Kodoku

Kodoku is the true story of a young Japanese sailor whose fascination with the art of sailing led him on a solo trans-Pacific journey. First described in a best-selling Japanese book, then an internationally acclaimed motion picture, Kodoku is the full record of the background, conception, preparation, and execution of this daring, yet carefully planned adventure. It includes not only the full text of his original log, but also his supplementary comments, adding detail and highlight to the day-to-day experiences recorded in the log. Also included are charts, plans, and a diagram comparing some of the more noteworthy craft that sailed the open seas in the past. The 61 photographs, including 43 taken by Horie himself during the trip, add a vivid touch to this fascinating story of courage, tenacity, adventure, and humor.

Learn the art of Japanese gardening with this classic, fascinating text. The Sakuteiki, or "Records of Garden Making," was written nearly one thousand years ago. It is the oldest existing text on Japanese gardening—or any kind of gardening—in the world. In this edition of the Sakuteiki the authors provide an English-language translation of this classic work and an introduction to the cultural and historical context that led to the development of Japanese gardening. Central to this explanation is an understanding of the sacred importance of stones in Japanese culture and Japanese garden design. Written by a Japanese court noble during the Heian period (794-1184), the Sakuteiki includes both technical advice on gardening—much of which is still followed in today's Japanese gardens—and an examination of the four central threads of allegorical meaning, which were integral features of Heian-era garden design. For those seeking inspiration to build a rock garden or just better understand the Japanese stone garden, the Sakuteiki is an enduring classic.

Playing in the Shadows considers the literature engendered by postwar Japanese authors’ robust cultural exchanges with African Americans and African American literature. The Allied Occupation brought an influx of African American soldiers and culture to Japan, which catalyzed the writing of black characters into postwar Japanese literature. This same influx fostered the creation of organizations such as the Kokujin kenkyu no kai (The Japanese Association for Negro Studies) and literary endeavors such as the Kokujin bungaku zenshu (The Complete Anthology of Black Literature). This rich milieu sparked Japanese authors’—Nakagami Kenji and Oe Kenzaburo are two notable examples—interest in reading, interpreting, critiquing, and, ultimately, incorporating the tropes and techniques of African American literature and jazz performance into their own literary works. Such incorporation leads to literary works that are “black” not by virtue of their representations of black characters, but due to their investment in the possibility of technically and intertextually black Japanese literature. Will Bridges argues that these “fictions of race” provide visions of the way that postwar Japanese authors reimagine the ascription of race to bodies—be they bodies of literature, the body politic, or the human body itself.

Half a century after his shocking samurai-style suicide, Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) remains a deeply controversial figure. Though his writings and life-story continue to fascinate readers around the world, Mishima has often been scorned by scholars, who view him as a frivolous figure whose work expresses little more than his own morbid personality. In Mishima, Aesthetic Terrorist, Andrew Rankin sets out to challenge this perception by demonstrating the intelligence and seriousness of Mishima’s work and thought. Each chapter of the book examines one of the central ideas that Mishima develops in his writings: life as art, beauty as evil, culture as myth, eroticism as transgression, the artist as tragic hero, narcissism as the death drive. Along with fresh readings of major works of fiction such as The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and “Patriotism,” the book introduces less familiar works in different genres. Special prominence is given to Mishima’s essays, which contain some of his most brilliant writing. Mishima is concerned with such problems as the loss of certainties and absolute values that characterizes modernity, and the decline of strong identities in a world of increasing uniformity and globalization. In his cultural criticism Mishima makes an impassioned defense of free speech, and he rails against all forms of authoritarianism and censorship. Rankin reads Mishima’s artistic project, up to and including his spectacular death, as a single, sustained lyric, an aggressive piece of performance art unfolding in multiple media. For all his rebellious energies, Mishima’s work is suffused with a sense of ending—the end of art, the end of eroticism, the end of culture, the end of the world—and it is governed by a decadent aestheticism which holds that beautiful things radiate their most intense beauty on the cusp of their destruction. Erudite and authoritative, yet written in clear, accessible prose, Mishima, Aesthetic Terrorist is essential reading for all those who seek a deeper understanding of this radical and provocative figure.

Toward the end of his life, the Japanese Confucian thinker Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728) wrote a memorandum entitled Seidan, Political Discourse, about the political and economic situation in Japan, probably at the request of the authorities and possibly the shogun, Yoshimune, himself. It is an extensive treatise which touches practically all fields of life around 1725-1727 and it is therefore a goldmine for anyone who wishes to acquaint himself with Japanese history in mid-Tokugawa times. The work was written in secrecy and it was therefore not known even by his students. It began to circulate in handwritten copies in the 1750s. Today it is a central work and a monument in the socalled keizaigaku genre of Japanese political-economic literature and is found in every collection of Tokugawa intellectual literature and referred to by all scholars who deal with Tokugawa history. The present work includes a full translation of the Seidan.

"Browse, read a bit, browse some more, and then head for the kitchen."--Hudson Valley News From small-town bakeries to big city restaurants, Best Food Writing offers a bounty of everything in one place. For eighteen years, Holly Hughes has scoured both the online and print world to serve up the finest collection of food writing. This year, Best food Writing delves into the intersection of fine dining and food justice, culture and ownership, tradition and modernity; as well as profiles on some of the most fascinating people in the culinary world today. Once again, these standout essays--compelling, hilarious, poignant, illuminating--speak to the core of our hearts and fill our bellies. Whether you're a fan of Michel Richard or Guy Fieri--or both--there's something for everyone here. Take a seat and dig in.

In Through Japanese Eyes, based on her thirty-year research at a senior center in upstate New York, anthropologist Yohko Tsuji describes old age in America from a cross-cultural perspective. Comparing aging in America and in her native Japan, she discovers that notable differences in the panhuman experience of aging are rooted in cultural differences between these two countries, and that Americans have strongly negative attitudes toward aging because it represents the antithesis of cherished American values, especially independence. Tsuji reveals that American culture, despite its seeming lack of guidance for those aging, plays a pivotal role in elders’ lives, simultaneously assisting and constraining them. Furthermore, the author’s lengthy period of research illustrates major changes in her interlocutors’ lives, incorporating their declines and death, and significant shifts in the culture of aging in American society as Tsuji herself gets to know American culture and grows into senescence herself. Through Japanese Eyes offers an ethnography of aging in America from a cross-cultural perspective based on a lengthy period of research. It illustrates how older Americans cope with the gap between the ideal (e.g., independence) and the real (e.g., needing assistance) of growing older, and the changes the author observed over thirty years of research.