The Japan We Never Knew

David Suzuki and Keibo Oiwa's reflections on their travels through Japan revealing its people, their ideas and their values in a new light and showing a side of Japan we never knew.

David Suzuki, a Canadian biologist and environmentalist of Japanese descent, and Keibo Oiwa, an anthropologist raised in Japan but of Korean descent, journeyed through Japan in 1995 interviewing people known for their grassroots activities in peace, human rights, and the environment. They discovered a Japan more diverse than the monoculture they initially envisioned.

Author Edward F. Keene was born in 1928, just in time to welcome the Great Depression. His life experiences encompass drastic change in the world and remarkable personal circumstances as well. Although this book is an autobiography,it reads like a novel with romance and heartbreak, success and failure, murder and closure. Everything written in this book is true and happened as it is described. Nothing is added or changed. In We Never Knew It, Keene recalls his childhood and young adulthood, describing his efforts to overcome a tragedy that occurred in his early teens and make this world a better place to live in. He paints a vivid picture of life in the thirties and forties, with recollections that feature World War II and its end from the perspective of a boy on the home front. In 1946, although the war was over, the eighteen-year-old Keene found himself eligible for the still-active draft. He elected to enlist in the navy for two years, after which he went to college and met the woman he would marry.

Told in alternating points of view between the living and the dead, Jessica Hamilton's debut novel will be perfect for fans of The Lovely Bones. Idyllic Avril lsland, owned by the Bennett family, where their hundred-year-old cottage sat nestled in acres of forest. Forty-year-old June Bennett believed that the island had been sold after the summer of her father's disappearance when she was only twelve years old. It's months after the shocking death of her older sister May in a fatal car accident, that June finds out that the cottage was never sold. Avril Island is still owned by the Bennett family and now it's hers. Still reeling from the grief of losing her sister, June travels back to Avril lsland in search of answers. As she digs, she learns that the townspeople believe her father may in fact have been murdered rather than having abandoned his family in the dead of night, as she was led to believe by her mother. And that's when she begins to notice strange things happening on the island--missing family possessions showing up, doors locking on their own, unexplained noises in the night, shadowy figures disappearing into the woods. It takes June no time at all to realize that her childhood summers at Avril Island were not at all what they had seemed to be.

From 'shotclog', a Yorkshire term for a companion only tolerated because he is paying for the drinks, to Albanian having 29 words to describe different kinds of eyebrows, the languages of the world are full of amazing, amusing and illuminating words and expressions that will improve absolutely everybody's quality of life. All they need is this book! This bumper volume gathers all three of Adam Jacot de Boinod's acclaimed books about language - The Wonder of Whiffling, The Meaning of Tingo and Toujours Tingo (their fans include everyone from Stephen Fry to Michael Palin) - into one highly entertaining, keenly priced compendium. As Mariella Frostup said 'You'll never be lost for words again!'

In the early 1950s fisherfolk and other villagers around Minamata Bay on the western coast of Kyushu, Japan, began to suffer from mysterious and often fatal symptoms of what came to be known as Minamata disease. It was not until 1968 that the government acknowledged its cause—organic mercury poisoning from effluent released by Chisso Corporation, a chemical manufacturer and the largest employer in the Japanese city for which the disease was named. For decades the company denied responsibility and was joined by the Japanese government in its attempt to cover up the problem despite lawsuits and political protests. In this compelling oral history, Ogata Masato, fisherman and Minamata disease sufferer, tells of the devastation of methyl mercury poisoning. Spanning fifty years, his story describes the impact of industrial pollution on his own life, on his extended family, and on the fishing culture of the Shiranui Sea. A one-time leader of Minamata disease patients seeking certification and compensation, Masato breaks away to follow his personal path to redemption. Masato's story begins with the vibrant village of his childhood and culminates with the possibility of return, if not to one's birthplace, then to a spiritual community, to a consciousness that we owe our existence to the web of interrelationships that constitute life. When we turn full circle, explains Masato, we find ourselves again at the water's edge, a place where all life gathers. This is the launching point for "Tokoyo," boat of the Eternal World-a world defined at once by the past, present and future; a state of mind in which we are responsible not only for our own actions but for those of our society and our species. Masato's story, larger than any one man or one incident, raises questions we must all consider as beneficiaries of modern industry and technology.

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)

In the fast changing modern world where does Japan fit in, and how should it relate to the United States and China? Three foreign commentators make a provocative and persuasive argument that the time has come for Japan to help build a stronger Asian community, and to become an engage and conscientious global citizen.