The Japan Society Review

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

By S.D.L. Curry Book one of the author’s new ‘Hidden Trilogy’, the story pursues Catholic Father Joaquim Martinez and his two junior clergy who have defied the shogun’s banishment laws and remained in Japan at great risk to [...] Review by Harry Martin

By Kawakami Hiromi The Nakano Thrift Shop tells the story of newly appointed shop assistant Hitomi, as she gets to know her eccentric group of customers and co-workers. The setting of the thrift shop is a treasure trove of [...] Review by Poppy Cosyns

The first thing you notice about the Keshiki series – the new collection of contemporary Japanese writing from Strangers Press – is its striking beauty. Each of the chapbooks has its own unique design, reflecting [...] Review by Eluned Gramich

By Gitte M. Hansen Through evaluation of media including anime, manga, television drama and literature, Hansen addresses three issue: normative femininity, how it is represented in Japanese culture and how self-harm and eating [...] Review by Charlotte Goff

By Murakami Haruki Murakami’s Men without Women, like its titular predecessor of Ernest Hemmingway, deals not only with isolated masculinity, but also with the delicately balanced equilibrium of heterosexual relationships. Review by Chris Corker