LONDON -- In a Dickensian setting near the British Museum is a bookshop. Open the door, and the inviting musty smell of old books strikes you at once. On the ground floor, stacked shelves support books in English that "cover all aspects of the Far East and the Middle East." Rare books have their secure place in the basement. Nobuko Somers makes a claim for Fine Books Oriental. "We are the only bookshop in England specializing in the Far East and the Middle East," she said.
Nobuko, from Japan, speaks perfect English, her voice soft and gentle, her manner quietly confident. She was born in the countryside of Nagano Prefecture, where her father was a landowner and local mayor. At 15 Nobuko left the ski resort mountains to become a boarder in a city high school. She went on to graduate in economics from Meiji University in Tokyo.
Perhaps because her older sisters accepted arranged marriages, when her turn came Nobuko was allowed wider latitude. She stayed to work in Tokyo, becoming secretary to the director of the Central Procurement Office of the Self-Defense Forces. "I was interested in English," she said. "My colleagues advised me to see the world before I married. I received permission to be absent from my job for a year, and came to London in 1969."