existence isn't to prove that she can. she knows she can. her purpose is acknowledge her ability, nurture it, and then use it to best accomplish what she desires.

the book ended... like a beginning, so i assume this is the beginning of some sort of series. and this is a novel written for children, but that i'm 20 yr old university student and still enjoyed it says something, i think, about the author's talent for storytelling. it was a well written book with a good story and great characters. i look forward to a continuation.

SISTERS OF THE SWORD
MAYA SNOW
Historical Middle Grade

Hardcover - Available Now

Rating: 4 Enchantments

Kimi is the daughter of one of the best Jitos that feudal Japan has seen in a long time. While she is well practiced in many of what we would call "womanly" arts, she yearns to be a samurai warrior. Her father believes that girls should be able to protect themselves so he has been training Kimi, and her sister Hanna, in the samurai arts since they were little and they both have a lot of potential. Even though it is known that girls don't become samurais Kimi is determined to find a way.

Kimi never imagined her chance to become samurai would come so soon. But then her uncle murders her father and brothers right in front of her eyes. Kimi and Hanna narrowly escape, but are left alone. With their father and brothers dead and their mother and younger brother gone into hiding, Kimi and Hanna have no where to go. Determined to seek their revenge on their uncle the girls know that they must train under the best and so when they arrive at Master Goku's dojo, or training school, they know they've found the right place. Dressed up as boys, Hanna and Kimi attempt to seek a spot in the school, but all the spots are taken. While all the spots are taken for students the girls do manage to get spots as servants. While most of their days are spent cleaning and cooking they do manage to get in a few classes and start their training to become samurais. Swept up in a whirlwind adventure filled with samurai codes, swords and self-discovery, the girls' lives will never be the same again.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author did a great job creating not only the main characters, but also the supporting characters. I was definitely able to sense the bond the sisters shared, which made this book very unique. It was interesting to see the sisters grow through each other. They helped each through the worst of times and held each other up when in need. It was also very refreshing that the girls were determined to fight. They didn't cower behind someone else and let them fight, they stood up for themselves and were determined to restore honor to their family - which I thought was such a great girl power message!! The supporting characters were also exceptionally put together. I felt like they played a big role in the book and just as developed as the main characters. It was also very evident that a lot of research went into recreating thirteenth century Japan. The author organized this information in a way which wasn't confusing and I was actually able to learn a few fun facts. While it took a couple of chapters to get into the book I was able to fully immerse myself and found I was caught up in the adventures of the girls. I am very much hoping for a sequel (the ending left a few unanswered questions) as I really enjoyed this book.

This is Maya Snow's first novel, but I definitely hope it won't be her last! You can find out more information about her at
http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/33325/Maya_Snow/index.aspx

Tasha S.
ENCHANTING REVIEWS
July 2008

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this captivating book, which, instead of loosing itself in unnecessary details ("lard factor"), tells an exiting straightforward story with characters that I could easily identify myself with. I find myself reminded of stories by Tamora Pierce or Mercedes Lackey, where I young heroine has to go through many adventures and adversities to finally prevail against evil. Highly recommended. I am very much looking forward to the sequel!

Kimi and her sister, Hana, live a life of luxury as daughters of the Jito, a samurai lord and leader of a strong province in 13th-Century Japan. They do not lead idle lives, however; their father understands the importance of a broad education, and in addition to learning the womanly arts of embroidery and tea-pouring, they are trained in the ways of combat, leading Kimi, the narrator, to wish fervently that she could one day be a samurai, like her father and two older brothers.

Unfortunately, disaster strikes in the form of Kimi and Hana's uncle, Hidehiro. Their father's younger brother, annoyed at their father's growing power, plots to kill their father and wipe out their branch of the family so that he can rule. Kimi, Hana, their mother, and younger brother manage to escape, but their older brothers and their father are brutally slaughtered by Hidehiro.

Separated from their mother and brother, Kimi and Hana disguise themselves as boys and present themselves to a local dojo, where they are taken on as servants by the wise Sensei Goku, who promises to teach them further fighting skills if they comport themselves well. While at the dojo they meet with a boy of peasant background, Tatsuya, who is ridiculed for his low status since most of those training under Goku are nobles. Kimi and Hana's cousin, Ken-ichi, plays the role of small-scale antagonist; although he does not realize his cousins are actually alive and right under his nose, he makes their life difficult.

Kimi and Hana must maintain their disguise while learning the skills of the samurai so they can face their uncle Hidehiro in combat and revenge their father's death once and for all.

