The Widow, The Priest and The Octopus Hunter

Portraits of the lives of 31 members of a small community on a tiny island in Japan’s Inland Sea, spanning the Taisho to Reiwa periods (the past 100 years).

Kanazawa

In Kanazawa, David Joiner delivers a slow-burning family drama reminiscent of a film by Yasujirō Ozu or Hirokazu Koreeda.

Heaven, by Mieko Kawakami

A heartbreaking, yet uplifting, story of two outcasts who find and protect each other through a year of school bullying.

Travels with a Writing Brush

Classical Japanese Travel Writing from the Manyoshu to Basho

The Pillow Book (Penguin Classics)

Sei Shonagon writes about life among the Japanese nobility, describing the exquisite pleasures of a confined world in which poetry, love, fashion, and whim dominated.

Tale of Saigyo

A poetic biography of the late Heian poet Saigyo (1118-90), one of the most loved and respected poets in Japanese literary history

Gazing at the Moon

Gazing at the Moon presents over one hundred of Saigyō’s tanka—traditional 31-syllable poems—newly rendered into English by Meredith McKinney.

Kusamakura (Penguin Classics)

A new English translation—the first in more than forty years—of a major novel by the father of modern Japanese fiction.

The Wedding Party

Set at a pivotal point after the turmoil of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Liu Xinwu’s tale weaves together a rich tapestry of characters, intertwined lives, and stories within stories.

The Widow, the Priest and the Octopus Hunter

Candid interviews of residents living on a small island of 430 people in Japan’s fabled Inland Sea.

Places, by Setouchi Jakuchō

Few authors have led as storied a life as Setouchi Jakuchō. Writer, translator, feminist, peace activist, and Buddhist nun…

Buddhism and Modernity: Sources from Nineteenth-Century Japan

A valuable source book for Buddhist scholars

Structures of Kyoto

Judith Clancy and Alex Kerr book-end this remarkable publication offering insight into the physical, spiritual and artistic elements of Kyoto.

Kokoro

Kokoro (“Heart”) offers deep insight into the human psyche and investigates internal struggles and the darker sides of admiration, envy and temptation.

The Art of Emptiness

The Art of Emptiness gives the reader insight into one of the most famous lineages of Japanese pottery.

Well-Versed: Exploring Modern Japanese Haiku

A collection of three hundred modern haiku by different poets, curated from Ozawa’s commentary in the magazine Haiku Arufa from 2008-2018

Grit, Grace and Gold: Haiku Celebrating the Sports of Summer

In celebration of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games, some summer sports haiku.

Lost Japan

Alex Kerr’s first book, was published in English in 1996. Originally published in Japanese, the book won the 1994 Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize.

Bullet Train

Shenanigans on the Shinkansen

Rabbit in the Moon

The author falls in love with Fred, marries him, and then grapples with understanding his Chinese background.

When a Stranger Comes to Town

Includes the story “Tokyo Stranger” by Tina deBellegarde

Bird Talk and Other Stories by Xu Xu

Xu Xu was one of the most widely read Chinese authors of the 1930s to 1960s

The Pearl Jacket and Other Stories

This collection features 120 short-short stories (from 100 to 300 words each), written by some of China’s most dynamic and versatile authors.

Lizard

Six tales explore themes of time, healing, and fate–and the journeys of self-discovery through which young urbanites come to terms with them

First Person Singular

It is that so-called “insignificant encounter” that Murakami focuses on to develop beautiful short stories.

The Nakano Thrift Shop

This “gentle, humorous novel” follows a young Japanese woman as she yearns for the love of a reluctant coworker (The Wall Street Journal).

Things Remembered and Things Forgotten

A delightful book of short stories from Kyoko Nakajima, author of The Little House, and winner of the Naoki Prize

Where the Wild Ladies Are

Witty and exuberant feminist re-tellings of traditional Japanese folktales

Yamamba: In Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch

A modern recasting of stories surrounding Japan’s famous mountain witch.

The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper and Other Short Stories

“A series of delightful vignettes of life in Japan”—Ginny Tapley Takemori

At Home in Japan

This book traces a path fromthe essential day to day details of life in a Japanese house and village, through relationships with family, neighbors and the natural and supernatural entities with which the family shares the home.

Kyoto: Seven Paths to the Heart of the City

A walking guide to the historic neighborhoods

Untangling My Chopsticks

Riccardi moved to Kyoto to study kaiseki, the exquisitely refined form of cooking that accompanies the formal Japanese tea ceremony.

