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Pope Francis’ fascination with the devil took on remarkable new twists Tuesday, with a well-known exorcist insisting Francis helped “liberate” a Mexican man possessed by four different demons despite the Vatican’s insistence that no such papal exorcism took place. The case concerns a 43-year-old ...
Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Guitarist Dustin Wong hesitates for a split second. It’s a pause that would go unnoticed during most other sets, but Wong has spent the last 40 minutes seemingly in a trance while playing guitar and looping the notes via an array of pedals in ...
Tim Duncan saves the day as the Spurs hold off the Grizzlies in overtime
For Anna Kunnecke's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
GREEN TEA LIVING by Toshimi A. Kayaki. Stone Bridge Press, 2010, 160 pp., £14.50 (hardcover) This diminutive book is packed as tightly as an obento box with an array of mini-essays. And like a good Japanese obento lunch, which always includes five colors (white ...
THE HEART OF AIKIDO: The Philosophy of Takemusu Aiki, by Morihei Ueshiba. Translated by John Stevens. Kodansha International, 2010, 144 pp., $19.95 (hardcover) Anyone who turns to this lovely volume hoping to learn how to perform some of aikido’s legendary techniques will be disappointed. ...
JAPANESE TRADITIONS: Rice Cakes, Cherry Blossoms and Matsuri: A Year of Seasonal Japanese Festivities, by Setsu Broderick. Tuttle, 2010, 48 pp., $16.95 (hardcover) I put this picture book to the toughest test of all: I read it to my 3-year-old. Though the text was ...
THE EIGHTH DAY, by Mitsuyo Kakuta. Kodansha International, 2010, 256 pp., $24.95 (hardcover) The first half of this book is told from the point of view of Kiwako, an office worker who kidnaps the baby of her married lover after being pressured into having ...
IF YOU FOLLOW ME, by Malena Watrous. Harper Perennial, 2010, 384 pp., $14.99 (paperback) If you live in Japan for many years, you see a lot of people come and go. The expat crowd is notoriously transitory, and no subset is more ubiquitously “temporary” ...
THE ART OF THE GUT: Manhood, Power, and Ethics in Japanese Politics, by Robin M. LeBlanc. University of California Press, 2009, 256 pp., $24.95 (paperback) Robin LeBlanc is doing a tricky dance. She’s clearly a serious academic devoted to the study of politics, and ...
JUST ENOUGH: Lessons in Living Green From Traditional Japan, by Azby Brown. Kodansha International, 2009, 232 pp., $24.95 (hardcover) Azby Brown is fascinated by Edo Japan because it once faced dire environmental degradation and yet did not collapse. Through a combination of ingenious technological ...
GUIDE TO INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS IN JAPAN: From Anxiety to Opportunity, by Caroline Pover. Alexandra, 2009, 667 pp., ¥4,762 (paper) Expatriates in some countries face a scarcity of options when it comes to educating their children, but in Japan the reverse is true: The array ...