Category: Issue 1

Introduction

Issue 1: Writers in Kyoto

Welcome to the first issue of Books on Asia, your guide to finding quality books on Japan and Asia. We launch the site with a look at Writers in Kyoto, a passel of scribes who write about Japan, with an emphasis on the old capital city of Kyoto. The organization was founded in 2015 by John Dougill, who pens the Green Shinto blog and has authored numerous books on Japan and Kyoto. The group includes authors, journalists, editors, poets, historians and experts in the Japanese arts.

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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.

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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.

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.”

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.”

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.

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Articles, Authors, Issue 1

Interview with Alex Kerr: The Importance of Mentors

  Known to most as the author of Lost Japan, Dogs and Demons and, more recently, Another Kyoto, Alex Kerr came of age in 1970s Japan, a golden era when he hung around with other notable foreign residents such as antique dealer David Kidd, curator Alexandra Munroe and Zen abbot John Toler. Alex took time More…

Articles, Eastern religions, Issue 1, Issues

Zen or Shinto? John Dougill takes on D.T. Suzuki

By John Dougill Sincerity, loyalty, self-sacrifice.  Zen or Shinto values? Mindfulness is a key concept in both Zen and Shinto.  Purification and egolessness too. Harae (purification) and kegare (impurity) in Shinto resemble Delusion and Attachment in Buddhism.  The goal in both religions is similar, though the means are different. In Shinto people look to restore More…