A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa

December 23, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction – Kindle edition. Translated from the Japanese by Risa Kobayashi and Martin Brown. Amazon Crossing, 2018. 174 pgs. Free download from Amazon. Subtitled “One Man’s Escape from North Korea”, Ishikawa’s memoir is quite short – five chapters plus an epilogue – but it comprises one of the more moving and informative first-hand accounts of life in North Korea that I’ve encountered. I want to highlight the label of Informative because this the only book I’ve encountered that looks at […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Japan, Japanese, Nonfiction, ReadDiverse, Translated • Tags: Masaji Ishikawa

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

April 18, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Jeff Cummings. Brilliance Audio, 2015. Originally published 1962. 9 hours, 58 minutes. Purchased.  In 1962, fifteen years after the end of World War II, a defeated America has been split into three zones — the Pacific States ruled by Japan, the East Coast colonized by Nazi Germany, and a demilitarized zone comprised of the Rocky Mountain states. In Colorado and Wyoming, individuals who once (and still) identified as Americans live far freer than those on either […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Dystopia, Europe, Fiction, Germany, Hugo Award, Japan, North America, Science Fiction, United States • Tags: Philip K. Dick

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach

March 21, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. W.W. Norton, 2010. 334 pgs. Library copy.   Subtitled “The Curious Science of Life in the Void”, Roach’s book questions the efficacy of a plan by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to send a manned craft to Mars by 2030. At the time of the book’s publication in 2010, (wo)man has landed on the Moon and spent months orbiting over Earth in the International Space Station. Yet questions remain about the effect of zero gravity on the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Book Club, Europe, Japan, Nonfiction, North America, Russia, United States • Tags: Mary Roach

The Voice of Asia by James A. Michener

February 28, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Random House, 1951. 338 pgs. Purchased.  Before embarking on any trip — around the world or within the United States — I always look to see if James A. Michener wrote about the particular place I’m set to visit. I find his multi-generational, fictional stories make the nonfictional history of a particular geography accessible and intriguing in a way that guidebooks cannot. As I will be traveling throughout southeast Asia in April, I looked into Michener’s back […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, India, Japan, Nonfiction, Thailand, Travel, Vietnam • Tags: James A. Michener

The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang

November 27, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — audiobook. Read by Anna Fields. Blackstone Audio, 2005. Originally published 1997. 8 hours, 3 minutes. Library copy. In December 1937 – long before the Second World War began for Americans, Brits, and most Europeans – the Japanese Imperial Army invaded Nanking, the capital of China, and committed one of the most brutal massacres in human history. Within weeks of the invasion, the army had not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured, and murdered […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, China, Japan, Nonfiction • Tags: Anna Fields, Iris Chang

World War Z by Max Brooks

August 26, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Crown, 2006. 342 pgs. Library copy. Following the defeat of the zombies and the end of World War Z, the United Nations commissions a report as to the nature of the war – how did it begin?; who spread the zombie infection?; how did it end?. As the unnamed narrator writes in the introduction to this book, government bureaucracy and political correctness stepped in sanitizing the report and removing personal recollections and emotions about the war […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Asia, Book Club, China, Europe, Fiction, Israel/Palestine, Japan, Middle East, North America, Russia, South America, United States • Tags: Max Brooks

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

May 26, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Ruth Ozeki. Penguin Audio, 2013. 14.7 hours. Library copy. In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace—and will touch lives in a ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, a novelist named Ruth lives […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Book Club, Canada, Fiction, Japan, Man Booker Prize, North America • Tags: Ruth Ozeki

Whaling in Japan by Jun Morikawa

February 23, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Columbia University Press, 2009. 170 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “Power, Politics, and Diplomacy”, I picked Morikawa’s book in a quest to find a good introduction to the conflict between Japan and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society over whaling in the Southern Ocean of the coast of Antarctica. (The SSCS is probably best known from the TV series, “Whale Wars”.) This topic is the focus of my final, research paper for a class on trafficking and illicit commodities […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Animals, Food, Honors Project, Japan, Nonfiction • Tags: Jun Morikawa

A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe

July 27, 2011 by Christina

Fiction — print. Translated from the Japanese by John Nathan. Grove Press, 1969. First published 1964. 165 pgs. Library copy. Ōe won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994 and, according to the back of this book, is “known for his powerful accounts of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and his own struggle to come to terms with a mentally handicapped son”. Presumably drawing from his own experiences, Ōe’s novel tells the story of a man named Bird who dreams of […]

Categories: 2011 Reads, Asia, Fiction, Japan, Japanese, Translated • Tags: Kenzaburō Ōe