Tokyo Nights (Paperback)

~ Donald Richie (Author), David Cozy (Introduction)

Editorial Reviews

Review

A bizarre manga, a post-modern comedy of manners full of withering insights into contemporary Japan. -- Joseph Lapenta, The Japan Times

Satire on Tokyo night life. Like a fugue in that the characters are interwoven by their constant changing of partners. -- John Haylock, London Magazine

The tension between the neutral style and the maddening characters creates the real drama of the novel. -- Arturo Silva, Tokyo Journal

Witty short novel about nightlife in Tokyo. Perhaps no other author could have written about it in quite this way. -- David Burleigh, Mainichi Daily News

Product Description

Novel. Revised edition of book first published in London in 1988. Six characters, a bar madame, her patron, the patron's old friend, a foreign businessman, a young hostess who yearns to have her own bar and her naive friend who is perhaps more than willing to learn. Fiction but so typical of life in Ginza bars and clubs and in the mizu shobai (water trade) business anywhere in Japan.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 223 pages
• Publisher: Printed Matter Press (July 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933606002
• ISBN-13: 978-1933606002
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,918,522 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars not capitivating, January 23, 2008

By	Akira Touya (Berlin) - See all my reviews

i did not finish, nor did i have an inclination to finish, this book. it is simply not enthralling or endearing or anything an enjoyable book would be. the story is mildly entertaining and the book is written as japanese would sound almost literally translated (so it is interesting for a little while) but this is not a book worthy of your hard-earned money. steal it if you can/want, but only if you want to experience velleity to continue after you get 1/2 of the way through the book.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pathetic, August 14, 2007

By	Stephen Harris "futsal1958" (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am going to assume that somebody drugged Donald Richie and stole his name. This book is scandalously bad.

Richie is brilliant. Buy anything of his but this. It is horrible.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A funny and suprising book, October 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Tokyo Nights (Paperback)

Tokyo Nights is a book about Tokyo night life. It show you how the night clubs and bars function. It let you see how the workers interacts with the customers. The story itself is very complex. It's about how this guy who have a wife and a girlfriend and now he's seeing another 17 years old girl. But what the guy don't know is that his wife and girlfriends are also cheating on him. A very sick story, but I like it.