The Cape and Other Stories from the Japanese Ghetto1 review Kenji Nakagami Stone Bridge Press, 1999 The harder one tries to escape, the tighter the bonds become In "The Cape" (5 stars), Nakagami excels at drawing the reader into what quickly becomes a nightmarish reality and oppressive existence for the protagonist Akiyuki, a young man who only wants to live a simple life, and yet is unable to escape the chains and fetters of his bloodline. He is defined, ...             A Quiet Life (Oe, Kenzaburo)8 reviews Kenzaburo Oe Grove Press, 1997 A beautiful book + Taking Care of Your Family + Quietly Poignant The book has a slow start and proceeds at a similar pace for most of its length. As the title suggests the lives of the two principal characters are quiet and have little impact on the world beyond their family. One of the six chapters is devoted to an analysis of a Russian art house movie. A ...             Notes from Underground; The Double (Penguin Classics)8 reviews Fyodor Dostoyevsky Penguin Classics, 1972 A few comments and an interesting fact + A look into a great mind! + Two literary gems from the pen of pyschological realism master Fyodor Dostoevsky + Existentialist Literature             The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in An Japan (Kodansha Globe)12 reviews Ivan Morris Kodansha Globe, 1994 Fascinating + Fleeting World + A comprehensive study on Genji culture + An excellent study of Heian Japan + a brilliant, enduring study of classical Japan             Kokoro44 reviews Natsume Soseki Gateway Editions, 1957 An Insightful Read + DEEP & SOU RIVETING...not to mention an interest grabber. + subtle, disturbing examination of the heart By using his experiences living in the late Meiji period of Japan, Natsume Soseki wrote an insightful novel entitled "Kokoro," which was translated in English language by Edwin McClellan. The book is broken into three sections, "Sensei and I," "My Parents and I," and "Sensei and His Testament." The ...             Fires on the Plain (Tuttle Classics of Japanese Literature)8 reviews Shohei Ooka, Ivan Morris Tuttle Publishing, 2001 Haunting + A different look from war. + Haunting and terrifying + De Profundis Clamavi + Fires on the Plain             Kitchen (A Black cat book)5 reviews Banana Yoshimoto Grove Press, 2006 Twin Souls + A beautiful book + Heartbreaking and beautiful + Great little book with two stories you will love             Anna Karenina (Penguin Classics)11 reviews Leo Tolstoy Penguin Books, 2003 Sense of Self + Anna Karenina + The Greatest Novel of all Time + Fate and love, ultimately lead to Anna's undoing + A pleasure to read             Siddhartha461 reviews Hermann Hesse Bantam Classics, 1982 Hari Om + A rambling spiritual adventure... + A must read for any spiritual seeker + A Philisophical Classic             The Woman in the Dunes55 reviews Kobo Abe Vintage, 1991 Scary, but somehow comforting. + Images cascaded in my mind + The World Takes a Psychological Shape The sand pit in Kobo Abe's The Woman In The Dunes is a completely artificial construct, but it never feels that way. In reality, sand doesn't behave the way described in the book. When the director Hiroshi Teshigahara made the film adaptation ("Woman In The Dunes," recently reissued by Criterion, ...             Beauty and Sadness13 reviews Yasunari Kawabata Vintage, 1996 Revenge + A bleak study of intertwined sexual relationships + Art and suffering + Beauty and Sadness             1984 (Signet Classics)1384 reviews George Orwell New American Library, 1961 Still Relevant + Timeless classic on the dangers of communism/big government + 1984 review + 1984 + The Greatest Love Story of Our Time.             Essays in Idleness4 reviews Columbia University Press, 1998 Quiet and quirky + A delicious little book + Kenko's Time-capsule: A Cultural Survey Much of this little book works as well today as seven hundred years ago, when it was written. The observations on people and their manners sound a little old-fashioned, but still applicable. At another level, this book is credited with the first clear statements of esthetic principles that guide ...             Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe70 reviews Edgar Allan Poe Doubleday, 1966 The Enduring Master of the Macabre + POEtic Justice + poes book + The undisputed master of gothic horror. + The mind of a genius             The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre136 reviews H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch Del Rey, 1987 Lovecraft is a master + You know, the amorphous toad-like being hinted at ... + Best of Lovecraft + Revisiting Lovecraft             Geisha in Rivalry4 reviews Kafu Nagai, Kurt Meissner, ... Tuttle Publishing, 2006 Grief must lie at the heart of relationships between men and women + Mean girls + The Art of Backbiting Kafû Nagai's novels are a real living source of the `water trade', the shady world of the geisha quarter in Tokyo with its `high' and `low' houses, its bosses and accountants, its madams and `servants'. His picture of the trade is melancholic. He sees through the white masks and the kimono ...             Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)29 reviews Ryunosuke Akutagawa Penguin Classics, 2006 'Dissapointed' + Westernism comes to Japan. + Recommended Especially If You Like This Author and His Concerns + short and unsettling + This is an excellent edition             Spring Snow43 reviews Yukio Mishima Vintage, 1990 the beauty and destructive power of all-consuming love + Romeo and Juliet, Japanese version + Mishima's Masterpiece: Forbidden Love and the Reincarnation of Kiyoaki Matsugae. + Spring Snow             Kusamakura (Penguin Classics)1 review Natsume Soseki Penguin Classics, 2008 A Midspring Night's Dream "Kusamakura" is surely one of the weirdest novels of the twentieth century. A very early work by Natsume Soseki, who would go on to be one of Japan's foremost novelists, it's a pioneering one-shot experiment with what the author himself called a "Haiku novel" years before Kawabata Yasunari got the ...             Vita Sexualis: A Novel (Tuttle Classics of Japanese Literature)3 reviews Ogai Mori, Sanford Goldstein, ... Tuttle Publishing, 1989 The philosophy of sexuality + Sexuality and the Intellectual Ogai Mori was a deeply respected figure in Meiji-era Japan. Best remembered today as an author, playwright and poet, he also the Japanese Surgeon General and an expert on Military Hygiene. Secure in his position, respected and wealthy, in 1909 Mori took an unexpected turn and published "Vita ...