Top Stories - Books

There should be no Orphanages in the World - call me a dreamer call me what you like.The fact speaks for itself.

'To Japan With Love' is the latest travel guide to Japan from Things Asian Press, not even available to buy in the shops yet. Win a copy here!

Lot of hardwork in coming up with a digital publication to help brand the blog .... but how effective are digital books? Mainichi news suggests people still like the real thing. What are your thoughts on cyber books?

Summer of the Big Bachi, by Naomi Hirahara, paperback, 304 pages, Delta, list price: $13

My Year of Meats, by Ruth Ozeki, paperback, 400 pages, Penguin, list price: $15

The Age of Dreaming, by Nina Revoyr, paperback, 320 pages, Akashic Books, list price: $15.95

"The ghosts of her ancestors appear at night -- mysterious women in red and silver kimonos; many-armed deities. The novel, so firmly anchored in a sensuous reality, veers into a dream world.

Long time readers of Japundit may get a kick out of the play list I was invited to compile for my novel, Picking Bones from Ash, which will be out October 1st. There are some references to our old favorites--Gwen Stefani and the Johnnys. But there are also a few new things too. David, who runs the site, also had some nice things to say about the book, which he has now read.

Japan: An Illustrated History explores the history of Japan from it’s mythical creation at the hands of Gods thousands of years ago right up to the end of Showa Japan in 1989.

A cutting review of Alex Kerr's 'Lost Japan', labeling it 'the simpering wuss-cousin of the ferocious ‘Dogs and Demons’.

Alan Booth rambled some of the most remote mountain and valleys of Japan, following in the foot-steps of three historical people/movements, searching for something that may no longer exist.

I'm sure this story came up before for umpteen times. Ah, that "pigeonhole-ism" again. I'm Type A but my personality is that of a Type B person. I can't put into a pigeonhole. Does it explain why I'm a bit of a screwball?

This huge novel, half a million Chinese characters long in the original, was a national sensation when it first surfaced in China three years ago, its two parts together selling over a million copies.

Long-time JAPUNDIT friend Andrew Stevens writes in to let us know about his new anthology of short stories about Tokyo.

According to the blurb over at Amazon:

12 of the UK and Japan's most subversive authors -- and one visionary editor -- offer up 12 revelatory and addictive visions of Japan.

In Western countries, you'll find a Bible in your bedside drawer at almost every hotel.

If hotels in China were also to make one book available for guests, which one should it be?

"The first choice, I would say, is The Analects of Confucius," says Kong Jian, a middle-aged author who released two new books

One villain, for example, "Crazy Dr.Andrew Denton," looks like an evil, disfigured Beavis, sans Butt-head, and is far more unsettling than Batman foes such as the Joker and Two-Face as they were rendered in the '60s.

This book presents a detailed examination of the elements in the Japanese system of government administration that inhibit the implementation of structural reforms. It explores why Japan's current systems of government administration of the political economy is too rigid and inward to accommodate structural reform.