Fans pick 100 books like Lever of Empire

This is an impressive collection of first-person accounts of experiences in Japan by various Europeans including Jesuit missionaries, adventurers, and others. Each account is short, and all are organized by themes. Here we learn of audiences with Nobunaga,  Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu, along with reports of some of their atrocities. Other entries pertain to the daily life of Japanese people and still others describe great temples and shrines that are still there today. The immediacy of these commentaries sends me back in time to this pivotal epoch in Japanese history when civil wars were ending and two centuries of closure were about to begin. This is ecstasy for the Walter Mitty in me. 

The best way to start one’s reading about Japanese history is to pick a short overview written by an expert who writes well. This decades-old book is a splendid example of that and still the best in my opinion. Hall was an American who grew up in prewar Japan and spent his later years as a distinguished scholar of premodern Japanese history at Yale University. The book is a joy to read and identifies the main historic events from prehistoric time up through the American occupation that ended in 1952.

This is essential background for any reader of the Tale of Genji, the famous novel written by Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century. In a breezy style that pulls the reader along, Morris describes how the court nobles of Heian—the original name for  Kyoto—had created a distinctive high culture inspired by borrowings from China but uniquely Japanese. We learn about a polygamous society in which males among the court nobles competed for the affection of high-born females through poetry and aesthetics. Political ambitions were channeled into the pursuit of higher social rank rather than into government works and policies. That last sentence could describe Japanese politics of today. Readers of this book will learn that even in the eleventh century, Japan already had a sophisticated culture, government, and style of life. The nation’s economic development has roots that extend at least that far into the past. 

A legal scholar and a political scientist, both Americans who grew up in Japan, explain Meiji and Taisho political history from the standpoint of rational calculation by the leading politicians. This is a convincing narrative of the birth of parliamentary government and the emergence of political parties under the Meiji constitution, 1889 to 1947. The authors explain how the leaders of the various political parties were pursuing their own selfish ends—perpetuation of their own power and status. Without intending to do so, those politicians created a political structure that extremist cliques in Japan’s armed forces were able to subvert.

I especially like this book because it avoids the trap that so many others fall into of imputing benign motives to a nebulous but omnipotent entity spinning out government policies—a “development state,” or whatever you might call it, a cadre of unnamed “policy-makers” who are guided by the abstract arguments of… show more.

This is an extremely well-researched book which provides an in-depth look at how the design fields developed and have evolved in Japan.

Though airing on the academic, I find it very readable, and I consult it when I wish to know more about a particular period of Japanese design history. Having scoured the landscape myself, I have great admiration for the author’s ability to ferret out information – there is no central design museum or archive in Japan – and present it cogently.

Junji Ito is the master of the unsettling.

His storytelling and artwork combined create books which even the strongest stomached would find uncomfortable. And yet, we are drawn to them, unable to look away. And he understands that the most terrifying thing is not an invasion by something outside of our world but the realisation that the everyday world around us might turn against us. 

Uzumaki is a story about incomprehensible obsession and how it can take over a society to the point of destruction. One by one, the people of a small Japanese town become obsessed with spirals. Not a monster or a ghost, but a shape, until the power behind it destroys everything. 

Most of us probably grew up with the idea that above all Buddhism rejects the body to attain spiritualty. It is actually the reverse. This study looks at the idea of the materiality of Buddhist texts (sutras) and the narratives and sermons that accompany them (setsuwa). Both body and book are corruptible , and hence great efforts are made to protect these ancient texts. Eubanks argues that there is an intimate connection between book and body as matter. The human body (especially the brain) is thus a container of Buddhist teaching. Scroll and stupa are critical for protecting this precious wisdom of the Buddha. Body and book are the witnesses to our suffering and impermanence. The stupa may contain the relics of past buddhas (and ash) just as the scroll contains the wisdom of buddha teaching.

Wilson describes his walking journey along the ancient Kiso Road through the Kiso Valley and the stops he made in the eleven post towns along the road. Today, some of the towns, like Narai, Tsumago, and Magome, are popular tourist destinations because they have maintained something of the look and character of the Edo Period, but in Wilson’s narrative, even the lesser known towns have something interesting to offer. Walker describes personal experiences with local people he met in the inns where he stayed and provides historical and literary backgrounds that add depth to his journey. The Kiso Road was the most scenic segment of the Kisokaidō (aka Nakasendō), the inland road between Kyōto and Edo during the nineteenth century.

For me, it's hard to find stories that are so willing to dive into the feel of a bygone era, especially one that is potentially as obscure to some audiences as the Heian period of Japan. Set in a period of slow change, this short story collection combines the tensions of the period (a rising warrior class, Shinto vs Buddhist religious tensions, factions in the imperial court) in combination with the rich variety of strange beings in the folklore of Japan. I love how it paints a picture of a world that is simultaneously grounded in human motivations and populated by the esoteric and supernatural.

The Elephant Vanishes includes two of my favorite stories by any contemporary writer.

Set in the forested vicinity of a factory that makes elephants, “The Dancing Dwarf” follows the adventures of a marvelous dwarf who once danced for the king, alas, now pursued by soldiers of the revolution. The other side of the spectrum, “The Last Lawn of the Afternoon” partakes of the fantastic only by osmosis. The care this teenage boy takes mowing and trimming his assigned lawns feels so real it reminds me of myself.

This range keeps the reader slightly off balance and full of expectation, which might not be so exciting if we weren’t in the hands of one of the finest practitioners of the craft anywhere in the world.