A few weeks into 2009 I posted a listing of books (follow the link to read it) I’d try to read before 2009 was over… The result was that I read Bruce Feiler’s Learning to Bow (twice actually). I honestly felt The Great Wave By Christopher Benfey was very dry and hard to read so I didn’t finish that… Japan A Reinterpretation By Patrick Smith was a rip. I should have read the reviews more closely. While finishing most of the book, this one just pissed me off.  I did start Three Cups of Tea By Greg Mortenson and for the most part it was a very well written book. While I didn’t finish it, I think if I can find it again I’ll actually read it through again… so let’s say I did about 70% C meh good ’nuff..

Other books I read without listing in ’09: Tons of Japanese Grammar Literature, and a beautiful well written book titled “Yakuza Moon” Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter by Shoko Tendo

I liked this book because it was a non-fictional biography written by somebody who isn’t exactly a varnished writer. Tendo is very blunt in her book and when you read it… it comes out like a conversation you might have with her at a bar or something.. Very human and very good read..

The last book I dug into was

Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami. Murakami is very well known author respectfully, but in this book he lets the victims of the Tokyo Subway Sarin Gas Attack give their accounts with Murakami periodically commenting here and there. It’s a good book to read just to read other Japanese people’s varrying perspectives on the same event.

Ok… now on to a few books I’d like to read for ’10

Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain by Martha Sherrill

(Author) – A story about WWII Japan and dogs. I figure this year I should read more good dog literature.

Discourse By Three Drunkards On Government by Nakae Chomin- Apparently a very loose informative discource on European, Japanese, and western political differences as well as speculation on the future…

Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. by Roland Kelts- A book on the exact same topic I wrote and presented in my high school senior thesis back at Fort Vancouver HS. (Go Trappers!)

The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai- A unique Japanese author who writes somewhat sorrowful sad books… I actually picked up one of Dazai’s other books No Longer Human at a book store in Aomori Station’s and read through it a little. No Longer Human didn’t turn me on, but I still would like to read something of his sometime. Dazai, I think, writes in a very “Japanese-istic sort of personality.

From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States Sadao Asada- Gotta keep up with my pops whose also reading up on WWII from the US angle.

Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945 – Yep, more history books I need to read.

Then of course whatever else I pick up and read…

Let’s hope I actually do order these and read ’em..

~J out

Read More