MOUNTAIN TRAVEL-SOBEK
Focus on Japan   |   READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

Here's a page from Longitude, the specialty bookseller for travelers. To order online, and to see the latest, most comprehensive selection of books and maps, go to http://reading.longitudebooks.com/WT10997. You may also call 800-342-2164 to order or request a catalog.


Essential Books These 5 items are available for $93, including
U.S. shipping, a 15% discount (Item no. EXJPN75)
 
Eyewitness Guide Japan  •  Eyewitness Guides
GUIDEBOOK •  2011 •  PAPER  • 408 PAGES
This superb guide to all of Japan features color photography, dozens of excellent local maps and a region-by-region synopsis of the country's attractions. Handsome, convenient and up-to-date, the volume is an excllent overview of the country. For more detailed practical information, especially for an independent traveler, consider Gateway to Japan. (JPN130, $28.00)
  Eyewitness Guide Japan
Seeing Japan  •  Charles Whipple  •  Morihiro Hosokawa
GUIDEBOOK •  2005 •  HARD COVER
A wide-ranging introduction to modern Japan. Charles Whipple covers the basic elements of Japanese family and society, as well as geography, art, theater and sports. A great companion to life in modern Japan, with a foreword by former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa. (JPN179, $35.00)
 
In Praise of Shadows  •  Junichiro Tanizaki
ART & ARCHITECTURE •  2010 •  PAPER  • 73 PAGES
This essay by the great Japanese novelist, first published in 1933, offers tremendous insight into Japanese aesthetics. It's an earthy meditation on traditional Japanese art, architecture and design. Most illuminating. (JPN19, $16.00)
  In Praise of Shadows
The Art and Culture of Japan  •  Nelly Delay
ART & ARCHITECTURE •  1999 •  PAPER  • 160 PAGES
Lavishly illustrated, this handy pocket encyclopedia in the Discoveries series introduces the art, architecture and culture of Japan. With 165 archival and modern illustrations and a section of original documents. (JPN51, $12.95)
  The Art and Culture of Japan
Japan Map  •  Periplus Maps
2009 •  MAP
Handsome, accurate and regularly updated, this convenient map covers the island nation with insets of the major cities. It has a variety of scales, with the majority at 1:2,000,000. Two Sides. 20x38 inches. (JPN06, $8.95)
  Japan Map



Also Recommended

Kyoto Map  •  Periplus Maps    •  This convenient map includes detailed information on Old Kyoto. It shows different sections of Kyoto and surrounding areas at a variety of scales, ranging from 1:12,000 to 1:500,000. (JPN27, $8.95)
 
 
70 Japanese Gestures  •  Hamiru-aqui   • LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS  •  A clever guide to body language and slang in Japan as demonstrated in 70 witty black-and-white photographs and explanatory text. (JPN193, $9.95)
 
 
Fodor's Tokyo's 25 Best  •  Fodor's Guides   • GUIDEBOOK • COMING IN JUNE  •  A shirt-pocket map and practical guide. (JPN05, $11.99)
 
 
Japan Bilingual Map  •  Kodansha International   • GUIDEBOOK  •  This full-color double-sided map includes the entirety of Japan at a scale of 1:500,000, as well as individual maps of Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Nara, Nagoya and Fuji-Hakone. (JPN209, $14.95)
 
 
Lonely Planet Japanese Phrasebook  •  Yoshi Abe   • LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS  •  A handy palm-sized guide to pronunciation, basic grammar and essential vocabulary for the traveler. (JPN136, $8.99)
 
 
Old Kyoto, A Guide to Traditional Shops and Inns  •  Diane Durston   • GUIDEBOOK  •  Wonderful, elegant essays on carefully chosen shops, often in out-of-the-way neighborhoods. (JPN24, $22.00)
 
 
Embracing Defeat, Japan in the Wake of WWII  •  John W. Dower   • HISTORY  •  A social and political history of the postwar years in Japan. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, it's an eye-opening account by a leading scholar of Japanese-American relations at MIT. (JPN54, $19.95)
 
 
Geisha  •  Liza Crihfield Dalby   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  The observations of an American graduate student who apprenticed as a geisha, interpreting this intriguing role in traditional Japanese society. (JPN49, $25.95)
 
 
Hiroshima  •  John Hersey   • HISTORY  •  Never sensational, this 1946 classic by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Hersey puts a human face on the unthinkable. Hersey explores the tragedy through interviews with residents, scientists and politicians. (JPN20, $7.95)
 
 
Inventing Japan, 1853-1964  •  Ian Buruma   • HISTORY  •  A favorite writer with keen insight about Japan, Buruma offers an admirably succinct, dramatic history of Japan's transformation from feudal state to host of the 1964 Olympics, with a focus on World War II. (JPN139, $12.95)
 
 
Japanese Culture  •  Paul Varley   • HISTORY  •  Valery traces cultural trends from the emergence of Japanese civilization through the present age, touching on religion, gardens, tea ceremony, the visual arts, theatre, literature and cinema. (JPN84, $24.00)
 
 
The Book of Tea  •  Kakuzo Okakura   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  A graceful, witty meditation on Japanese aesthetics and culture as reflected through the tea ceremony. A celebrity and cultural ambassador, Okakura was a curator at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. (JPN21, $9.95)
 
 
Unsui, A Diary of Zen Monastic Life  •  Giei Sato   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  The daily life of the monastery as depicted in 97 watercolor sketches. Giei Sato looks back at his time as an apprentice with warmth and grace. (JPN145, $22.00)
 
 
Japanese Art  •  Joan Stanley-Baker   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  Concise, thoroughly illustrated and comprehensive, this handsome book in the "World of Art" series is a fine survey of Japanese art from the prehistoric period to modern Japan. With 167 illustrations. (JPN08, $19.95)
 
 
The Art of the Japanese Garden  •  Michiko Kimura Young  •  David Young   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  An illustrated profile of aristocratic gardens, graveled courtyards, Zen and other Japanese gardens, featuring 250 color photos. (JPN181, $55.00)
 
 
Japan, A Traveler's Literary Companion  •  Jeffrey Angles   • ANTHOLOGY  •  This geographically-organized anthology introduces both Japan and its best contemporary writers. (JPN187, $14.95)
 
 
The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon  •  Shonagon Sei  •  Ivan Morris   • LITERATURE  •  Exquisite short essays and vignettes of Japanese court life in the Heian period. (JPN76, $17.00)
 
 
Thousand Cranes  •  Yasunari Kawabata  •  Edward G. Seidensticker   • LITERATURE  •  This novella by the great Kawabata may be Japan's best-known literary work, a story of love, grief and redemption. Kawabata's prose is as economical as the tea ceremony itself, and very beautiful. (JPN34, $13.95)
 
 
 
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