Rainy Day Ramen and the Cosmic Pachinko

Rainy Day Ramen and the Cosmic Pachinko PDF Author: Gordon Vanstone
Publisher: Monsoon Books
ISBN: 191204983X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Unemployed, broke and engaged in a telepathic turf war with a feral cat behind an Okinawa convenience store, 28-year-old Fred Buchanan is hopelessly lost in life. After a fortuitous bet on the island bullfights, he boards a ferry to Kobe then a slow train to Tokyo, chasing shadows of a halogen dream. Back in Tokyo, past and present collide as an empty orchestra croons a slow dance of people and place, memory and madness, loss and love. Charging through Tokyo's neon jungle, enveloped in a boozy, nicotine-stained haze, Fred is determined to be an agent of his destiny and not another ball bearing bouncing through the cosmic pachinko. Perhaps Fred's contentment, his rainy day ramen, lies in the warm embrace of Yukie, with strips of delicious thigh and mysterious powers imbued in the etched eye on her fingernail. If only he can exit her stop and resist the self-destructive inclination to journey to the end of the line to confront the truths or lies which lay there. Rainy Day Ramen and the Cosmic Pachinko is told in two distinct overlapping and interwoven formats. Join Fred's drunken, staggering, metaphysical odyssey from Okinawa to Tokyo, and his search for meaning beyond the physical path trodden. The novel blends Murakami-esque magical realism with a coming-of-age on-the-road story.

Rainy Day Ramen and the Cosmic Pachinko

Rainy Day Ramen and the Cosmic Pachinko PDF Author: Gordon Vanstone
Publisher: Monsoon Books
ISBN: 191204983X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Unemployed, broke and engaged in a telepathic turf war with a feral cat behind an Okinawa convenience store, 28-year-old Fred Buchanan is hopelessly lost in life. After a fortuitous bet on the island bullfights, he boards a ferry to Kobe then a slow train to Tokyo, chasing shadows of a halogen dream. Back in Tokyo, past and present collide as an empty orchestra croons a slow dance of people and place, memory and madness, loss and love. Charging through Tokyo's neon jungle, enveloped in a boozy, nicotine-stained haze, Fred is determined to be an agent of his destiny and not another ball bearing bouncing through the cosmic pachinko. Perhaps Fred's contentment, his rainy day ramen, lies in the warm embrace of Yukie, with strips of delicious thigh and mysterious powers imbued in the etched eye on her fingernail. If only he can exit her stop and resist the self-destructive inclination to journey to the end of the line to confront the truths or lies which lay there. Rainy Day Ramen and the Cosmic Pachinko is told in two distinct overlapping and interwoven formats. Join Fred's drunken, staggering, metaphysical odyssey from Okinawa to Tokyo, and his search for meaning beyond the physical path trodden. The novel blends Murakami-esque magical realism with a coming-of-age on-the-road story.

The Woman in the White Kimono

The Woman in the White Kimono PDF Author: Ana Johns
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 148803513X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
"Cinematic, deeply moving, and beautifully written." --Carol Mason, author of After You Left Inspired by true stories, The Woman in the White Kimono illuminates a searing portrait of one woman torn between her culture and her heart, and another woman on a journey to discover the true meaning of home. Japan, 1957. Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura’s prearranged marriage secures her family’s status in their traditional Japanese community. However, Naoko has fallen for an American sailor, and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it’s learned Naoko carries the sailor’s child, she’s cast out in disgrace and forced to make unimaginable choices with consequences that will ripple across generations. America, present day. Tori Kovac finds a letter containing a shocking revelation. Setting out to learn the truth, Tori's journey leads her to a remote seaside village in Japan, where she must confront the demons of the past to pave a way for redemption. In breathtaking prose, The Woman in the White Kimono shows how two women, decades apart, are inextricably bound by the secrets between them.

The Cat with Three Passports

The Cat with Three Passports PDF Author: CJ Fentiman
Publisher: Silver Vine Press
ISBN: 0648851915
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
A girl struggling to fit in. A homeless kitten. An unexpected job offer in an unfamiliar country that changes everything. CJ had a long history of escaping places and people she wasn't fond of. But for the sake of a silver tabby, she decided to stay in Japan for a while. This decision helped her open up her heart and mind, revisit her way of thinking, and reconnect with her estranged family. Let this heartwarming memoir take you to the land of cats and cherry trees as you read about CJ's adventures - from the craziness of the naked men festival, the experience of forest bathing and the significance of finding a life purpose or ikigai, to the temples of Takayama, and wonders of Cat Island - you'll see what a homeless kitten found outside a temple in Japan taught her about an old culture and new beginnings

Kanazawa

Kanazawa PDF Author: David Joiner
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press, Inc.
ISBN: 161172953X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
In Kanazawa, the first literary novel in English to be set in this storied Japanese city, Emmitt’s future plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of negotiations to purchase their dream home. Disappointed, he’s surprised to discover Mirai’s subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo, a city he dislikes. Harmony is further disrupted when Emmitt’s search for a more meaningful life in Japan leads him to quit an unsatisfying job at a local university. In the fallout, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa’s most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English. While continually resisting Mirai’s efforts to move to Tokyo, Emmitt becomes drawn into the mysterious death thirty years prior of a mutual friend of Mirai’s parents. It is only when he and his father-in-law climb the mountain where the man died that he learns the somber truth, and in turn discovers what the future holds for him and his wife. Packed with subtle literary allusion and closely observed nuance, with an intimacy of emotion inexorably tied both to the cityscape and Japan’s mountainous terrain, Kanazawa reflects the mood of Japanese fiction in a fresh, modern incarnation.