I enjoyed the characters, and got a good picture of the relationship between the sisters. The secondary characters, such as Tatsuya and Goku, were well-drawn. An obvious deal of research went into recreating Japanese life in this time period, but the author presents this detail without confusing the reader. The conclusion of the book was satisfying, but leaves room for a sequel that I, for one, would be excited to see.

Reviewed by: Candace Cunard

David Bain does an excellent job of recounting the journey of Funston to capture Aquinaldo as well as his own recreation of the journey with his brother and friends. I enjoyed his ability to remain objective and balanced, his candor and humor as well. This is a must read for those looking to understand what transpired during 1898 - 1901 in the Philippines as well as what Bain's team experienced during their 1982 expedition. The book ends with the Marcos regime and the asassination of Benigno Aquino.

I must agree with a prior reviewer that this is a great book that detail's Funston's plan to capture the leader of the filipino resistance and end the insurgency that followed America's invasion of the Philippine Islands during the Spanish American War. Funston's action can only be described as audacious and was tactically successful. While it did not end the resistance, it should have gone down as one of the most successful small unit raids ever conducted in Military History. Funston used indigenous forces along with a small contingent of American soldiers to achieve his goal and capture Aguinaldo.

I wonder why there are not more books available on Funston. Be that as it may, this book does justice to Funston and his raid.

The Washington Post, February 24, 1985

IN WHICH WAR was the term "Gook" invented? When did American soldiers conduct their first body count and pioneer the use of the "water cure" to persuade Asian guerrillas to betray their comrades?

After which battle did a young rifleman write home to the folks in Kingston, New York, "I am in my glory when I can sight my gun on some dark skin and pull the trigger"?

Modern as it all sounds, the answer is not Vietnam, or even Korea or World War II. The American conquest of the Philippines barely rates a mention in school history books, usually as a cryptic footnote to the short war which President William McKinley and publisher William Randolph Hearst waged on Spain in 1898 for the independence of Cuba and the circulation of Hearst's newspapers. Yet 126,458 Americans fought in the Philippines between 1898 and 1902, of whom 4,234 died, while 16,000 Filipinos died in battle and another 200,000 in "reconcentration camp." There were in addition massacres of civilians in reprisal for guerrilla attacks and similar sideshows all too familiar in subsequent Asian wars.

The story of how, and why America liberated the Philippines from Spain and then took the islands back from their inhabitants two weeks later is a complicated one, already well told in one of the classics of American historiography, Leon Wolff's Little Brown Brother, published in 1960. But the writing of history is never finished, and David Haward Bain has managed another fine book on the subject, not disagreeing with Wolff's conclusions, but making them fresh and vivid for a generation which has seen yet another Asian war.

This is not, however, simply another tale of savagery in the rice paddies. Almost as if he could read tomorrow's newspapers, Bain has brought his account up to the minute, with perceptive entries, for instance, indexed under Aquino Benigno and Ver, General Fabian (the latter currently on trial for complicity in the former's assassination). This energetic young historian has thus pulled off that rarest of publishing coups, a scholarly historical work of bang-on topicality. He has, what's more, found a most original way of bringing his story to life.

From this distance, and even at the time, the American conquest of the Philippines has always been difficult to fathom. But, then and now, two figures jump forth from a cast of thousands: Emilio Aguinaldo, not quite 30, brave and passionately patriotic, the president of the republic of the Philippines proclaimed as the beaten Spaniards departed (and the first republic in Asia) and Colonel Frederick Funston, six years older, who drove the last nail into the republic's coffin by capturing Aguinaldo on March 23, 1901, after a long and daring hunt through the jungles and mountains of northern Luzon.

Aguinaldo, who looked remarkably like his current successor, Ferdinand Marcos, survived his capture and lived a long life, long enough to welcome the arrival of the Japanese in 1942 (understandably, perhaps; the new invaders also promised liberation), to march in the Manila independence parade of 1946, carrying the flag he first raised against Spain in 1896, and to see a new American war just getting under way in Asia in 1964, the year of his death. A largely forgotten figure now, even in the Philippines, Aguinaldo emerges from Bain's book an authentic hero and his republic a tragically missed chance for the United States to have been the protector of Asia's first genuine democracy.

His captor, the adventurous son of a Kansas politician known as "Foghorn Funston, the farmers' friend" was plainly just as archetypal a figure. "I am afraid that some people at home will lie awake nights worrying about the ethics of this war, thinking that our enemy is fighting for the right of self-government" he told a New York Times correspondent. "The word independent, which these people roll over their tongues so glibly, is to them a word, and not much more . . . . they are, as a rule, an illiterate, semisavage people, who are waging war, not against tyranny, but against Anglo-Saxon order and decency." Funston's feat, a mixture of reckless daring and ingenious double-cross, or what used to be known in Vietnam as a "John Wayne stunt," was the stuff of movies, and would have made a splendid vehicle for James Cagney (Funston was 5 feet 4 inches tall and touchy about it) if Hollywood had blossomed before American imperialism went out of fashion.

BUT, LIKE MANY a veteran from the East, Funston could not settle down to life back home, took to the bottle and died at 51 in 1917, when he was being seriously considered for command of the American Expeditionary Force that went to France that year. But for his heart attack, in fact, we would very likely now be debating the merits of the Funston rocket instead of the one named for his deputy, General John Pershing, who got the job instead.

Here, unmistakably, we have the Green Beret, or cowboy turned romantic military stuntman. In fact, Funston's boss, General Arthur MacArthur, father of the even more famous Douglas, was an old Indian fighter, and so were many of his buddies in the 20th Kansas infantry he led to the Philippines. The fact that the Far East is West of the Wild West has profoundly shaped America's wars there, a point made in the insightful and absurd movie The Deer Hunter.

It is hard to quarrel with Bain's conclusion that the years of American rule did little or nothing to solve the basic political problem of the Philippines. After three centuries of Spanish colonial government, the islands had none of the institutions of self-rule and no experience of it. All the new rulers achieved was a superficial Americanization of the illustrades, the Hispanicized native upper class, leaving the masses in pious poverty and the way open for a native-born dictatorship to follow the authoritarian rule of slippery Spaniards and decent Anglo-Saxons. People learn self-government by governing themselves and making their own mistakes, and America put off the Philippines' fateful day for 50 years, failing, in the end, even to supply the military protection that is the only justification for empire.

But Americans are still well thought of in the Philippines, as Bain and a group of friends, including his photographer-brother Christopher, discovered when they repeated Funston's epic trek through the Luzon jungle in 1982, talking to the same locals, fording the same streams, and being bitten by descendants of the same mosquitoes which bit the pint-sized adventurer and his party 80 years earlier. Melding past and present, and interweaving the historical background with present politics brings vividly home the long shadows still cast by America's first adventure in Asia. This is an important story, honestly researched and well told -- a second classic, in fact, on a fascinating subject.

Truly a wonderful book...more like 2 or 3 books in one. It traces the early life of Funston..worthy of a book on its own but none out there that I can find. if you like the adventurous explorer scholarly type this is the man. Kind of a Richard Burton character...no silly... not the actor.Then it traces the history of the rebel movement at the turn of the century with the focus on Aguinaldo's movements in Northern Luzon. And finally it traces the author and his merry band as they retrace the steps of Funston in his bid to capture Aguinaldo in the early 1980's. So, in short if you are a student of history...READ IT!. If you like adventure or war stories...READIT! if you like drama...READ IT! If you know someone in the philippines...READ IT! I really had no idea of what happened over there or what role the usa had played over there. I don't think it was even mentioned in school. A real eye opener. Uhh, can you tell i liked it?

Just a awesome book. Not to mention my father-in-law is in it! MSG Herman Spencer!

This a well written factual account of the attempt by the US to free the POW's held in the prison at Son Tay, North Vietnam. John has put forth a great deal of effort to obtain the story as relayed by those who participated in the Raid.

If you haven't heard of the Air Force's Max Friedauer, you're not much of a Special Operator.

And Max says this is "definitely a book you want to read and have in your library."

Enough said!!

Definitely buy the book if you have any interest in reading about the mission and the special ops graybeards who participated in this Vietnam-era POW rescue attempt led by MC-130 Combat Talon aircraft. Until much of the information was declassified, you had to go inside the battalion/wing/squadron vault to read the after action report and lessons learned reports. But even those documents don't come close to providing the insight author John Gargus gives the reader through the eyes of a participant...planner and lead navigator for the strike force. But the book goes much further than that. Gargus is a meticulous researcher who also conducted dozens of interviews with other participants to capture the totality of this one-of-a-kind mission in special ops annals.

Thanks John, you got it "right."

I met Col John Gargus at a Son Tay Symposium and his book is an incredible description of a multi-level and complicated rescue of dozens of Vietnam POWs! The level of detail described by Col Gargus make the reader feel as if they were participating in the raid themselves! Despite the detail, which can get technical, the book is still easy to read. This is not a story written by someone who researched the raid. This is a story written by someone who was there! The heros described in this book defined what it means to be an Airman before the Airman's Creed was developed! A MUST READ!