Customer Reviews

Japan in a Nutshell

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This is the kind of book that will only appeal to a fairly narrow audience, but within that audience, is almost sure to be universally loved. Full of interesting facts, informative but almost always entertaining, this book is a must-read for anyone who, like me, is in the grip of a love affair with all things Japanese. The author's tone conveys such an obvious love for the subject matter, and is so utterly mellow in its delivery, that it's hard not to be reminded of your favorite middle-school teacher, the one who managed to get you excited about the material even when you otherwise would rather play in traffic than have anything to do with it.

Now then, to explain the "almost" in that last paragraph. If I have a gripe with this book, it's that the author does tend to have some pacing issues; for instance, the chapter that deals with Basho, a poet of the Edo period who I presume is roughly equivalent to Robert Frost or Chaucer in terms of his renown, is entertaining enough at first, but by the end, I found myself almost begging the author to just get on with it already. Similarly, there are topics on which I wish the author had expounded just a little bit more, such as the origin and practice of the Shinto faith and contemporary Japanese customs. But all in all, this is a fun little book, and if you have any love at all for Japan in you, this is definitely worth a read!