Wasteland to Pureland: Reflections on the Path to Awakening

Explains, in layman’s terms, what Buddhism is and how we can manifest its teachings into our daily lives, and why we should

How Human is Human?

Androids are certainly tools to think with and one thing they make us think of is our own mortality.

Noh as Living Art: Inside Japan’s Oldest Theatrical Tradition

Yasuda has provided a witty and fresh approach to this art.

7+2: A Mountain Climber’s Journal

Mountain verse from China

Japan in Asia: Post-Cold-War Diplomacy

Is Asia becoming one common, shared culture?

Pearl City: Stories from Japan and Elsewhere

Simon Rowe’s second volume of short-stories on Japan and Asia

Providence Was With Us

Nakamura Tetsu’s account of his thirty-five years as a volunteer in the nebulous border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan

Lonely Planet Best Day Hikes Japan

The long-awaited third installment in the series, entitled Best Day Walks Japan (US edition: Best Day Hikes Japan) has been published.

Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures

Twenty-four stories in a collection of climate fiction that seek to imagine what cities might look like in a future of multi-species co-existence and green justice.

The Gion Festival: Exploring its Mysteries

A guide to Japan’s biggest summer extravaganza: The Gion Festival

Earthlings

Opens as a coming-of-age story, evolves into psychological suspense, and settles into dark fantasy and horror.

Klara and the Sun

Kazuo’s trademark estrangement paradoxically brings his characters closer to us.

Amy’s Guide to Best Behavior in Japan

All you need to know to avoid making cultural faux pas in Japan. Whether you’re visiting temples & shrines, staying overnight at traditional Japanese inns, or eating out and drinking at restaurants and pubs, this book will tell you what to do and not do.

The Cat and The City

Nick Bradley masterfully weaves together seemingly disparate threads to conjure up a vivid tapestry of Tokyo; its glory, its shame, its characters, and a calico cat. -—David Peace

Japan’s Quest for Stability in Southeast Asia: Navigating the Turning Points in Postwar Asia

How Japan navigated independence movements and revolutions in Southeast Asia during a fractious postwar period.

The Woman in the White Kimono

A promising debut novel by Ana Johns

Hōjōki by Kamo no Chōmei: A Hermit’s Hut as Metaphor

Japanese Buddhist literature is filled with the struggle to overcome the pain of transience.

From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia

Asian intellectuals fighting western colonialism in the 19th and early 20th centuries offer points that we can learn from today

The Book of the Dead

Orikuchi Shinobu, was a novelist, poet and scholar, and often considered one of the fathers of Japanese folklore studies.

The Heike Story: A Modern Translation of the Classic Tale of Love and War

The Heike Story is a modern translation of the Japanese classic Heike Monogatari

The Territory of Japan: Its History and Legal Basis

Serita Kentaro retraces and analyzes the history of negotiations over the Northern Territories, Takeshima and Senkaku Islands.

The Forgotten Japanese: Encounters with Rural Life and Folklore

A leading Japanese folklorist travels 100,000 miles through Japan to record the lifestyles of people from 1846-1965.

Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights, and Back Alleys…and Baseball

A memoir and book about the dramatic growth of the megacity Tokyo

Seeing Zen: Zenga from the Kaeru-An Collection

“Seeing Zen” presents 127 of the finest Zenga (Zen artwork) selected from the Kaeru-An (“Frog Hut”) Collection

One Love Chigusa

Book Description A love story that explores the mechanics of the heart and humankind’s inevitable evolution. One Love Chigusa by Soji Shimada, one of Japan’s most famous authors, is a tale of obsessive love in a world where technology has crept into the very heart of humanity. The year is 2091 AD. A horrendous motorcycle More…

A Korean Odyssey: Island Hopping in Choppy Waters

An odyssey around the islands off the coast of South Korea in search of life beyond K-pop, high-tech gadgetry, and nuclear missile tests.

Bangkok Wakes to Rain

An elegy for what time erases and a love song to all that persists, yearning, into the unknowable future.

Finding the Heart Sutra: Guided by a Magician, an Art Collector and Buddhist Sages from Tibet to Japan

Powerful, mystical and concise, the Heart Sutra is believed to contain the condensed essence of all Buddhist wisdom.

Translating Modern Japanese Literature

An introductory text to translating Japanese into English.

