Rather, here he is: Theodore Manning, whose book "Flea Markets of Japan: A Pocket Guide for Antique Buyers" was published last month. He no longer lives here, having returned last year to America after a 10-year stretch, so I call him in his new home base of Chicago and we talk by phone.
"Yes," he agrees. "There has been a need for this book for 20 years. It's amazing that no one wrote it before I did."
The commission, which Theodore describes as "serendipitous," came about after he bumped into a senior editor at Kodansha in a secondhand bookshop. "He was very supportive of the idea of a guide in English to flea markets in Japan."