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August 15, 2024
 

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THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 30, 2003
East to West: the seductive Madame Sadayakko
MADAME SADAYAKKO: The Geisha Who Seduced the West, by Lesley Downer. London: Review Press/Hodder Headline, 2003, 336 pp., map, photos, £20 (cloth) In 1899, a 27-year-old ex-geisha who called herself Sadayakko embarked on a new career in San Francisco. With her entrepreneur-husband's enthusiastic backing,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 30, 2003
The young, the beautiful, the talented
COLLECTION OF BEAUTIES AT THE HEIGHT OF THEIR POPULARITY: A Novel, by Whitney Otto. New York: Random House, 2002, 283 pages, $23.95 (hardcover) When we think of Japonisme, it is primarily in the decorative arts -- a painting of a European woman holding a Japanese fan or wearing a kimono, some oriental...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 30, 2003
Behind the silver screen
THE FLASH OF CAPITAL: Film and Geopolitics in Japan, by Eric Cazdyn. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2002, 316 pp., $21.95 (paper) Those who dislike that branch of criticism and cultural studies that has come to be known as "theory" will probably not care for Eric Cazdyn's "The Flash of Capital:...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 23, 2003
Lawyers: they're not all out for themselves
HUMAN RIGHTS IN JAPAN, South Korea and Taiwan, by Ian Neary. London, Routledge, 2002, 297 pp., $95 (cloth) It's not easy being a lawyer these days -- putting up with nasty jokes, scant respect and widespread suspicions that the public interest is way down on the list of priorities. Ian Neary reminds...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 23, 2003
Practice makes perfect
COPYING THE MASTER AND STEALING HIS SECRETS, edited by Brenda Jordan and Victoria Weston, with an introduction by J. Thomas Rimer. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003, 248 pp., 14 color plates, 52 monochrome photos, $50 (cloth) As Thomas Rimer writes in his introduction to this interesting collection...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 16, 2003
Hard-hitting Bangkok PI knows how to Thai one on
ASIA HAND, 1992, 277 pp.; COLD HIT, 1999, 330 pp.; MINOR WIFE, 2002, 297 pp.; by Christopher G. Moore. Heaven Lake Press, Bangkok (all three books priced at $11.95) Canadian novelist Christopher G. Moore, a former law instructor from British Columbia, has been described as "The Hemingway of Bangkok."...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 16, 2003
Pictures of peace
VISIONS OF BUDDHIST LIFE, photographs and text by Don Farber, forward by Huston Smith, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003, 240 pp., 116 color photos, 36 quadtone photos, $39.95 (cloth) The photographer Don Farber has made his domain (in the words of his publisher) "the beauty and diversity...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 9, 2003
Dropping out and tuning in to the rhythm of nature
SANTOKA: Grass and Tree Cairn, translated by Hiroaki Sato. Vermont: Red Moon Press, 2002, 74 pp., $14.95 (paper) No matter how deep one's faith or religion is, one may experience feelings of resignation and defeat as well as the loss of compassion for others and oneself.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 9, 2003
All eyes on Russia's Far East
RUSSIA'S FAR EAST: A Region at Risk, edited by Judith Thornton and Charles E. Ziegler. Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, University of Washington Press, 2002, 498 pp. (paper). The Russian Far East is a land of contradictions. It is a vast territory of 6.2 million sq. km., roughly one-third...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 2, 2003
Modernization seen from the bottom up
A MODERN HISTORY OF JAPAN FROM TOKUGAWA TIMES TO THE PRESENT, by Andrew Gordon. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, 384 pp., $35 (cloth) In this superb book, by far the best in its genre, Andrew Gordon, director of the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University, provides a...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 23, 2003
Poet reaches for a world beyond reality
THE VILLAGE BEYOND, Poems of Nobuko Kimura, translated by Hiroaki Sato. Vermont: P.S., A Press, 2002, viii + 54 pp., $10 (paper) Nobuko Kimura has published six volumes of poetry, the first, "Collected Poems of Kimura Nobuko" (Kimura Nobuko Shishu), in 1971, and the most recent, "Going Around the Day"...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 23, 2003
Neglected poet gets his due
JUST LIVING: Poems and Prose of the Japanese Monk Tonna, edited and translated by Steven D. Carter. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003, 243 pp., $49.50 (cloth); $18.50 (paper) Tonna (a pen name often romanized as Ton'a) was a poet and lay-monk who lived from 1289 to 1372. Born as Nikaido Sadamune...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 23, 2003
Going for the least-worst option
CASE STUDIES IN JAPANESE NEGOTIATING BEHAVIOR, by Michael Blaker, Paul Giarra and Ezra Vogel. Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2002, 170 pp., $12.50 (paper). Mercifully, we are long past the time when a book like this focused on a Japanese exceptionalism that bordered on cultural...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 16, 2003
Enslaved and liberated by lust
CONSUMING BODIES: Sex and Contemporary Japanese Art, edited by Fran Lloyd. London: Reaktion Books, 2002, 224 pp., 134 color and 34 black-and-white illustrations, £16.95 (paper). In her introduction to this very interesting collection of essays, Fran Lloyd emphasizes that the portrayal of sex and consumerism...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 16, 2003
Climb every mountain, saving souls on the way
BONE MOUNTAIN, by Eliot Pattison. New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2002, 306 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Novelist Eliot Pattison really knows how to spin a story. He also wants you to sympathize with the plight of Tibetans, which is not difficult to do. "Bone Mountain," Pattison's third novel set in Tibet, is...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 9, 2003
Titillating tales from China's perfumed city
SHANGHAI: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City, by Stella Dong. Perennial/HarperCollins, 2001, 318 pp., $15 (paper) Great cities deserve the attentions of writers who combine the historian's pursuit of accuracy with the willingness to be swayed by impressions, prejudices, anecdotes and flawed opinions....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 9, 2003
Life was but a stage for Japan's troubled genius
MY FRIEND HITLER And Other Plays of Yukio Mishima, translated by Hiroaki Sato. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, 316 pp., $49.40 (cloth), $18.95 (paper). Though he is most famous as a novelist, Yukio Mishima was also a prolific dramatist. From 1949, when his first play was published, to 1969,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 9, 2003
Role models for a changing nation
One welcome exception to the gloomy news in Japan last year was the unexpected awarding of a Nobel Prize in chemistry to an apparently ordinary company worker. Koichi Tanaka's steadfastness, lack of personal ambition and open, nice-guy persona were a refreshing throwback to a less cynical age, and his...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 2, 2003
Analyst urges Russia to look West
THE END OF EURASIA: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and Globalization, by Dmitri Trenin. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002, 351 pp., $24.95 (paper) If nations were people, then Russia would have post-traumatic stress syndrome. Over the past decade, the former...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 2, 2003
Dispatches from the past
TREATISE ON EPISTOLARY STYLE: Joa~o Rodriguez on the Noble Art of Writing Japanese Letters, by Jeroen Pieter Lamers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, 2002, 104 pp., $49.95 (cloth) In Japan, it was once thought that letters showed the writer's personal character. The way...
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

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