My Heart Sutra: A World in 260 Characters

The Heart Sutra is the most widely read, chanted, and copied text in East Asian Buddhism. Schodt’s journey takes him to China, America and Japan.

The Magic of Japan: Secret Places and Life-changing Experiences

From the author of A Geek In Japan and Ikigai comes a new book based on his 15 years of living in Japan.

Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japan

In eighteen chapters, this anthology takes an epic journey the length of Japan, from subtropical Okinawa, through the Japanese heartland, all the way to the wilds of Hokkaido.

Sailing True North: Ten Admirals and the Voyage of Character

Chapter biographies of ten famous admirals of the world, including Admiral Chester W. Nimitz commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet during World War II who ultimately accepted the surrender of Japan in Tokyo Bay.

Green Island: a novel

Mini Review By Amy Chavez I was prompted to read Green Island after learning about it in John Grant Ross’s Taiwan in 100 Books. I’d been fascinated with this former Japanese colony (ceded to Japan from China in the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895 at the end of the first Sino-Japanese War), since I first More…

Looking for the Lost: Journeys through a vanishing Japan

Mini-Review By Amy Chavez This is surely one of the most well-written travel books on Japan. Booth’s breathtaking prose comes as naturally as putting one foot before the other as he meanders around Japan. It’s the kind of book you read slowly, to take in all he is offering to your senses. He tells you More…

Overcoming Isolationism

The Australian Institute of International Affairs is sponsoring a Zoom event with Paul Mitford, author of the recently released Overcoming Isolationism: Japan’s Leadership in East Asian Security Multilateralism this Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020 from 18:00 to 20:00 (Australian time UTC+ 10). It will be moderated by AIIA National Executive Director and Japan expert Dr Bryce More…

The Return of Lafcadio Hearn

This week Balestier Press has published Roger Pulvers’ The Charter, a collection of fourteen stories all about Japan. Here is an excerpt from one of the stories, “The Return of Lafcadio Hearn” where Hearn, the Greek-Irish author and journalist who arrived in Japan in 1890 has come back to give his impressions and opinions on More…

What we’re reading…

From Party Politics to Militarism in Japan 1924-1941 by Kitaoka Shinichi, an upcoming U.S. release (December 11, 2020). Pre-orders for the U.S. release available now from Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. in association with the Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture. Note that the book is already available in Japan as of Aug. 31, 2020 and More…

Heaven Lake: A Novel

A stunningly beautiful tribute to the author’s four years living in Taiwan.

Library of Legends

Limited Time Deal! Kindle US only $2.99 China, 1937: When Japanese bombs begin falling on the city of Nanking, nineteen-year-old Hu Lian and her classmates at Minghua University are ordered to flee. Lian and a convoy of more than a hundred students, faculty, and staff must walk a thousand miles to the safety of China’s More…

Taiwan in 100 Books

Book Recommendation Just a couple months ago I was asking people what the best books on Taiwan are.  I had never read anything other than a guidebook on the country, and wanted to know where to start. I didn’t get much advice. Then, just like magic, this book appeared. It’s a brilliant concept: introducing a More…

The Kitchen God’s Wife

The New York Times best-seller The Kitchen God’s Wife, by Amy Tan (author of The Joy Luck Club) is now available as an e-book for just $1.99 for a limited time. Click on the green “More Info” button on the left for buying choices. Note: Sale applies to e-book version only. This is a limited-time More…

Ghosts of the Tsunami

Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent tells the story of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011.

People Who Eat Darkness

The story behind one of Tokyo’s most high-profile crimes.

In the Time of Madness

Indonesia at the crossroads of freedom and terror: The Suharto era and East Timor Independence

The Era of Great Disasters

Recent Release! A fascinating look at three of Japan’s most devastating earthquakes.

Krakatoa

The story of the world’s most devastating volcano: Krakatoa, off the coast of Java, Indonesia.

Autobiography of Death

Poet Kim Hyesoon’s ode to the 2014 Sewol Ferry tragedy in which 250 school children lost their lives.

The Minamata Story

Upcoming Release! A prominent man-made tragedy of post-war Japan that marked the beginning of grass-roots activism.

Underground

Haruki Murakami interviews victims of the Tokyo Gas Attack and reveals how the terrorist attack affected the psyche of the Japanese people.

A River in Darkness

One man’s escape from North Korea.

Yuko-Chan and the Daruma Doll

A girl saves her village from the devastating effects of a volcano.

The Complete Story of Sadako Sasaki

New Release! The story of Sadako and her 1,000 paper cranes, told by her older brother who survived the Atomic Bomb.

The Kizuna Coast

The 11th book in the Rei Shimura mystery series, this one among the backdrop of the Tohoku earthquake.

Up From The Sea

A poetic narrative of the day a young boy who lost everything to a tsunami.

Elephants of the Tsunami

A true story of how elephants in Thailand helped people escape the tsunami.

Japan’s World Heritage Sites

Visit the most compelling cultural and nature sites in Japan with this guide.

Shinto Shrines

All you need to know about Shinto in one book!

Zen Gardens and Temples of Kyoto

From Stephen Mansfield in his Japan Times review: “Soaked in the finer legacies of Kyoto, the authors are keenly aware of the religious principals and aesthetics underpinning spiritual practices and garden design in the city. Accordingly, their book derives from deep understanding and reflection, rather than rote research.”

In Search of Japan’s Hidden Christians

John Dougill takes the reader on a journey to major sites of the Hidden Christians in Japan while telling their history and story.

Pinball 1973/Hear the Wind Sing

Part of The Trilogy of the Rat, Murakami’s first two short novels.

A Wild Sheep Chase

This is the last of the Trilogy of the Rat and the novel won the Noma Literary Award for new writers.

Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Winner of the prestigious Tanizaki Prize.

Norwegian Wood

The novel that catapulted Murakami to superstardom in 1987.

Dance, Dance, Dance

A sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase and Murakami’s attack on late-model capitalism.

The Elephant Vanishes

A collection of 17 short stories written from 1980 to 1991.

South of the Border, West of the Sun

“That cycle continues, year after year, and then one day, something inside you dies.”

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Murakami traveled to Manchuria and Mongolia to write this epic novel.

Underground

Haruki Murakami interviews victims of the Tokyo Gas Attack and reveals how the terrorist attack affected the psyche of the Japanese people.

Sputnik Sweetheart

Part romance, part detective story, a tangled triangle of uniquely unrequited love.

after the quake

A collection of six short stories written between 1999 and 2000.

Kafka on The Shore

In this story told by a 15-year-old narrator, cats converse with people and fish tumble from the sky.

After Dark

A short, sleek novel of encounters set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

A collection of 24 short stories written between 1980 and 2005

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Non-fiction about Murakami’s love for running. A bit of a memoir.

1Q84

Pronounced “one-Q-84,” this story takes place in Tokyo during a fictionalized year of 1984.

The Strange Library

A children’s story by Haruki Murakami. Get the kids hooked on Murakami while they’re young!

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

In Murakami’s 13th novel, the protagonist revisits his friends from high school in a quest to find out why he was shunned from this group of friends so long ago.

Killing Commendatore

A portrait painter who has recently split up with his wife moves to a house in Odawara.

Men Without Women

A collection of short stories about men who have lost women in their lives.

Absolutely On Music

Murakami’s passion for music leads him to interview Japan’s most famous conductor Seiji Ozawa.

Walking the Kiso Road

Step back into old Japan in William Scott Wilson’s fascinating modern travelogue.

Hiking and Trekking in the Japan Alps and Mount Fuji

The best guide to hiking the Japan Alps and Mount Fuji. All you need to know!

Shank’s Mare

Japan’s most celebrated comic novel of the Tokaido, originally published in 1802.

Japan’s Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage

New Release! The first English guidebook ever to the Kumano Kodo UNESCO World Heritage pilgrimage.

One Hundred Mountains of Japan

The book that inspired foreigners to tackle the “hyakumeizan,” Japan’s 100 mountains.

Emplacing a Pilgrimage

The Ōyama mountain cult and beliefs, practices, and infrastructure associated with the sacred site

Unbeaten Tracks in Japan

An eye-opening account of a solo woman’s journey through Japan on horse, carriage and foot in 1878.

The 1918 Shikoku Pilgrimage of Takamure Itsue

The earliest account of the Shikoku Pilgrimage in English, written by a female journalist.

Japanese Pilgrimage

The book that started started it all for foreigners venturing out on the Shikoku 88-Temple Pilgrimage.

Making Pilgrimages

For those who want to delve more deeply into meaning and practice of the Shikoku Pilgrimage.

The Inland Sea

The classic travel journal on island-hopping in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea

Hitching Rides with Buddha

Join Ferguson as he hitch-hikes 2,000 miles across Japan following the cherry blossoms.

