Recommended Books

Japanese publisher Kodansha International (www.kodansha-intl.com) has probably published more books on Japan in English -- including Japanese-language textbooks -- than any other company. Available at major bookstores in Japan, they are also available at www.amazon.com.

History -- The definitive work of Japan's history through the ages is Japan: The Story of a Nation (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991) by Edwin O. Reischauer, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan. Ivan Morris's The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan (Kodansha Globe, 1997) highlights the golden age of the imperial court through diaries and literature of the Heian Period (794-1192), while Everyday Life in Traditional Japan (Tuttle, 2000) details the daily lives of samurai, farmers, craftsmen, merchants, courtiers, and outcasts during the Edo Period.

For personal accounts of Japan in ages past, there's no better anthology than Donald Keene's Travelers of a Hundred Ages: The Japanese as Revealed Through 1,000 Years of Diaries (Holt, 1989). Written by Japanese from all walks of life, the journals provide fascinating insight into the hidden worlds of imperial courts, Buddhist monasteries, isolated country inns, and more. Lafcadio Hearn, a prolific writer about things Japanese, describes life in Japan around the turn of the 20th century in Writings from Japan (Penguin, 1985), while Isabella Bird, an Englishwoman who traveled in Japan in the 1870s, writes a vivid account of rural Japanese life in Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (Virago Press Limited, 1984). Autobiography of a Geisha (Columbia University Press, 2003), first published in 1957, is Sayo Masuda's account of being sold to a geisha house as a child, working as a geisha at a hot-spring spa, and living under harsh conditions during and after World War II.

Society -- Reischauer's The Japanese Today (Tuttle, 1993) offers a unique perspective of Japanese society, including historical events that have shaped and influenced Japanese behavior and the role of the individual in Japanese society. A classic description of Japanese and their culture is found in Ruth Benedict's brilliant The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (Mariner Books, 2006), first published in the 1940s but reprinted many times since. Debunking theories that have long shaped the outside world's views of Japan (many of which are espoused by the books above) is Japan: A Reinterpretation (Pantheon, 1997) by former International Herald Tribune Tokyo bureau chief Patrick Smith, who gives a spirited reinterpretation of Japan's economic miracle and demise.

A more entertaining look at the Japanese psyche is provided by English translations of Japanese articles that never made it into the Japan Times in Tabloid Tokyo: 101 Tales of Sex, Crime, and the Bizarre from Japan's Wild Weeklies (Kodansha, 2005), edited by Mark Schreiber, and its sequel, Tabloid Tokyo 2 (Kodansha, 2007).

For advice on Japanese etiquette, refer to Japanese Etiquette Today: A Guide to Business and Social Customs (Tuttle, 1994) by James M. Vardaman and Michiko Sasaki Vardaman; it covers everything from bowing and bathing to eating and dining customs, office etiquette, and the complicated art of giving gifts.

Culture & the Arts -- For a cultural overview in one book, see Introduction to Japanese Culture, edited by Daniel Sosnoski (Tuttle, 1996), which covers major festivals, the tea ceremony, flower arranging, Kabuki, sumo, Japanese board games, Buddhism, kanji, and much more. Elizabeth Kiritani's Vanishing Japan: Traditions, Crafts & Culture (Tuttle, 1995) covers a wide spectrum of traditional Japanese crafts and professions that were once a part of daily life, from potato vendors, shoe shiners, and tatami makers to Japanese umbrellas and handmade paper, many of which are fast disappearing in today's modern Japan.

The Japan Travel Bureau puts out nifty pocket-size illustrated booklets on things Japanese (available in Japan at bookstores with an English-language section, including those recommended in the Tokyo chapter), including A Look into Japan, Eating in Japan, Festivals of Japan, Martial Arts & Sports in Japan, and Japanese Family & Culture, which covers everything from marriage in Japan to problems with mothers-in-law and explanations of why Dad gets home so late. My favorite is Salaryman in Japan (JTB, 1987), which describes the private and working lives of Japan's army of white-collar workers who receive set salaries.

And while some might argue it's not art, there's no denying the power manga (Japanese comics) has over Japanese readers. The best primers in manga history and its various genre are Paul Gravett's Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics (Collins Design, 2004) and, though dated, Frederik L. Schodt and Tezuka Osamu's Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics (Kodansha, 1988), with a follow-up provided in Schodt's Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga (Stone Bridge Press, 1996). Likewise, travelers new to Japanese animation should check out Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle by Susan J. Napier (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

Contemporary Chronicles -- For contemporary experiences of foreigners in Japan, there's the inimitable Dave Barry, who describes his whirlwind trip to the land of the rising sun in the comical Dave Barry Does Japan (Random House, 1992) and solves such puzzling mysteries as why Japanese cars sell successfully (they're made of steel!). A delightful account of Japanese and their customs is given by the irrepressible George Mikes in The Land of the Rising Yen (Penguin, 1973). Traveler's Tales Guides: Japan (Traveler's Tales, 1999) relates the firsthand experiences of Dave Barry, Pico Iyer, and other writers who tackle such issues as sand bathing and Washlet toilets. A book seemingly from another era is Geisha (Vintage, 2000) by Liza C. Dalby; first published in 1983, it describes her year living as a geisha in Kyoto as part of a research project. The Japan Journals: 1947-2004 (Stone Bridge Press, 2004) by film scholar Donald Richie provides personal insight to Japan's transformation from a postwar nation to a cultural and economic powerhouse.

