Book Reviews

Review: Tokyo Noir, Jake Adelstein’s Satisfying Follow-Up to Tokyo Vice

With the HBO adaptation of Tokyo Vice now popular the world over, journalist Jake Adelstein returns with a long-awaited sequel: Tokyo Noir.

Review: Takaoka’s Travels – This Surrealist Pilgrimage Delights and Disturbs

A new English translation of Takaoka's Travels by Japanese author Shibusawa Tatsuhiko is a funny, fantastical fever dream.

Review: Emergent Tokyo – What Makes Japan’s Capital so Alluring?

'Emergent Tokyo': Ever wondered what makes up the 'secret sauce' for the world's biggest city? Then this book will be required reading. Plus, an interview with one of Emergent Tokyo's co-authors.

Review: Poetry and Prose Dance in Ito Hiromi’s The Thorn Puller

Ito Hiromi's The Thorn Puller tackles subjects like aging, death, and suffering while also illuminating the bittersweet joy of being alive.

Stranger in the Shogun’s City is Masterful History and Storytelling

An historian and scholar of Japan uses her knowledge and talent to bring the story of one 19th-century Japanese woman to life.

“Night in the American Village” Gives the Women of Okinawa a Voice

Akemi Johnson has created a great work of social and oral history granting primacy to the experiences of Okinawan women.

“Of Arcs and Circles” Contemplates Gardens, Nature, and Life Itself

"When people no longer need things, or if they hate them, they destroy them... If people love things however, they care for them and make them last." (Of Arcs and Circles, p. 46)

Review: “Tokyo Cocktails” is Fascinating Top-Shelf Reading

Tokyo is truly a cuisine capital, admired worldwide. Now, the cocktail and bartending styling of Japan gets its own in-depth treatment in this new book.

Is James Clavell’s Shogun Accurate History – Or Pure Fiction?

UJ staff writer Dr. Nyri Bakkalian reads and critiques James Clavell's epically long-winded 1975 novel "Shogun" so you don't have to.

Book Reviews

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