The Roads to Sata

A travel classic, Alan Booth’s walk across 2,000 miles of rural Japan.

Strange Weather in Tokyo

Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Asian Literary Prize, “Strange Weather in Tokyo” is a story of loneliness and love that defies age.

Narrow Road to the Deep North

Haiku poet Basho’s famous account written in the 1600’s.

Kyoto Journal 90: old roads, revisited

This issue of the magazine digs deep into the historical aspect of some of the most ancient roads.

On Haiku

Hiroaki Sato reveals how the radical brevity of the haiku genre contains worlds within worlds. This is a book to cherish, and which nurtures in return.

Tokyo Kill

The second thriller of this series from Barry Lancet, “a fresh voice in crime fiction” (Kirkus Reviews). Listen to an excerpt in this issue’s Hon Podcast.

Tokyo Style Guide

The ultimate guide to shopping and eating in Tokyo. Read an interview with the author here!

The Lost Children of Tokyo

2018 Winner of the National Book Award in Translated Literature, and one of Library Journal’s “Best Books of 2018”

Underground

Haruki Murakami interviews victims of the Tokyo Gas Attack and how the terrorist attack affected the psyche of the Japanese people.

Tokyo from Edo to Showa 1867-1989

The definitive guide to the history of Tokyo, written by the late Edward Seidensticker. Preface by Donald Richie, Introduction by Paul Waley.

Tokyo Roji

The Japanese urban alleyway (roji), which was once part of people’s personal spatial sphere and everyday life has been transformed by diverse and competing interests. Read an excerpt!

Tokyo: Ueno Station

NEW RELEASE! An inside look at a homeless person’s existence in Ueno Park, Tokyo.

In the Miso Soup

This winner of the Yomiuri Prize for Literature navigates the neon-lit world of Tokyo’s sex industry.

Tokio Whip

A group of people walk across, around, and all over Tokyo. They talk, talk, talk. A linguistic, experiential, cartographical novel.

Moshi Moshi

Moshi Moshi gives an intimate feel of two Tokyo neighborhoods and how they are changing over time.

Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere

John Nathan, who later married artist Mayumi Oda, arrived in Tokyo in 1961 fresh out of Harvard College and went on to translate Sōseki, Mishima, and Ōe.

A Tokyo Romance

Celebrated author Ian Buruma lived in Tokyo from 1975 to 1981. This is his memoir.

Tokyo Poetry Journal

Tokyo Poetry Journal is a biannual publication of poetry, art, reviews, and criticism.

Tokyo Performance

NEW RELEASE! Tokyo Performance is set in the pre-internet age, captures the zeitgeist of Japan at the time.

The Great Passage

Naoki Prize-winner Shion Miura’s Great Passage received the Booksellers Award in Japan in 2012 and was developed into a major motion picture.

Convenience Store Woman

NEW RELEASE! The Akutagawa Prize-winning novel from Sayaka Murata, Vogue Japan’s 2016 Woman of the Year.

The Beast Player

NEW RELEASE! An enthralling fantasy story from one of Japan’s most popular writers of teen fiction, and which has been turned into a popular anime series

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

With over 13,000 reviews on Amazon, Marie Kondo, with the help of Cathy Hirano, can truly say she has changed the world!

Spark Joy

Tidying is the act of confronting yourself; cleaning is the act of confronting nature…

Clouds Above the Hill

One of the best-selling novels ever in Japan.

From the Fatherland With Love

If you love Ryu Murakami, you won’t be disappointed with this novel, a fictional account of North Korea invading Japan.

Secret Rendezvous

The bizarrely erotic and comic adventures of a man searching for his missing wife in a mysteriously vast underground hospital.

A True Novel

Winner of Japan’s prestigious Yomiuri Literature Prize, Minae Mizumura examines Japan’s westernization and the emergence of a middle class.

Ryouma! The Life of Sakamoto Ryōma

NEW RELEASE! The life story of Sakamoto Ryōma, a samurai and one of the great figures in Japanese history, has sold more than 24 million copies in Japan since its original publication in 1966

The Secret of the Blue Glass

The Secret of the Blue Glass by Tomiko Inui was shortlisted for the Marsh Award.

The Cake Tree in the Ruins

NEW RELEASE! Moving stories that tell of the absurd violence of war, and tenderly depict the animals and children caught in its vortex.

Masks

“A subtle examination of universal female behavior.” —People

Memories of Wind and Waves

A vanishing way of life in a small lakeside town in Japan is recorded in richly detailed oral stories from people who spent their lives working on or around Lake Kasumigaura.

Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness

The second book in the Moribito Series Balsa returns to her native Kanbal to clear the name of Jiguro, her mentor, who saved her life when she was six years old.

Moribito—Guardian of the Spirit

Balsa was a wanderer and warrior for hire…

The Isle of South Kamui and Other Stories

A collection of short stories that are fascinating psychological explorations of the criminal mind and what drives people to crime.

Puppet Master

A translation of Mohohan, Miyuki Miyabe’s absolute masterpiece.

A True Novel

The winner of Japan’s prestigious Yomiuri Literature Prize. A True Novel is an examination of Japan’s westernization and the emergence of a middle class.

Emily Brontë: Reappraised

Emily Bronte Reappraised conjures a new image of the great writer by looking at her afresh from the vantage point of the new millennium. A biography with a twist, it takes in the themes of her life and work – her feminism, her passion for the natural world – as well as the art she has inspired.

On the Bullet Train with Emily Bronte

On the Bullet Train with Emily Brontë is Pascoe’s lively account of her quest to discover why Japanese so emphatically embrace Wuthering Heights.

Poems of the Bronte Sisters

The Bronte sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne began their careers began with collaborative works of poetry written under male pseudonyms as they feared retribution by the male-dominated literary world.

Wuthering Heights – The Graphic Novel

The classic novel is brought to life in full colour in this graphic novel by Sean Michael Wilson, a Harvey and Eisner nominated comic book writer from Scotland, living in Japan. Click ‘more’ to read an interview!

The Brontë Sisters Boxed Set (A Penguin Classics Hardcover)

To celebrate the bicentennial of Charlotte Brontë’s birth, Penguin Classics presents the Brontë sisters’ four greatest works in a boxed set of lavish, clothbound Hardcover Classics editions

Arashigaoka 嵐が丘 manga

Yaoi is a Japanese genre of ‘boys love’ manga that focuses on sexual, and homosexual relationships

Wuthering Heights–the original novel

Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë’s only novel and was published in 1847. Brontë died the following year, at age 30.

Glass Mask manga series

The Glass Mask manga series by Miuchi Suzue is based on Wuthering Heights.

Echoes: Writers in Kyoto Anthology 2017

A collection of short stories and poetry from the members of Writers in Kyoto including: John Dougill, Alex Kerr, Allen Weiss, Mark Richardson, John Einarsen, Ted Taylor, David Joiner, Robert Yellin and others.

Another Kyoto

Stephen Mansfield’s review in the Japan Times: “In its specifics…..the minutiae of small, exquisite gardens, aged screen paintings, timeworn temple gates, transoms and polished floors, we encounter a city suffused with beauty and meaning.”

Kyoto: The Forest Within the Gate

The heart of the book is a dialogue between the poems of Edith Shiffert and over one hundred duotone photographs by John Einarsen. Enriched by essays from garden designer Marc Keane, aesthete Takeda Yoshifumi, and author Diane Durston.

The Grain of the Clay

From the Kyoto Journal: “…well-written and highly descriptive, the author transcends the object, the guinomi (a small ceramic sake cup), to question its relationship to all its surroundings. The guinomi comes to represent art and nature.”

The Letters of Robert Frost

Robert Frost scholar Mark Richardson lives and works in Kyoto. From the New York Times: “If there’s a true revelation in the first volume, the editors say, it’s the sheer intellectual firepower Frost brings even to a casual missive.”

Exploring Kyoto: On Foot in the Ancient Capital

“Exploring Kyoto by long-term resident Judith Clancy is an excellent guide to exploring Kyoto on foot.”–Lonely Planet Japan

Good Night Papa

Simon Rowe brings us short stories from Japan, China, Indonesia, Fiji and elsewhere in his debut book from the castle town of Himeji Japan.

Lotusland

Lotusland dramatizes the power imbalances between Westerners and Vietnamese — in love and friendship, in the consequences of war, and in the pursuit of dreams. Kyoto resident David Joiner writes about Vietnam from the point of view of one of the first Americans to live there following US and Vietnam normalized relations in 1995. Read an excerpt!

Deep Kyoto: Walks

A collection of essays from Kyoto residents on the theme of contemplative city walking with 18 narrated walks from Pico Iyer, Judith Clancy, Chris Rowthorn, John Dougill, Robert Yellin, John Ashburne and more.