japan memoir

Softcover. Annapolis MD, Naval Institute Press, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 343 pages, b&w illustrations. This remarkable memoir tells the compelling story of the near-mythic British district officer who helped shape the first great Allied counteroffensive. Scottish-born and Cambridge-educated, Martin Clemens managed to survive months behind Japanese lines in one of the most unfriendly climates and terrains in the world. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY/London, Faber & Faber, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. 304 pages. This is the first of two titles by the Manic Street Preachers' bassist and lyricist, Nicky Wire. For more than twenty years and from Blackwood, Wales to Tokyo, Japan, Nicky Wire has kept a personal visual history of the band in their various stages from "Generation Terrorists" through "Holy Bible" and right up to last year's remarkable album, "Postcards from a Young Man". Edited down from over 1,000 of Wire's personal polaroid's and with accompanying text by the man himself, "Death of The Polaroid" promises to be a rich, visual biography of one of the most loved and iconoclastic British bands of the past two decades.

Hardcover. NY/London, Faber & Faber, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. 304 pages. This is the first of two titles by the Manic Street Preachers' bassist and lyricist, Nicky Wire. For more than twenty years and from Blackwood, Wales to Tokyo, Japan, Nicky Wire has kept a personal visual history of the band in their various stages from "Generation Terrorists" through "Holy Bible" and right up to last year's remarkable album, "Postcards from a Young Man". Edited down from over 1,000 of Wire's personal polaroid's and with accompanying text by the man himself, "Death of The Polaroid" promises to be a rich, visual biography of one of the most loved and iconoclastic British bands of the past two decades.

Hardcover. Sydney AU, Pacific Publications, 1st, 1968, Book: Fair, Dust Jacket: Poor, Hardcover, black cloth covers, gilt titles on spine, b&w illustrations. Covers worn, tattered dust jacket. Australian George Wilfred Lambert Townsend (1896-1962) spent twenty-five years in New Guinea during which he battled head-hunters on the Sepik River, battled the Rabaul bureaucracy and finally the Japanese. There is some marking and highlighting to the text. A reading copy of a scarce title concerning Australia's administrative rule in New Guinea.

Hardcover. NY, Scholastic Press, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 64 pages. Allen Say's own story of his path to becoming the renowned artist he is today. Shunned by his father, who didn't understand his son's artistic leanings, Allen was embraced by Noro Shinpei, Japan's leading cartoonist and the man he came to love as his "spiritual father." As WWII raged, Allen was further inspired to consider questions of his own heritage and the motivations of those around him. He worked hard in rigorous drawing classes, studied, trained--and ultimately came to understand who he really is. Part memoir, part graphic novel, part narrative history, DRAWING FROM MEMORY presents a complex look at the real-life relationship between a mentor and his student. With watercolor paintings, original cartoons, vintage photographs, and maps, Allen Say has created a book that will inspire the artist in all of us.

Softcover. Createspace Independent Publishing, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Sodtcover, 254 pages. Actor, director, writer Evans connect his dots and long dashes through a life both creative and chaotic. Family, career, and cancer bump heads in a runaway boxcar full of colorful entanglements with the famous and the foolish. Tracing his family history through the years from the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression to the tragedy of the Hindenburg, and his early childhood in Japan before WW2, Evans cleverly sets the stage for what follows. His career as an actor ultimately clashed with an early marriage and fatherhood, providing many temptations that carried Evans to Mexico, Arizona, Ohio, Delaware, Kauai, Hawaii, and points beyond. Working in films with stars Jack Nicholson, George C. Scott, David Hemmings, and Michael J. Pollard were high points in his 50-year career that led to a love affair with France and La Nouvelle Vague and the writing, production and direction of his own films and plays. After a season as series regular Paul Hanley opposite Mia Farrow in tv's Peyton Place, Evans moved from early shows like Mr. Novak, Gunsmoke, and Bonanza to an episode of Star Trek with Shatner and Nimoy. Countless other roles sent him on his way to features including major roles in Islands in the Stream, The Nickel Ride, Dirty Little Billy and Synanon, productions that brought him together with many of Hollywood's top directors including Richard Rush, Robert Mulligan, Stan Dragoti and Richard Quine. As his wife, Jo, frequently reminds us, "Dick has made many things, but never without the help of others." Clean copy.

Hardcover. Jefferson NC, McFarland & Co., 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, maroon cloth with gilt lettering. Part 1: A Korean Childhood in Japan, 1930-1944; Part 2: Growing Up in Korea, 1944- 1951. No Dust jacket issued.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1939, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, textured beige cloth, moderately soiled. No edition or printing stated on copyright page. Illustrated with 32 pages of b/w photographs, as well as endpaper maps, red and black frontispiece illustration. The story of the trip Auden and Isherwood made to China during its war with Japan, prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Includes 32 pages of photographs, as well as several sonnets and one long poem by Auden. Narrative written by Isherwood. There is a tan stain that goes across pages 68-69, that looks like a rorschach test. Otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Jefferson NC, McFarland Publishing, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with white lettering. 176 pages, b&w illustrations. In 1945, the author found herself in the monsoon-drenched jungles of Assam, caring for soldiers in the China-Burma-India theater of war. Nothing in her nurse's training had prepared her for the tropical diseases her patients faced, nor had her experiences readied her for a hospital where men spat on the floor, rats were pervasive, and patients were as likely to sell their medicine as swallow it. What made the experience tolerable was Nurse Camp's romance with one of the airmen who flew the Hump, supplying O.S.S. troops behind Japanese lines and carrying General Joseph Stillwell's Chinese troops to fight the battle of North Burma. She accompanied her future husband on some of his missions. Based, in part, on letters she wrote to her parents, this is the poignant story of one nurse's experience in World War II and how her service changed her life forever. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise a clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Macmillan, 1st, 1945, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light tan cloth covers with light wear, 436 pages. The author spent 25 years in China as a journalist. Powell's book covers the period between (1917-1945) and discusses the personalities of the day: Chiang Kai Shek, Yuan Shi Kai and Chang Husiliang as well the intrigues of the Soviets and the Japanese. Note: Powell lost both his feet to the Japanese at his stay at the Bridge House. No markings.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, The Winchell Co., 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 297 pages, b&w illustrations, in a bright dust jacket. Clean. Helene Iswolsky, daughter of a Russian diplomat, grew up in Japan, Denmark, Russia, and France. In 1911, her father became Russian ambassador to France. She returned to Russia for her debut in 1914, to be presented to the Tsarina Alexandra. While there she attended the wedding of Prince Felix Yusupov, who was to murder Rasputin three years later. After the Tsar was overthrown, her father retired to Biarritz and died there in 1919, leaving unpaid debts. The author took up translating and writing. She had a religious awakening and became a Catholic. A sojourn in a Benedictine monastery left her changed, but she decided not to make the cloister her life. The author knew many notable people in the Paris area, especially writers, poets, critics, philosophers of the "new wave," Christian humanists, and Russian emigres. She attended the Sunday afternoon gatherings of Jacques Maritain and Nicholas Berdiaev, and worked on Emmanuel Mounier's journal "Esprit." When the Nazis occupied France, she escaped to America with her mother. Here she founded an ecumenical movement called "The Third Hour" and taught Russian at Fordham University and other schools. She was a close friend of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement. Scarce.

Hardcover. Michigan, Scholarly Publishing Office University of Michigan, Reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 507 pages. Hardcover. Reprint of 1857 J.B. Lippincott & Co. publication produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University's Library's preservation reformatting program. B/w illustrations throughout. Pages clean, spine straight, binding tight. ISBN label on back cover. Light foxing to edges. Blue cloth cover boards, gilt title on spine. "Visits to the Malay and Loo-Choo Islands, the Coasts of China, Formosa, Japan, Kamtschatka, Siberia, and the Mouth of the Amoor River."

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, 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.

