"Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide" terrorizes with well-researched descriptions and powerful illustrations of Japanese yokai (supernatural monsters), but also provides helpful hints on how to evade them.

My neighbor's garden is a wonder to behold. Where you might expect to find trim box hedges, bamboo fences, subtle rock arrangements, junipers, conifers and pine, there are garden gnomes, an ornamental concrete wheelbarrow, pots of begonia, hanging baskets of pansies and an iron ...

Breezy, frequently humorous and self-scolding, Leslie Buck's "Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto" is a poignant look at the storied Japanese world of professional gardening.

"The Missionary and the Libertine," an eclectic collection of essays by Ian Buruma, remains as readable today as when it was first published in 1996.

Satirical yet eerily plausible, William Gibson's "Idoru" is a complex sci-fi novel set in post-quake Tokyo that addresses the often negative impacts technology has on our lives.

If Okinawans are quick to assert their cuisine has little in common with the mainland Japanese table, the same can be said of their confectionery.

Although the presidential-themed euphoria surrounding the city of Obama has faded, the area's very tangible cultural legacies make it well worth a visit for the foodie and the history buff alike.

Four or five years ago, standing alone in front of the clear, gently bubbling waters of Kiyomasa no Ido, a natural spring secreted in woodland at the far end of the Meiji Shrine's iris garden, I strained to detect any sound, but even the ...

The Motobu Peninsula is, at least to the casual guest, an earthly Utopia. How many of us, spellbound by nature, have dreamed of withdrawing to a rural idyll like this?

Okinawa is one of the world’s “Blue Zones,” areas where people live particularly long and healthy lives. Observing the processes and procedures behind Okinawan yakuzen medicinal cooking offers some delicious hints.