This book is an amazing resource book for a teaching unit onJapan. It is written with consultants from the Japanese Festival Society. They have arts and crafts ideas that are easily made by children.

Nothing can be said or written about life but this book certainly comes close. Not only it captured the reader realization of the subtle life we might experience, this book will make you think about what important to one's life.

I have a tremendous interest in Asian culture, and bought this book for myself on a whim. It turned out to be a lucky choice. Oda Sakunosuke wrote in the period prior to and during WWII. He was one of the "Hooligan School" of writers in Japan and his stories are perhaps too revealing and unflattering for the times in his country. This book has an introduction by the translator, Burton Watson, which, while brief, is highly informative. I loved this book.

I'm something of an expert on kimono, at least kimono of the everyday variety (as opposed to, say, the Nomura Collection variety). People always ask me what books I recommend. I own most of the kimono books that have been published in English (and a couple that aren't in English), but for an overview of all kimono, this is the book! If you can only get one book, get this one! It will tell you most of what you want to know about kimono, and probably answer questions you haven't even thought of. And it's profusely illustrated, another plus!

This book reminds me of Sei Shonagon, but the cast of characters is often well-known Beat writers. Kyger was married to Beat saint Gary Snyder at the time, but she is iconoclastic in regards to presenting him here. The arc of the book is their love story -- beginning with a shy and rather impressed Kyger and ending with a rather loud and irreverent Kyger. Early on she worships Snyder, but then he knocks her down and splits her head open on a wood table when she refuses to do the dishes. He is surly throughout the book, and given to bad moods, and kicks her at least twice.

Kyger gets it all down.

Beat saint Allen Ginsberg grabs his food at the communal dining hour and shoves his face full without waiting for others to be served. Orlovsky is shoving drugs in his face every moment that he can.

This is a funny book that knocks out stereotypes left and right. In one or two sentences she undoes the career of Paul Blackburn, for instance. And all the while she is musing on the possibility of a female literature, and what it might consist of -- something for which she had no clear legacy in American but the Japanese writers of the Heian period such as Sei Shonagon appear to have given her the inspiration needed.

This is a very good book for those who are tired of the Beats self-sanctification, and want a bit of humorous and unsparing insight into their world.

Haywood Hansell helped develop stategic bombing theory and he was the first commander of the WWII XXI Bomber Command. Hansell's command attacked mainland Japan with B-29 bombers concentrating on aircraft manufacturing targets. Hansell was replaced by Curtis LeMay who concentrated on low level area incendiary bombing of Japanese cities.

This memior makes a cogent argument that precision strategic bombing could have efficiently destroyed Japan's ability to wage war without incinerating the roughly 330,000 Japanese civilians that died from the incendiary, and atomic bomb, attacks. This work is very well written, and documented. It is a work that I wish all American high school students were required to read.

I prefer this work to LeMay's autobiography, "Mission With LeMay," and Werrell's recent "Blankets of Fire." The contrast between this work and LeMay's autobiography is extraordinary.

The book gives a very good background to the way the Japanese system of sub-contracting developed over the years and how various factors including Government support at right time and in specific areas helped in making their system one of the main reasons for Japanese Success particularly in Automobile & Electronic fields.The author has done a very well structured indepth study of working of sub-contractors in Japan as well as Europe & America and has hilighted the differences which helped Japanese success.He has also clearly brought out the different reasons for sub-contracting for different sectors of the industry.The book is very well supported by large amount of actual data and foot-notes as well as unusually large Appendices give a wealth of information to a keen reader.A"don't miss" book for professionals in purchasing function.

Excellent book: a must read for anyone interested in Japanese business and global competitiveness.

Seeing that this title was first published in 1989 you'd have thought it to be a victim of obsocelence (and you should perhaps consider taking a look at "Japanophobia" anyway -- essentially a newer edition of this book) but it is alarming how little has changed in modern day Japan from the days Emmott first analyzed this country as the Japan bureau-in-chief of the Economist.

As "different" as the Japanese may appear or believe themselves to be, in the end they are subject to the same market forces as anyone else as Emmott argues with this fabulous, in-depth, comprehensive analysis of the Japanese economy in the late 80s/early 90s, and concluded that Japan's trade surpluses, capital exports, and savings rate are destined to subside as demographic, cultural, and economic forces follow their natural course. Must to the dismay of Japan, these predictions have indeed come about and will most likely not be easy to alleviate.

To give you an idea of the scope you can expect from this fabulous collection of essays, Emmott talks about the "Predictable 4" ills of this country, which is still quite impressive given that these may not have been the top priorities of those Japan-crazy times...

(1) Lack of natural resources
(2) Lack of a military
(3) Low birth rate and aging population
(4) Hostility towards immigrants

...but then even more impressively goes on to discuss at length some factors that were conventionally perceived as strengths in the 80s --

(5) Japan's high rate of personal savings, though understood to reflect frugality, actually derived from the complete absence of other outlets for consumers. With no opportunity to buy a home and no need for a car, the citizenry had nothing else to do with their money but to put it into low-yield savings accounts.

(6) Extensive trade barriers, which on an artificial level seemed to protect Japanese industries, actually stifled competition and drove up prices for domestic consumers.

(7) The homogenous population and practically one-party government, which were thought to provide stability and societal cohesion, predictably leading to stasis, insularity, and corruption.

(8) The conformity and obedience which made for such a good workforce also made for a supremely unimaginative people. Japan has become an economic force by manufacturing high quality products cheaply, but the products themselves were invented elsewhere, mostly in US or Germany. This was double trouble because there were several other nations (Korea, Taiwan, etc.) with equally disciplined labor corps, capable of meeting the same quality standards, and willing to work for lower wages. But more importantly, as the world economy moved from the old heavy manufacturing model towards one based on intellectual capital, Japan found itself unable to compete.

(9) The myth of centralized planning, as is recognized by all except pseudo-intellectuals, is so inefficient that it is almost entirely unresponsive to any changing circumstances, but especially to such an enormous paradigm shift. If no one, or very few, even recognize or understand what's going on in the economy, how are a few bureaucrats supposed to intelligently direct the economy.

For any astute watcher of the Japanese economy, this should perhaps be THE de facto introduction, even before anything by Alex Kerr or Ikujiro Nonaka. Some of the statistics may obviously be dated but the thoughts and the frame of analysis are both highly relevant even today.

Also recommended: Porter's Can Japan Compete? and Emmott's Japanophobia.

Frank Grady was a personal friend of my fathers. Maybe because I grew up knowing him, the story made more of an impression on me than it would have normally. But whatever it is, it was a moving story about the resiliency of the human spirit. It is also about the humor, obstinacy and stubbornness; which contributes to that resiliency. Mr. Grady and others like him were true heros. It was an honor to have known him and it is an honor to know more about him through his book.