Catalog Search Results
Author
Series
Swords of fire trilogy volume 1
Language
English
Description
Where once new ideas and beliefs were accepted, now the country's military dictator, the Shogun is shutting his country down to any outside influences.
Father Joaquim Martinez who left Portugal to make Hizen Province, Japan his home, has been quietly tending to the lives of his villagers, but everything is about to be thrown into turmoil, as the Shogun has outlawed Martinez's beliefs. Those who won't recant or accept banishment, face a death sentence.
With...
Author
Language
English
Description
Oceans and decades apart, two women are inextricably bound by the secrets between them.
Japan, 1957. Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura's prearranged marriage to the son of her father's business associate would secure her family's status in their traditional Japanese community, but Naoko has fallen for another man-an American sailor, a gaijin-and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it's learned Naoko carries the sailor's...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
The crises--and failures--of modernization in Japan, as seen up close by a resident expert
Japan is a nation in crisis, and the crisis goes far beyond its well-known economic plight. In Dogs and Demons, Alex Kerr chronicles the crisis on a broad scale, from the failure of Japan's banks and pension funds to the decline of its once magnificent modern cinema. The book takes up for the first time in the Western press subjects such as the nation's endangered...
Author
Series
Before the coffee gets cold volume 4
Language
English
Description
The fourth novel in the internationally bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series. The regulars at the magical Cafe Funiculi Funicula are well acquainted with its famous legend and extraordinary time-travel offer. Many patrons have reunited with old flames, made amends with estranged family and visited loved ones. But the journey is not without risks, and there are rules to follow. In the tradition of Toshikazu Kawaguchi's sensational Before...
Author
Language
English
Description
By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
In 2007, Time magazine named him one of the most influential novelists in the world. He has twice been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. The New York Times Book Review called him simply “a genius.” Now David Mitchell lends fresh credence to The Guardian’s...
In 2007, Time magazine named him one of the most influential novelists in the world. He has twice been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. The New York Times Book Review called him simply “a genius.” Now David Mitchell lends fresh credence to The Guardian’s...
Author
Language
English
Description
"University sophomore Miwako Sumida has hanged herself, leaving those closest to her reeling. In the months before her suicide, she was hiding away in a remote mountainside village, but what, or whom, was she running from? To Ryusei, a fellow student at Waseda; Chie, Miwako's best friend; and Fumi, Ryusei's older sister, Miwako was more than the blunt, no-nonsense person she projected to the world. Heartbroken, Ryusei begs Chie to take him to the...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Somewhere between the Sumida River, the Tsukiji fish market, and a contemporary art gallery, Vincent returns from Montreal to Tokyo, where his lover has passed away in tragic circumstances. So begins a sensual and disturbing tale of love and grief, of foxes, artists, and taxidermy.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A call to preserve disappearing facets of Japan's rich and ancient culture, this book takes its inspiration from the 1960s classic, Hidden Hamlets by Shirasu Masako. Like Shirasu, Kerr travels to remote and lesser-known places around Japan where pockets of traditional culture can still be found. Some are faraway--like Aogashima Island, 200 miles south of Tokyo--while others are easy to reach, such as Mii-dera temple just east of Kyoto.
9) Kitchen
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Two stories, "Kitchen" and "Moonlight Shadow," told through the eyes of a pair of contemporary young japanese women, deal with the themes of mothers, love, transsexuality, kitchens, and tragedy
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
An inside look at kokeshi dolls: from the skilled woodworkers behind their design to their important cultural significance.
Kokeshi are the simple and charming traditional Japanese dolls characterized by their cylindrical shape and lack of arms and legs. Historically made as children's toys in Japan's northern region of Tohoku, they have now become a popular collector's item and have even inspired famous architects and artists.
In this visual guide,...
Author
Series
Before the coffee gets cold volume 1
Language
English
Description
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a caf w̌hich has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time. Meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the caf'̌s time-traveling offer, to: confront a man who left, receive a letter from a husband whose memory has been taken by early-onset Alzheimer's, to see a sister...
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English
Formats
Description
We are told that in the very beginning, "Heaven and Earth were not yet separated, and the In and Yo not yet divided." This reminds us of other cosmogony stories. The In and Yo, corresponding to the Chinese Yang and Yin, were the male and female principles. It was more convenient for the old Japanese writers to imagine them coming into creation not very remote from their manner of birth. In Polynesian mythology, we find pretty much the same conception,...
Author
Language
English
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Description
This fascinating history tells the story of the people of Japan, from ancient teenage priest-queens to teeming hordes of salarymen, a nation that once sought to conquer China, yet also shut itself away for two centuries in self-imposed seclusion. Stretching for nearly 2000 miles and encompassing almost 7000 islands, Japan has the fourth largest GDP and the tenth largest population in the world. Japan is a country of paradoxes, a modern nation steeped...
Author
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English
Formats
Description
Japan was a physical and psychological wasteland at the end of World War II. With over 3 million dead, 39 percent of city populations homeless, 40 percent of all urban areas flattened, 80 percent of all ships destroyed, and 33 percent of all industrial machine tools rendered inoperable, the country was devastated and demoralized.
And yet, just 19 years later, Japan stood proud-modern, peace-loving, and open-welcoming the world as the host of the...
15) The lake
Author
Publisher
Melville House
Language
English
Formats
Description
After her mother's death, Chihiro moves to Tokyo hoping to get over her grief and meets Nakajima, a young man battling his own demons.
16) The ghost brush
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Oei is the daughter of the great Japanese printmaker Hokusai. Long consigned to a minor role as gloomy sidekick, she is barely a footnote in the historical record. Here, Oei recounts her life with one of the great eccentrics of the 19th century. Dodging the Shogun's spies, she and Hokusai live amongst actors, novelists, tattoo artists and prostitutes, making the exquisite pictures that define their time. Disguised, they escape the city gates to view...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Unit 731: The Forgotten Asian Holocaust by Derek Pua, is not for the faint of heart. It is, however, for anyone wanting to more clearly understand the extent of Imperial Japanese war crimes. This brief, dispassionate, and factual book outlines the creation and development of Unit 731, an organization that employed thousands of Japanese scientists who conducted nightmarish experiments on an untold number of human guinea pigs, all in the name of medical...
18) River, diverted
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
The book shouldn't exist -- yet here it is. River Black found cult success writing slasher flicks but has grown increasingly disillusioned and unhappy. When a mysterious book appears in her mailbox, her life is turned upside down. River returns to Nagano, Japan, where the book originated, hoping to pay respects to old friends and revisit her past. Instead, she finds her memory is duplicitous, her reality is porous, and the mysterious book is more...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Kyoto, the ancient former capital of Japan, breathes history and mystery. Its temples, gardens and palaces are testimony to many centuries of aristocratic and religious grandeur. Under the veneer of modernity, the city remains filled with countless reminders of a proud past. John Dougill explores this most venerable of Japanese cities, revealing the spirit of place and the individuals that have shaped its often dramatic history. Courtiers and courtesans,...
Author
Language
English
Description
A classic of Japanese history, this book is still the preeminent work on the history of Japan. Newly revised and updated, A History of Japan is a fascinating look at the nation of Japan throughout history. Starting in ancient Japan during its early pre-history period A History of Japan covers every important aspect of history and culture through feudal Japan to the post-cold War period and collapse of the Bubble Economy in the early 1990's. Recent...
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