fiction japan

Softcover. Tokyo, University of Tokyo Press, 1st pb, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. Japan Foundation Translation Series. 266 pages. Translated to English by Dennis Keene. Pictorial stiff wrappers. Minor wear to covers, else a very nice, tight, clean copy of this scarce title.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. When their two-million-dollar Japanese smuggling assignment hits a snag, professional gunrunners Altmeyer and his wife, Rachel, risk nuclear disaster to complete their task. 248 pages, clean copy.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, Griffith and Rowland Press, 1st, 1908, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light blue cloth covers stamped in white and dark blue. Story of survival based on a wreck in the China Sea of the Ketrel, a full-rigged ship bound from Liverpool to Yokohama, Japan. 360 pages, illustrated in b&w, one plate not present (the map on pg. 135). Bookplate on inside front cover, otherwise clean.

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. London, Fourth Estate, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 362 pages, SIGNED BY AW on title page. Set in Malaysia in the 1930s and 40s, with the rumbling of the Second World War in the background and the Japanese about to invade, The Harmony Silk Factory is the story of four people: Johnny, an infamous Chinaman -- a salesman, a fraudster, possibly a murderer -- whose shop house, The Harmony Silk Factory, he uses as a front for his illegal businesses; Snow Soong, the beautiful daughter of one of the Kinta Valley's most prominent families, who dies giving birth to one of the novel's narrators; Kunichika, a Japanese officer who loves Snow too; and an Englishman, Peter Wormwood, who went to Malaysia like many English but never came back, who also loved Snow to the end of his life. A journey the four of them take into the jungle has a devastating effect on all of them, and brilliantly exposes the cultural tensions of the era. Haunting, highly original, The Harmony Silk Factory is suspenseful to the last page. Clean copy.

Softcover. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 315 pages, b&w illustrations. In this engaging tale, Honda Katsuichi reconstructs the life of an Ainu woman living on the northern island of Japan over five hundred years ago. Harukor's story, created from surviving oral accounts of Ainu life and culture as well as extensive scholarly research, is set in the centuries before the mainland Japanese nearly destroyed the way of life depicted here. In the first person, the fictional Harukor tells us of her childhood, her adolescence, and her motherhood, drawing on tales and songs performed by her grandmother and other bards. She describes festivals, weddings, childbirth and midwifery, traditional healing methods, battles, and funerals in detail. Her story is followed by the adventures of her oldest son, Pasekur, which end by foreshadowing an early Ainu rebellion against Japanese encroachment.

Hardcover. NY/Boston, Little Brown , 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Sherlock Holmes comes to South Central Los Angeles. Only he's black, never finished high school, and can't seem to hold on to a regular job. Instead Isaiah Quintabe- or IQ, as he is known - spends his time and uses his formidable intelligence to help others. He's a loner and a high school dropout, his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination and a fierce intelligence. He charges his clients whatever they can afford, which might be a set of tires or a homemade casserole. To get by, he's forced to take on clients that can pay. This time, it's a rap mogul whose life is in danger. The first book by this Japanese-American writer who grew up in the same kind of neighborhood as IQ, this was nominated for the Edgar for best first novel, for the Anthony Award, selected as one of the best books of the year by the NY Times and more. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Atheneum , 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, In the early 1950s, Katie Takeshima and her family live in Iowa, where her parents own a Japanese supermarket. When the store goes out of business in 1956, the family moves from Iowa to an apartment in Georgia, where Katie's parents work at a chicken hatchery with other Japanese families. Hardcover, 244 pages. Newbery Award winner. Very good pictorial dust jacket without award medal present, unclipped. SIGNED NEWBERY AWARD BOOKMARK ENCLOSED signed "Cynthia".

Hardcover. NY, Dodd Mead, 1st US, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Photo of author laid-in, translated from Japanese by Simon Grove.

Hardcover. New York, Wise-Parslow, reprint, 1928, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover. 91 pages. Color illustrations by Frederick Richardson. Edgewear. Rubbing to corners, spine, covers.

Softcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 112 pages. A quarterly anthology of literary comics. This first volume of Mome features the following: John Pham's (Epoxy) 221 Sycamore Ave., Paul Hornschemeier (Mother Come Home and Forlorn Funnies) contributes a six-part graphic novella titled Life with Mr. Dangerous, Anders Nilsen's The Beast is a full-color, 12-page absurdist monologue by a single character on the push-and-pull of art and politics, Jeffrey Brown contributes an autobiographical piece, David Heatley contributes the first of a series of fictional stories revolving around a cast of characters in a town called a Overpeck (also the name of the strip) that follows a bizarre dream logic, Andrice Arp adapts a Japanese fairy tale called Jewels of the Sea, Kurt Wolfgang examines death, Gabrielle Bell examines the existentialism of the dot-com boom, Jonathan Bennett dances with the Ventures, and Sophie Crumb (Belly Button Comix) delivers a piece of comics biography. With cartoons by Martin Cendreda.

Softcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 112 pages. A quarterly anthology of literary comics. This first volume of Mome features the following: John Pham's (Epoxy) 221 Sycamore Ave., Paul Hornschemeier (Mother Come Home and Forlorn Funnies) contributes a six-part graphic novella titled Life with Mr. Dangerous, Anders Nilsen's The Beast is a full-color, 12-page absurdist monologue by a single character on the push-and-pull of art and politics, Jeffrey Brown contributes an autobiographical piece, David Heatley contributes the first of a series of fictional stories revolving around a cast of characters in a town called a Overpeck (also the name of the strip) that follows a bizarre dream logic, Andrice Arp adapts a Japanese fairy tale called Jewels of the Sea, Kurt Wolfgang examines death, Gabrielle Bell examines the existentialism of the dot-com boom, Jonathan Bennett dances with the Ventures, and Sophie Crumb (Belly Button Comix) delivers a piece of comics biography. With cartoons by Martin Cendreda.

Hardcover. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1st US, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 233 pages, black cloth covers with gilt lettering on spine. Previous owner's signature on front fly leaf. Some light pencil marking to pages. Nihonjinron is a school of thought about Japanese persons exceptional uniqueness espoused by Japanese intellectuals in the early 20th century. The author attempts to prove that "nihonjinron" it is a kind of 'fictional mentality' supposedly based on ancient traditions.

Hardcover. NY - Ind., Bobbs Merrill, 1st , 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Black & white illustrations by Bill Tinker. Three stories -- one based on a Scottish ballad, another on a Japanese folktale, and the other on Greek mythology, with the common thread that the character in each story is taken out of this world, then back again.

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.

Hardcover. NY, Library of America, 12th pr., Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 830 pages. Known in his lifetime primarily to readers of science fiction, Philip K. Dick is now seen as a uniquely visionary figure, a writer who, in editor Jonathan Lethems words, wielded a sardonic yet heartbroken acuity about the plight of being alive in the twentieth century, one that makes him a lonely hero to the readers who cherish him.This Library of America volume brings together four of Dicks most original novels. The Man in the High Castle (1962), which won the Hugo Award, describes an alternate world in which Japan and Germany have won World War II and America is divided into separate occupation zones. The dizzying The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) posits a future in which competing hallucinogens proffer different brands of virtual reality, and an interplanetary drug tycoon can transform himself into a godlike figure transcending even physical death.Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), about a bounty hunter in search of escaped androids in a postapocalyptic society where status is measured by the possession of live animals and religious life is focused on a television personality, was the basis for the movie Blade Runner. Ubik (1969), with its future world of psychic espionage agents and cryonically frozen patients inhabiting an illusory half-life, pursues Dicks theme of simulated realities and false perceptions to ever more disturbing conclusions. Remainder mark to bottom edge, otherwise like new.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, Edward Stern, 1st, 1910, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover with no dust jacket. Illustrated cover boards. Author wrote "The Roosevelt Bears", 7 color plates by C. Twelvetrees. An adventure told in verse about a little boy, Prince Domino. He and his siamese cat, who is very smart indeed, travel to far-off lands where they are helped by a little black and a little Japanese boy (the depictions of whom are slightly stereotypical). Moderate wear to front and rear cover. Loose binding. Light soil. Rear hinge torn half way up from bottom.

Hardcover. NY, Grove Press, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 240 pages. Light shelf-wear to dust jacket, else a clean, tight copy. This classic work of world literature by the 1994 Japanese Nobel laureate is a devastating and moving blend of memoir and fiction. An uncanny blend of the real with the imagined, of memoir with fiction, A Quiet Life is narrated by Ma-chan, a twenty-year-old woman. Her father is a famous and fascinating novelist; her older brother, though severely brain-damaged, possesses an almost magical gift for musical composition; and her mother's life is devoted to the care of them both. Ma-chan and her younger brother find themselves emotionally on the outside of this oddly constructed nuclear family. But when her father accepts a visiting professorship from an American university, Ma-chan finds herself suddenly the head of the household and at the center of family relationships that "are movingly illuminated" (The New York Times) through Oe's unique and unpredictable genius.

New York, Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1st, 1958, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 127 pages, including glossary of Japanese terms. B&w drawings by William Hutchinson. Ex-library copy. Blue dust jacket with faded spine; small tear to top left front cover. Otherwise very good.

Hardcover. NY, Dodd Mead, reprint, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 275 pages. Black & white illustrations by Kurt Wiese. Slight chipping to top and bottom spine, front corners. Price clipped.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The teenage character of this story is taken to Japan after his father gets a job. Getting used to his new life in Japan is hard for him due to the fact that he had to leave his team behind and after the death of his mother. The move to Japan was supposed to be a fresh start for this whole family yet, he doesn't truly find happiness there until the discover of the baseball team at the high school. Clean copy.

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.

Hardcover. Tokyo, Fuzanbo Publishing, reprint, 1909, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, brown cloth covers with a decorative gilt design to front cover, spine with Japanese lettering. 139 pages. Nine small b&w line drawings. Small volume, contains 5 stories from the London edition published in 1903 by Constable. Wear to spine, clean.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st thus, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Two volumes in a pictorial cardboard slipcase, quarter bound in purple cloth and decorated boards without jackets, as issued. The Tale of Genji was written in the eleventh century by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady of the Heian court. It is universally recognized as the greatest masterpiece of Japanese prose narrative, perhaps the earliest true novel in the history of the world. Until now there has been no translation that is both complete and scrupulously faithful to the original text. Edward G. Seidensticker's masterly rendering was hailed as a classic of the translator's art. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY. Clean, bright copy.