The Japan Society Review

By Luiz Hara The Japanese Larder goes beyond being simply a recipe book and rather is an informative introduction to a wide and varied range of those Japanese ingredients. It helps to expel the myth that Japanese food [...] Review by Laura Richardson

By Michael Wert In this very handy sized and concise book of just over one-hundred pages Professor Michael Wert attempts to explain in easy to understand terms the origins and development of the samurai, that most [...] Review by Trevor Skingle

By Durian Sukegawa Durian Sukegawa’s Sweet Bean Paste is a tender story chronicling the unlikely bond between an ex con and an elderly lady with a shadowy past. The novel starts in a comical vein like a classic ‘odd couple’ [...] Review by Chris Arning

By Jeremy A. Yellen The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere is in fact a truly timely addition to the historiography of modern Japan in general and a fundamental contribution to the study of the Japanese wartime [...] Review by Francesco Cioffo

By Stephen Turnbull The book’s narrative revolves around the Higo-kunishu Ikki (Higo People’s Revolt), the conflict which helped trigger the katanagari sword hunt in 1588, commonly referred to as the Taiko’s Sword Hunt, to [...] Review by Trevor Skingle

By Miyamoto Teru Kinshu is an epistolary novel, told in a series of letters between a divorced and thoroughly estranged couple. Aki and her former husband, Yasuaki, have neither spoken nor seen each other in over a decade. Review by Robert Paul Weston

By Edward Marx Edward Marx has clearly done extensive research and has presented the most well-documented account of Yone Noguchi’s life so far. Review by Peter Kornicki

By Mishima Yukio A welcome addition to the English language translations of Yukio Mishima’s work in the lead-up to the fiftieth anniversary of his death, it is an exuberant if patchily saucy read and reveals a different angle to [...] Review by Susan Meehan

By Ruth Ozeki My Year of Meats is essentially a story of the human life and the human body. It asks us to question what it means to be a woman, what we put in our bodies and how our offspring will value themselves in a world [...] Review by Azmina Sohail

Directed by Bart Price and 2021 Though not for the faint-hearted, Hamletine is a piece that can provoke a huge array of emotional and intellectual responses, drawing on a refreshing mixture of pop culture and canon literature to create [...] Review by Alice Baldock