I have been studying Japanese since 2008, studied in the country twice, and then finally made my home here in 2011. Over the years, I have been to 43 of Japan’s 47 prefectures, writing articles about my experiences and constantly searching for new, hidden places where I could still find a touch of the Japan of yore. With so many people visiting the country, I want to do my part to give folks options that are off the beaten path and away from the crowds.
This guidebook encompasses the tips, tricks and secret gems I have discovered over 10 years of living, traveling, eating and getting lost all across Japan. Focusing mainly on realistic jaunts off the beaten path, the book has tons of information about Tokyo, with useful insights into other popular destinations like Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, and more unusual options like the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage trail.
With explanations about some of the cultural differences visitors are likely to experience, and revealing the world behind the curtain of certain experiences (such as the inadvisability of supporting animal cafes), with this guide I hope to serve as your local friend, albeit on paper!
Transience and the importance of tiny details are two important underpinnings of Japanese culture, and this book captured them beautifully. I love books that use personal stories to tell an overarching epic, and the rise of Tokyo from a little fishing village to one of the biggest cities in the world is just that.
The author’s poetic style also aligns with how thoughts and phrases would evolve in Japanese, making it very evocative. It is a love letter to this city of contradictions and gives a look into the deeper sides that most visitors would simply not think to ask about.
As read on BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week' Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award Longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize
'Sherman's is a special book. Every sentence, every thought she has, every question she asks, every detail she notices, offers something. The Bells of Old Tokyo is a gift . . . It is a masterpiece.' - The Spectator
For over 300 years, Japan closed itself to outsiders, developing a remarkable and unique culture. During its period of isolation, the inhabitants of the city of Edo, later known as Tokyo, relied on its…
I have a hard time keeping track of all the main events of Japanese history, and among the many (MANY) tomes I have read, this one gets the balance just right without being overwhelming.
It gave me a good general overview that now allows me to explain the most important points of the country’s history to others and wasn’t boring or overly academic.
In a rare combination of comprehensive coverage and sustained critical focus, this book examines Japan's progress through its entire history to its current status as an economic, technological, and cultural superpower. A key factor is a pragmatic determination to succeed. Little-known facts are also brought to light, and the latest findings used.
While, of course, as a fiction book, it gets a bit fantastical at times, this book captures the true oddity and tension of the end of Japan’s sakoku era, when the country was cut off from the world, except for a few highly controlled ports like Dejima in Nagasaki.
I loved how well the author expressed the feeling of time and place and laughed at how some things still haven’t changed.
The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller, from the author of CLOUD ATLAS and THE BONE CLOCKS.
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010
'Brilliant' - The Times 'A masterpiece' - Scotsman
Be transported to a place like no other: a tiny, man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki, for two hundred years the sole gateway between Japan and the West. Here, in the dying days of the 18th-century, a young Dutch clerk arrives to make his fortune. Instead he loses his heart.
Step onto the streets of Dejima and mingle with scheming traders, spies, interpreters, servants and concubines as two…
So many people come to Japan hoping to see the twisty streets lined with traditional wooden houses and little manicured gardens and feel a bit let down when they realize how much of it has been lost. I was (and in a way still am) one of those people.
Earthquakes, war, and a love for the new have caused much of the Japanese landscape to lose its traditional views. While at some points a little out of date, Kerr has a wonderful way of capturing the beauty of the old and how the new has taken hold. This is not an uplifting book, but it does give a wonderful insight into some of the more closed worlds within Japanese society, as well.
An enchanting and fascinating insight into Japanese landscape, culture, history and future.
Originally written in Japanese, this passionate, vividly personal book draws on the author's experiences in Japan over thirty years. Alex Kerr brings to life the ritualized world of Kabuki, retraces his initiation into Tokyo's boardrooms during the heady Bubble Years, and tells the story of the hidden valley that became his home.
But the book is not just a love letter. Haunted throughout by nostalgia for the Japan of old, Kerr's book is part paean to that great country and culture, part epitaph in the face of contemporary…
The actual story as told by an actual geisha (rather than the male author of Memoirs of a Geisha), I was absolutely obsessed with this book when I began studying Japanese.
I loved the depictions of Kyoto pre-war and all the festivals, ceremonies, and intricacies that go into the life of a geisha. The post-retirement part of the story is also so real and human, and while it is a much quieter book compared to the sturm and drang of Memoirs of a Geisha, it has a delicate beauty that stuck with me.
GEISHA, A LIFE "No woman in the three-hundred-year history of the karyukai has ever come forward in public to tell her story. We have been constrained by unwritten rules not to do so, by the robes of tradition and by the sanctity of our exclusive calling...But I feel it is time to speak out." Celebrated as the most successful geisha of her generation, Mineko Iwasaki was only five years old when she left her parents' home for the world of the geisha. For the next twenty-five years, she would live a life filled with extraordinary professional demands and rich rewards.…
I grew up on a family farm surrounded by larger vegetable and dairy operations that used migrant labor. From an early age, my siblings and I were acquainted with the children of these workers, children whom we shared a school desk with one day and were gone the next. On summer vacations, our parents hauled us around in a station wagon with a popup camper, which they parked in out-of-the-way hayfields and on mountainous plateaus, shunning, much to our chagrin, normal campgrounds, and swimming pools. Thus, I grew up exposed to different cultures and environments. My writing reflects my parents’ curiosity, love of books and travel, and devotion to the natural world.
After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through young adulthood. Miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are displaced from their land by multinational energy companies. They are taken in temporarily by Sadie’s aunt, a human rights activist who heads a cultural exchange program.
Stefan promptly runs afoul of local authority, but Sadie, intrigued by him and captivated by his story, has grown sympathetic to his cause and complicit in his pushback against prejudiced accusations. Their mutual attraction is stymied when Stefan’s older brother, Joachim, who stayed behind, becomes embroiled in the resistance, and Stefan is compelled to return to Canada. Sadie, concerned for his safety, impulsively follows on a trajectory doomed by cultural misunderstanding and oncoming winter.
After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through the pitfalls of young adulthood. Hundreds of miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are forced off their land by multinational energy companies and flawed treaties. They are taken in temporarily by Sadie's aunt, a human rights activist who heads a cultural exchange program. Stefan, whose own father died in prison while on a hunger strike, promptly runs afoul of local authority, but Sadie, intrigued by him and captivated by his…
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