The Japan Society Review

By Shimazaki Satoko Satoko’s seminal work focuses on the developments and changes in kabuki since the 1825 premiere of Tsuruya Nanboku IV’s play Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan. She uses that play as a starting point and, contrary [...] Review by Trevor Skingle

By Takishita Yoshihiro This book, in addition to illustrations of some of the shiguchi Takishita-san has kept in his store room, contains essays by experts and connoisseurs including ‘The Power of the Shiguchi’ by Peter Grilli [...] Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi

By Richard Lloyd Parry On Friday, 11 March, 2011, a massive earthquake occurred off north-east Japan, about 70 kilometres east of the city of Sendai. The book focuses on what happened that afternoon at Okawa Primary School [...] Review by Sir David Warren

By Murakami Ryu Told through an extended period of analepsis, 69 introduces us to Kensuke -now in his early thirties- reflecting on his formative years in a rural town, Sasebo, consisting primarily of misunderstanding [...] Review by Beau Waycott

By Minoru Kasai and Basil Scott A fascinating book, recommended to anyone, but especially to those interested in reflecting on the complex facets of reconciliation between countries with a history of enmity in the past. The two authors [...] Review by Revd Ikuko Williams

By James Buckler James Buckler’s debut novel follows Alex Malloy who escapes to Japan to get away from the disgrace that he feels as a result of a deeply traumatic family incident involving his outwardly respectable brother over [...] Review by Trevor Skingle

By Hiromi T. Rogers In late August 1619 William Adams, now aged 55, returns to Hirado after a successful trading voyage to Indochina. This book is for the general public in Britain and Japan, as well as for experts. It is highly [...] Review by Nicolas Maclean

Edited by Timothy Clark Anyone who managed to visit the Hokusai exhibition at the British Museum will find in this volume, with its wealth of colour illustrations and the scholarly essays that accompany them, a valuable reminder [...] Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi

By Robert Morton Japan was a small element of Mitford’s life, but his occasional writings on the country reached a wide audience in Britain and helped to fuel the enthusiasm for things Japanese in the 1870s and 1880s. Review by Sir David Warren

Edited by Hugo Read Readers should not be put off by the tittle of this book. ‘All ambition spent’ suggests a disappointed man and a dull life in a far off corner of the globe. In fact the book contains much of interest to historians or [...] Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi