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CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 10, 2006

Rediscovering a neglected tradition

THE BOOK OF INCENSE, by Kiyoko Morita. Tokyo/New York/London: Kodansha International, 2006, 136 pp., illustrations XX, 1,600 yen (paper) Incense came early to Japan. According to the fifth-century "Nihonshoki" (Chronicles of Japan), a whole aloeswood tree drifted ashore at Awaji. When the fisherfolk...
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 10, 2006

Politics at the grass roots

Judging by the society pages of certain publications in Japan, politicians at both the local and national levels seem to spend a lot of their time being photographed with ambassadors, captains of industry, assorted aristocrats, passing film stars and all manner of other folk.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Dec 5, 2006

"Bad Kitty," "Junie B. Jones ... is on Her Way!"

"Bad Kitty," Michele Jaffe, Puffin Books; 2006; 294 pp. It's ha-ha-hard being a teenager, particularly if you're Jas Callihan, all of 17, half-Jamaican half-Irish, with a height to rival King Kong's and a nonexistent chest. In author Michele Jaffe's hands, nothing could be more hysterical than the gaffes...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Nov 22, 2006

Status quo really is planet's dead end

If you've looked around at the state of our planet and been tempted to say, "God help us," you're not the only one.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Nov 21, 2006

Samurai Scarecrows

Dear Alice,
CULTURE / Books
Nov 19, 2006

Intrigues and conflicts, a millennium apart

BLACK ARROW by I.J. Parker. New York: Penguin Books, 2006, 354 pp., $13 (paper). A WOMAN IN JERUSALEM by A.B. Yehoshua, translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Halkin. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2006, 237 pp., $25 (cloth).
JAPAN
Nov 18, 2006

Education bill shifts power to the state

In the wake of Thursday's Lower House passage of the education reform bill, critics wonder whether news management may have been used to clear the path for what one commentator alleged to be a "fascist" power grab by the central government.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Nov 14, 2006

Weddings, blood type and NHK

Jewish wedding Some advice has come in for the American-Jewish reader who wanted to marry a non-Jewish girl here in Japan but was finding it near impossible unless she convert.
Japan Times
LIFE
Nov 12, 2006

Alien star flies off the shelves

Children's books typically feature anything from frogs or cats or pigs to dinosaurs and sometimes even people. Those authored by Tatsuya Miyanishi have all those -- but he's also written several books featuring Ultraman.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Nov 10, 2006

Cannibalism, hot-spring trysts

Donald Richie knows a thing or two about Japanese film. A prolific author, critic and Japan resident for almost 60 years, he has written authoritative works on two of Japan's best-known directors, Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu. But lesser known are his own experimental short films, five of which will...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 9, 2006

Going out on a limb

When Katsura Funakoshi started working in wood more than 30 years ago, it was a highly unfashionable artistic material. It didn't have the mercurial properties of paint or video, nor the modern gleam and sheen of steel or other manmade materials.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 8, 2006

Rationality again on rack of 'faith'

How can certain events that took place in 17th-century Italy have much relevance to those of the 21st? I'm thinking of the way one of the greatest men in history, the father of physics, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), was treated by the Roman Catholic Church.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Nov 4, 2006

Lynne Reid Banks

Lynne Reid Banks believes in the value of imagination. She says that children's books are more important than those for adults "because for society's sake our children must be able to imagine the consequences of their actions. They must be able to empathize with the situations of others. A healthy imagination...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 2, 2006

"Makoto Wada: The Year of Manga"

HB Gallery Closes in 6 days
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 31, 2006

Slow food, an attitude as much as a meal

In the 1960s, Japan's first instant ramen changed people's eating habits significantly by making it possible to get dinner in as little as three minutes. Even putting fast food and microwave dinners aside, eating has become easier and more functional since those days, due either to higher living standards...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 27, 2006

Going by the book in Shikoku

A classic, once noted Mark Twain wryly, is what everyone wants to have read but nobody wants to read. Thus, Japan has such grand works as the hefty 11th-century "Tale of Genji," which can claim universal respect, but relatively few readers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 26, 2006

A change in gender for new political series

For more than two decades, Yasumasa Morimura, one of Japan's most internationally celebrated artists, has inserted his own face into iconic paintings by van Gogh, Manet and Rembrandt, as well as portraits of stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Vivian Leigh. With his elaborate, hilarious and often gender-bending...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Oct 24, 2006

Kumiko Taguchi

Kumiko Taguchi, 59, is deputy manager of Junkudo book shop in Ikebukuro in Tokyo, which boasts the largest floor space (nine-stories) of any bookstore in Japan. Before moving to Junkudo in 1997, she worked at another bookselling giant, Libro, located opposite Junkudo. After a long career in the industry...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 15, 2006

From the center of Korean conflict

KOREA WITNESS: 135 Years of War, Crisis and News in the Land of the Morning Calm, edited by Donald Kirk, Choe Sang-Hun. Seoul: EunHaeng NaMu, 2006, 13,000 won/$13.83 (paper). To adventurous Western writers and journalists in the late 19th century, the opening of Japan in 1868 was an opportunity too good...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 15, 2006

The first steps to rapprochement

JAPAN'S FOREIGN POLICY 1945-2003: The Quest for a Proactive Policy, by Kazuhiko Togo. Leiden: Brill Academic, 2005, 484 pp., $49 (paper). Kazuhiko Togo, one of Japan's leading strategic thinkers about foreign policy, wrote an article in the June issue of Far Eastern Economic Review calling for a moratorium...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 12, 2006

Sony's battery fiasco a symptom of bigger woes at legendary firm

It was a fine day at Los Angeles International Airport on Sept. 16 when a passenger's ThinkPad laptop, containing a Sony Corp. battery already recalled by other companies, was suddenly wreathed in smoke and started emitting sparks.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 8, 2006

Beware a 'beauty' that would deceive the nation

'Japan lost the war, and Bushido [the samurai spirit] perished. But then the human being was born for the first time in the womb of truth called decadence."
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Oct 4, 2006

Hillman masterful in dealing with Kanemura incident

It has been said that life can be stranger than fiction.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 1, 2006

Plain excitement of the Furin Kazan

THE SAMURAI BANNER OF FURIN KAZAN by Yasushi Inoue, translated with a foreword and epilogue by Yoko Riley. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2006, 210 pp., $14.95 (paper). Yasushi Inoue (1907-1991) was one of Japan's finest historical novelists. Works such as "Lou-lan," "Tun-huang" and "The Roof Tile of Tempyo"...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 30, 2006

Frances Fister-Stoga

The Linguapax Institute, located in Barcelona, Spain, is a nongovernmental organization affiliated with UNESCO. Linguapax Asia, associate of the Linguapax Institute, carries out the objectives of the institute and of UNESCO's Linguapax Project, with a special focus on Asia and the Pacific Rim. The objectives...
EDITORIALS
Sep 29, 2006

Half a glass in Turkey

The case of Turkish novelist Elif Shafak makes it hard to decide whether the glass that is Turkey is half-full or half-empty.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji