asia fiction

Chicago, Judson, 1st, 1940, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Decorated cloth covers with bold black title, 142 pages. Black & white illustrations by Charles H. Steinbacher. A collection of folk tales from Burma. No dust jacket.

Hardcover. Garden City, Doubleday, Doran & Company, Reprint, 1938, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 304 pages. Hardcover. Previous owners inscription on title page. Black & white illustrations by Kurt Wiese. Full color dust jacket with light wear, minor chipping along edges - jacket now protected with clear plastic cover. Clean, unmarked text.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 56 pages, illustrated in b&w by Lesley Liu. In a bright, unclipped dust jacket.

Hardcover. New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 2003, Book: Near Fine, Dust Jacket: Near Fine, 278 pages, very clean and tight copy.The Great Fire was the winner of the 2003 National Book Award for Fiction. More than twenty years after the classic The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard returns to fiction with a novel that in the words of Ann Patchett "is brilliant and dazzling..."The Great Fire is an extraordinary love story set in the immediate aftermath of the great conflagration of the Second World War. In war-torn Asia and stricken Europe, men and women, still young but veterans of harsh experience, must reinvent their lives and expectations, and learn, from their past, to dream again. Some will fulfill their destinies, others will falter. At the center of the story, a brave and brilliant soldier finds that survival and worldly achievement are not enough. His counterpart, a young girl living in occupied Japan and tending her dying brother, falls in love, and in the process discovers herself.

Hardcover. New York, Random House, reprint, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Red illustrated boards, no dust jacket, lovely full page color illustrations. Rubbing and edgewear to boards, corners worn, especially top of spine., though book binding is not affected, pages crisp, clean and unmarked. Early printing, mid-50s, 16 titles on rear cover starting with Yertle the Turtle. This is the tall 12x9 retail edition; not the smaller book club edition. Copyright page has the Redbook reference that was removed in the bookclub editions. This copy has the original illustration of 2 Seuss characters with a black complexion from the fictional African island of Yerka; which has since become objectionable; also stereotypical drawings of Asian characters.

Hardcover. New York, Random House, reprint, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Red illustrated boards, no dust jacket, lovely full page color illustrations. Pages crisp, clean and unmarked. Early printing, mid-50s, 16 titles on rear cover starting with Yertle the Turtle. This is the tall 12x9 retail edition; not the smaller book club edition. Copyright page has the Redbook reference that was removed in the bookclub editions. This copy has the original illustration of 2 Seuss characters with a black complexion from the fictional African island of Yerka; which has since become objectionable; also stereotypical drawings of Asian characters. The top 2 inches of the cardboard spine is missing. Binding sound. One of the six discontinued Seuss titles.

Softcover. NY, Pantheon Books, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 297 pages. This compelling social history uses diaries, memoirs, fiction, trial testimony, personal recollections, and eyewitness accounts to weave a fascinating tale of what ordinary Japanese endured throughout their country's era of economic growth. Through vivid, often wrenching accounts of peasants, miners, textile workers, rebels, and prostitutes, Mikiso Hane forces us to see Japan's "modern century" (from the beginnings of contact with the West to World War II) through fresh eyes. In doing so, he mounts a formidable challenge to the success story of Japan's "economic miracle." Starting with the Meiji restoration of 1868, Hane vividly illustrates how modernization actually widened the gulf, economically and socially, between rich and poor, between the mo-bo and mo-ga ("modern boy" and "modern girl") of the cities and their rural counterparts. He interlaces his scholarly narrative with sharply etched individual stories that allow us see Japan from the bottom up. Clean copy.

Softcover. Canberra, ANU Press/Australian National University, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 334 pages. Sorcery and witchcraft practices and beliefs are pervasive across Melanesia. They are in part created by, and give rise to, a wide variety of poor social and developmental outcomes. These include uneven economic development, low public health, lack of social cohesion, crime, fear and insecurity. A further very visible problem is the attacks on men and women who are accused of being practitioners of witchcraft or sorcery, which can lead to serious bodily harm, banishment and sometimes death. Today, many communities, individuals, church organisations and policymakers in Melanesia and internationally are exploring ways to overcome the negative social outcomes associated with witchcraft and sorcery practices and beliefs. This book brings together a collection of chapters written by a diverse range of authors, both Melanesian and non-Melanesian, providing crucial insights both into how these practices and beliefs are playing out in contemporary Melanesia, and also the types of interventions that are being trialled or debated to address the problems associated with them. Some light marking to several pages.

Hardcover. NY, Grosset & Dunlap, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in pictorial cloth, 101 pages. Oversized, no dust jacket issued. B&W and color Illustrations by Sawyers and Reusswig.