Fiction -- Whenever I travel in Japan, I especially enjoy reading fictional accounts of the country; they help put me in tune with my surroundings and increase my awareness and perception. The world's first major novel was written by a Japanese woman, Murasaki Shikibu, whose classic, The Tale of Genji (Knopf, 1978), dating from the 11th century, describes the aristocratic life of Prince Genji.

In Tokyo bookstores, you'll find entire sections dedicated to English translations of Japan's best-known modern and contemporary authors, including Mishima Yukio, Soseki Natsume, Abe Kobo, Tanizaki Junichiro, and Nobel Prize winners Kawabata Yasunari and Oe Kenzaburo. An overview of Japanese classical literature from the earliest times to the mid-19th century is provided in Anthology of Japanese Literature (Grove Press, 1988), edited by Donald Keene. Likewise, The Showa Anthology: Modern Japanese Short Stories (Kodansha, 1992), edited by Van C. Gessel and Tomone Matsumoto, covers works by Abe Kobe, Mishima Yukio, Kawabata Yasunari, Oe Kenzaburo, and others written between 1929 and 1984, while Modern Japanese Stories: An Anthology (Tuttle, 1962), edited by Ivan Morris, introduces short stories by some of Japan's top modern writers, including Mori Ogai, Tanizaki Junichiro, Kawabata Yasunari, and Mishima Yukio.

For novels, you might wish to read Mishima's The Sea of Fertility (Knopf), a collection of four separate works, the last of which, The Decay of the Angel, was delivered to his publisher on the day of his suicide; or The Sound of Waves (Knopf, 1956), about young love in a Japanese fishing village. Other famous works by Japanese authors include Soseki Natsume's first novel, I am a Cat (Charles E. Tuttle, 1972), which describes the foibles of upper-middle-class Japanese during the Meiji Era through the eyes of a cat; and his later novel, Kokoro (Regnery Gateway Co., 1985), as well as Kawabata Yasunari's Snow Country (Knopf, 1956), translated by Edward G. Seidensticker. Although not well known in the West, Enchi Fumiko wrote an absorbing novel about women in an upper-class, late-19th-century family in The Waiting Years (Kodansha, 2002), first published in 1957.

Oe Kenzaburo gained international recognition when he became the second Japanese to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1994. In addition to such well-known novels as A Personal Matter (Grove Press, 1968), about a man in search of himself after the birth of a handicapped son, and Hiroshima Notes (Grove/Atlantic, 1996), with personal accounts of atomic bomb survivors and a moving commentary on the meaning of the Hiroshima bombing, is A Healing Family (Kodansha, 1996), a collection of essays written over several years dealing primarily with Oe's severely handicapped autistic son, Hikari, who became a celebrity in his own right as a composer of classical music. Favorite writers of Japan's baby-boom generation include Murakami Ryu, who burst onto the literary scene with Almost Transparent Blue (Kodansha, 1977) and later captured the undercurrent of decadent urban life in his best-selling Coin Locker Babies (Kodansha, 1995). Murakami Haruki's writings include Dance Dance Dance (Kodansha, 1994); Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Vintage, 1993); The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Knopf, 1997); South of the Border, West of the Sun (Knopf, 1999), the story of a bewildered man in contemporary Tokyo; and Norwegian Wood (Vintage, 2000), a coming-of-age story set during the 1969 student movement in Japan. His After the Quake: Stories (Knopf, 2002) centers on fictional characters in the months after the 1995 Kobe earthquake.

For works of fiction about Japan by Western writers, most Westerners are familiar with James Clavell's Shogun (Dell, 1975), a fictional account based on the lives of Englishman William Adams and military leader Tokugawa Ieyasu around 1600. The best-selling Memoirs of a Geisha (Knopf, 1997), by Arthur Golden and also a movie, is the fictional autobiography of a fisherman's daughter sold to a geisha house, later becoming one of Kyoto's most celebrated geisha of the 1930s.

For fictional yet personal contemporary accounts of what it's like for Westerners living in Japan, entertaining novels include Ransom (Vintage, 1985) by Jay McInerney and Pictures from the Water Trade (Harper & Row, 1986) by John D. Morley. Pico Iyer taps into the mysterious juxtaposition of the old Japan vs. the new in The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto (Knopf, 1991). Audrey Hepburn's Neck (Simon & Schuster, 1996) is Alan Brown's poignant portrait of Japan's mishmash of Western and Japanese culture, as seen through the eyes of a confused young Japanese comic illustrator. Mystery fans should read Sujata Massey's nine novels following the adventures of Japanese-American Rei Shimura; Massey's latest, Girl in a Box (HarperCollins, 2006), follows Rei's cross-cultural escapades as she works undercover in a Japanese department store.