Review by John Rucynski The Nature of Kyoto is the fifth anthology from Writers in Kyoto (WiK), a “group of published and self-published English-language authors working or living in the city.” Anthologies always run the risk of focusing on too narrow a theme, attracting a certain number of readers, but giving pause to many others More…
Category: Non-fiction
Review—A Passion for Japan
Snippets of life from people who have all come to live and search for a passion in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Review—Spirit of Shizen: Japan’s Nature Through its 72 Seasons
An anthology to accompany the Spirit of Shizen exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History in Luxembourg
Review—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).
The Widow, the Priest and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island Review by Tina deBellegarde With The Widow, the Priest and the Octopus Hunter, Amy Chavez has presented us with a gift of cultural preservation. The author conducted a year-long oral history project on the Island of More…
Excerpt—Koreans at Work
John Spiri traveled to Korea to ask Koreans about their jobs: what they do all day and what they think of it.
New Release—Another Bangkok, by Alex Kerr
Just released by Penguin, U.K. Alex Kerr’s latest book Bangkok Found: Reflections on the City, now available only on Amazon.jp, Amazon U.K, and Book Depository, U.K. (free shipping world-wide). Stay posted for a talk with Alex about this book on an upcoming Books on Asia YouTube podcast where he visually walks us through some of the More…
Excerpt—Taiwanese at Work
John Spiri traveled all over Taiwan interviewing people about their typical day of work.
Excerpt—Japanese at Work
Spiri traveled all over Japan interviewing people about their typical day of work
Recent Release—The Gion Festival: Exploring its Mysteries
Explains, in layman’s terms, what Buddhism is and how we can manifest its teachings into our daily lives, and why we should
In preparation for an upcoming podcast with Catherine Pawasarat, we’re revisiting her two books: The recently released (Nov. 2020) The Gion Festival: Exploring its Mysteries (review here) and From Wasteland to Pureland: Reflections on the Path to Awakening (for a BOA quick take, click here).
Review—How Human is Human?: The View from Robotics Research
Androids are certainly tools to think with and one thing they make us think of is our own mortality.
The Other Ishiguro Review by Cody Poulton Last month in Books on Asia I reviewed Klara and the Sun and contrasted Kazuo Ishiguro with another author with the same surname. Well, here’s a book by the other Ishiguro, Hiroshi, who happens to make robots—and not just imagine them. Ishiguro Hiroshi is probably the most famous More…