Things Remembered and Things Forgotten

Things Remembered and Things Forgotten PDF Author: Kyoko Nakajima
Publisher: Sort of Books
ISBN: 1908745975
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
'If we want to understand what has been lost to time, there is no way other than through the exercise of imagination ... imagination applied with delicate rather than broad strokes'. So wrote the award winning Japanese author Kyoko Nakajima of her story, Things Remembered and Things Forgotten, a piece that illuminates, as if by throwing a switch, the layers of wartime devastation that lie just below the surface of Tokyo's insistently modern culture. The ten acclaimed stories in this collection are pervaded by an air of Japanese ghostliness. In beautifully crafted and deceptively light prose, Nakajima portrays men and women beset by cultural amnesia and unaware of how haunted they are - by fragmented memories of war and occupation, by fading traditions, by buildings lost to firestorms and bulldozers, by the spirits of their recent past.

The Art of Emptiness

The Art of Emptiness PDF Author: 十四代酒井田柿右衛門
Publisher:
ISBN: 9784866580630
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description


Yamamba

Yamamba PDF Author: Rebecca Copeland
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press, Inc.
ISBN: 1611729483
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
Alluring, nurturing, dangerous, and vulnerable the yamamba, or Japanese mountain witch, has intrigued audiences for centuries. What is it about the fusion of mountains with the solitary old woman that produces such an enigmatic figure? And why does she still call to us in this modern, scientific era? Co-editors Rebecca Copeland and Linda C. Ehrlich first met the yamamba in the powerful short story “The Smile of the Mountain Witch” by acclaimed woman writer Ōba Minako. The story revealed the compelling way creative women can take charge of misogynistic tropes, invert them, and use them to tell new stories of female empowerment. This unique collection represents the creative and surprising ways artists and scholars from North America and Japan have encountered the yamamba.

Another Kyoto

Another Kyoto PDF Author: Alex Kerr
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141988347
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Another Kyoto is an insider's meditation on the hidden wonders of Japan's most enigmatic city. Drawing on decades living in Kyoto, and on lore gleaned from artists, Zen monks and Shinto priests, Alex Kerr illuminates the simplest things - a temple gate, a wall, a sliding door - in a new way. 'A rich book of intimate proportions ... In Kyoto, facts and meaning are often hidden in plain sight. Kerr's gift is to make us stop and cast our eyes upward to a temple plaque, or to squint into the gloom of an abbot's chamber' Japan Times 'Kerr and Sokol have performed a minor miracle by presenting that which is present in Kyoto as that which we have yet to see. I know that I will never pass a wall, or tread a floor, or sit on tatami the same way again' Kyoto Journal

Multispecies Cities

Multispecies Cities PDF Author: D. K. Mok
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781734054521
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Cities are alive, shared by humans and animals, insects and plants, landforms and machines. What might city ecosystems look like in the future if we strive for multispecies justice in our urban settings? In these more-than-human stories, twenty-four authors investigate humanity's relationship with the rest of the natural world, placing characters in situations where humans have to look beyond their own needs and interests. A quirky eco-businessman sees broader applications for a high school science fair project. A bad date in Hawaii takes an unexpected turn when the couple stumbles upon some confused sea turtle hatchlings. A genetically-enhanced supersoldier struggles to find new purpose in a peaceful Tokyo. A community service punishment in Singapore leads to unexpected friendships across age and species. A boy and a mammoth trek across Asia in search of kin. A Tamil child learns the language of the stars. Set primarily in the Asia-Pacific, these stories engage with the serious issues of justice, inclusion, and sustainability that affect the region, while offering optimistic visions of tomorrow's urban spaces.

Well-versed

Well-versed PDF Author: Minoru Ozawa
Publisher:
ISBN: 9784866581798
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
"This volume of seasonally-arranged poems is a guide to the appreciation and enjoyment of the great variety of modern Japanese haiku. From turn-of-the-century masters to poets of today, 300 of Japan's best modern haiku are introduced by OZAWA Minrou, a leading contemporary haiku poet and critic. Each of the poems, many of them scarcely known, is sensitively discussed together with the background of the poem and the relations between the poets. This volume includes poems from the end of the nineteenth century through the beginning of the twenty-first century by the most important writers of modern haiku. they include the leading lights from grounds surrounding MASAOKA Shiki and his disciple TAKAHAMA Kyoshi as well as poets who experimented with new styles such as seasonless haiku, free form haiku, and multi-line haiku. Alongside these are works by well-known novelists and other cultural figures who were not professional haiku poets but for whom haiku was an important part of their lives, such as KUBOTA Mantarō, AKUTAGAWA Ryūnosuke, and NATSUME Sōseki. The book also features beautiful seasonal photographs at the beginning of each chapter, and an additional 20 haiku by the author." --