'Mishima: A Vision of the Void': Remembering a literary giant as he would have wanted
Marguerite Yourcenar's literary biography of Yukio Mishima delves into the enigmatic author as well as the social conditions that shaped his rise and fall.
'Pink Samurai': Resolving the paradoxes of Japan's appetite for sex
Scholarly in the depth of its research methods and the sheer scope of its coverage, Nicholas Bornoff explores the means and instruments for achieving erotic pleasure in 1991 Japan.
'Tokyo: City of Stories': An homage to the megacity
Cultural geographer Paul Waley adds to the slim body of academic work about Tokyo with an anthropologic take on the megacity's overlooked neighborhoods.
'Yokai Attack!' review: The Japanese creatures that go bump in the night
"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.
'Shoe Dog' review: A 'crazy idea,' a multibillion dollar company
For runners and nonrunners alike, "Shoe Dog" is an invaluable glimpse into one of the world's most recognizable companies and its groundbreaking founder.
'The Art of the Japanese Garden': Green-fingered insight into Japanese garden spaces
By delving into the history, development and intricate details of Japanese gardens, "The Art of the Japanese Garden" brings new appreciation and awareness to the art form.
'Much Ado About Nothingness': Exploring the diverse philosophies of the Kyoto School — review
James Heisig's "Much Ado About Nothingness" strives to link the philosophies of Kirato Nishida and Hajime Tanabe with broader intellectual and artistic themes.
Lafcadio Hearn's 'Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan': Reveling in the remote and mystical — review
Lafcadio Hearn's "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan" is an unmissable book offering a visceral, firsthand experience of a Japan now largely vanished.
Come face to face with human mortality in Yukio Mishima's 'The Temple of Dawn' — review
A strange and uneven novel, Yukio Mishima's "The Temple of Dawn," the third volume in the "Sea of Fertility" tetralogy, is an elegy to the loss of pureness in the Japanese national spirit.
'Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths' review: Pulling no punches when it comes to the realities of war
In "Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths," manga artist and veteran Shigeru Mizuki brings the Pacific front of World War II to life with unflinching realism and a grotesque and sardonic humor.
'The Missionary and the Libertine': Buruma's writing is incendiary, positively fizzling with ideas
"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.
William Gibson's 'Idoru': Tokyo sci-fi becomes full-blown reality
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.
