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A monstrous tornado at least 800 meters wide roared through the suburbs of Oklahoma City on Monday, flattening entire neighborhoods and destroying an elementary school with a direct blow as children and teachers huddled against winds of up to 320 kph. At least 91 ...
If you work in an office, you probably spend a fair part of your time sitting at a desk, which, of course, isn’t very healthy. To combat that the Pomodoro technique recommends that you work in intervals with regular breaks — for example, 25 ...
“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, ...
"Outsider art" is relatively new in Japan and, as a genre, works made by self-taught Japanese artists are still not very well known on the category-delineating, label-loving international art scene.
After all these years, Rafael Nadal still knows how to dominate Roger Federer. In the 30th meeting between the two tennis greats, Nadal controlled the final from start to finish to win 6-1, 6-3 Sunday for his seventh Italian Open title. “Rafa was just ...
A RIOT OF GOLDFISH, by Kanoko Okamoto. Translated by J. Keith Vincent. Hesperus Press, 2010, 136 pp., £8.99 (paper) Between 1929 and 1932, the poet Kanoko Okamoto traveled through Europe and the U.S. with her husband, the cartoonist Ippei Okamoto, her son and two ...
REMOTE CONTROL, by Kotaro Isaka. Translated by Stephen Snyder. Kodansha International, 2011, 334 pp., $24.95 (hardcover) If you want an all-action, well-written and intelligent novel to read in 2011, then look no further than this excellent conspiracy-theory thriller. “Remote Control” has the delirious historical ...
SKY=EMPTY, by Judy Halebsky. New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2010, 83 pp., $15 (paper) Ernest Fenollosa started it, then passed it on to Ezra Pound, who influenced Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Whalen, Robert Creeley, Gary Snyder, Jack Spicer, Cid Corman and Jackson Mac ...
THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET, by David Mitchell. Random House, 496 pp., $26 (hardcover) A tale of love, murder, intrigue, and cultural identity, Mitchell takes the form of the historical novel and worries it like a chew-toy. Yet, rather than destroy the ...
WHITE AS BONE, RED AS BLOOD: The Fox Sorceress, by Cerridwen Fallingstar. Cauldron Publications, 2009, 378 pp., $19.95 (paper) Based on apparent “past-life memories,” this historical novel by shamanic witch, priestess and time-traveler Cerridwen Fallingstar takes place in 12th- century Japan in the period ...
THE ISE STORIES: Ise Monogatari, translated by Joshua S. Mostow and Royall Tyler. University of Hawai’i Press, 2010, 269 pp., $19 (paper) Ariwara no Narihira (825-880), a Japanese Don Juan, a Casanova of the Heian Period (794-1185), a poet, one of the prime authors ...
LITTLE PIECES: This Side of Japan, by Michael Hoffman. Virtualbookworm.Com Publishing, 2010, 206 pp., $12.95 (paper) In the 120 years since Lafcadio Hearn first arrived on these shores, Japan has traded superstition for Super Mario. Were Hearn to disembark in Yokohama today and travel ...
JAPLISH WHIPLASH, by Taylor Mignon. Printed Matter Press, 2010, 78 pp., $20 (paper) VILLAIN, by Shuichi Yoshida. Translated by Philip Gabriel. Pantheon Books, 2010, 304 pp., $25.95 (hardcover) Divided into five sections, the American poet and translator Taylor Mignon’s first solo collection of poetry ...
LIKE A SAMURAI: The Tony Glynn Story, by Paul Glynn. Marist Fathers Books, 185 pp., $15 (paper) Sixty-five years after the Allied victory over Japan in the Pacific War, Paul Glynn chronicles the life of his brother and fellow member of the Order of ...
LEGENDS OF NARA, by Inui Kenji. Translated by Matthew J. Eynon and Teruko Takamiya. Nara Newspaper, 2010, 259 pp., ¥1,800 (paper) From May 1974 until March 1985, Kenji Inui wrote the column “Hometown Legends” for the prefectural news magazine Kensei Nara. Published on the ...
SPINNING TROPICS, by Aska Mochizuki. Translated by Wayne P. Lammers. Vintage, 2009, 231 pp., $15 (paper) United by wars against the United States, yet divided by the economic results and effects of those wars, Vietnam and Japan are the real subjects of Aska Mochizuki’s ...
HOTEL IRIS, by Yoko Ogawa. Translated by Stephen Snyder. Picador, 2010, 176 pp., $14 (paper) Bored with life and bullied by an overbearing mother, 17-year-old Mari finds a painful solace in the company of a translator of Russian, 50 years her senior. Yoko Ogawa’s ...