Hardcover. NY, W W Norton & Co., 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 258 pages, b&w illustrations. Records in detail Watson's heroic war against the whalers and seal hunters who are decimating the animal populations. The young Canadian conservationist, is determined to stop that, even if it costs him his life. Three times, on the ice floes off Labrador, he threw himself between baby harp seals and their killers. He sprayed the pups with a harmless red dye, rendering their white pelts commercially useless. He was beaten, nearly drowned, jailed. Against Soviet and Japanese whalers, he raced his kamikaze inflatable dinghy to a blocking position between harpooner and whale. Then, which his own boat, the Sea Shepherd, supported by the Cleveland Amory's Fund for Animals, Watson rammed the pirate whaler Sierra off Portugal. Bookplate on inside front cover, light foxing to edges of text block, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Dial Books, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket, 300 pages, b&w illustrations. The children's book author has won the Newberry Medal and National Book Award. Now in these fascinating stories from her life, she reveal the origins of her book characters from events in her life; from China with missionary parents to single life in Japan to life in Maryland with four children. Filled with personal photos and letters. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Urbana IL, University of Illinois Press, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 162 pages, b&w illustrations. In the wake of Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938, Sigmund Tobias and his parents fled their home in Germany and relocated to one of the few cities in the world that offered shelter without requiring a visa: the notorious pleasure capital, Shanghai. Seventeen thousand Jewish refugees flocked to Hongkew, a section of Shanghai ruled by the Japanese, and they created an active community that continued to exist through the end of the war. Tobias's coming-of-age story unfolds within his descriptions of Jewish life in the exotic sanctuary of Shanghai. Depleted by disease and hunger, constantly struggling with primitive and crowded conditions, the refugees faced shortages of food, clothing, and medicine. Tobias also observes the underlife of Shanghai: the prostitution and black market profiteering, the brutal lives of the Chinese workers, the tensions between Chinese and Japanese during the war, and the paralyzing inflation and the approach of the communist "liberators" afterward.Richly detailed, Strange Haven opens a little-documented chapter of the Holocaust and provides a fascinating glimpse of life for these foreigners in a foreign land. An epilogue describes the changes Tobias observed when he returned to Shanghai forty years later as a visiting professor.

Hardcover. Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, reprint, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, beige cloth covers, black lettering to spine, 288 pages. About 1307 a remarkable woman in Japan sat down to complete the story of her life. The result was an autobiographical narrative, a tale of thirty-six years (1271-1306) in the life of Lady Nijo, starting when she became the concubine of a retired emperor in Kyoto at the age of fourteen and ending, several love affairs later, with an account of her new life as a wandering Buddhist nun. Through the vagaries of history, however, the glory of Lady Nijo's story has taken six and half centuries to arrive. The Confessions of Lady Nijo or Towazugatari in Japanese, was not widely circulated after it was written, perhaps because of the dynastic quarrel that soon split the imperial family, or perhaps because of Lady Nijo's intimate portrait of a very human emperor. Whatever the cause, the book was neglected, then forgotten completely, and only a single manuscript survived. This was finally discovered in 1940, but would not be published until after World War II in 1950. This translation and its annotations draw on multiple Japanese editions, but borrow most heavily from the interpretations offered by Tsugita Kasumi. No dust jacket. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise a bright, clean copy.

Softcover. Cambridge MA, The M.I.T. Press, reprint, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 268 pages, b&w illustrations. Marco Polo was the first Westerner to describe the old capital of China in its grand design, and the early Jesuits were the first to appraise its architectural values. George Kates is one of the last Westerners to take its measure. After his seven leisurely, abundant years in Peking, by the end of which the Japanese had come to occupy it, the old China had finally disintegrated under the blows of warfare and social revolution.What Kates reveals cannot be found today. Kates describes the city with a special competence because he made it a particular object of scholarly research. He wormed out of the Imperial City itself every secret of its hidden courts and deserted harems; and in this book he brings to life again the people and the system that created it.

Hardcover. London, Souvenir Press, 1st UK, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 192 pages. First-person accounts of life in a Japanese POW camp are not common, and illustrated memoirs are rare indeed. Searle, a young British art student, was captured at the fall of Singapore and spent the next four years covertly sketching his captors and fellow prisoners. His work matured as the war progressed, growing from merely facile to totally captivating. He grew skilled at suggesting personality, and many of his drawings are unforgettable. A brief personal narrative accompanies the portfolio, placing the works into historic perspective. Artistically as as well as historically, this book is a treat.